they were not fostered. An imbecile yet oppressive government monopolized all the wealth of the state, and expended it in just such follies as these, while genius starved and the poor died in want. I have never heard the poor Pope so berated in my own country.' We shall close our extracts with a highly wrought description of the Chanting of the Miserere.' Our author, though a thorough Protestant, seems to have been completely carried away by the imposing magnificence of this annual celebration: The ceremonies commenced with the chanting of the Lamentations. Thirteen candles, in the form of an erect triangle, were lighted up in the beginning, representing the different moral lights of the ancient church of Israel. One after another was extinguished as the chant proceeded, until the last and brightest one at the top, representing Christ, was put out. As they one by one slowly disappeared in the deepening gloom, a blacker night seemed gathering over the hopes and fate of man, and the lamentation grew wilder and deeper. But as the Prophet of prophets, the Light, the Hope of the world, disappeared, the lament suddenly ceased. Not a sound was heard amid the deepening gloom. The catastrophe was too awful, and the shock too great, to admit of speech. He who had been pouring his sorrowful notes over the departure of the good and great, seemed struck suddenly dumb at this greatest Wo. Stunned and stupified, he could not contemplate the mighty disaster. I never felt a heavier pressure on my heart than at this moment. The chapel was packed in every inch of it, even out of the door far back into the ample hall, and yet not a sound was heard. I could hear the breathing of the mighty multitude, and amid it the suppressed half-drawn sigh. Like the chanter, each man seemed to say, Christ is gone; we are orphans—all orphans' The silence at length became too painful. I thought I should shriek out in agony, when suddenly a low wail-so desolate and yet so sweet, so despairing and yet so tender, like the last strain of a broken heart-stole slowly out from the distant darkness and swelled over the throng, that the tears rushed unbidden to my eyes, and I could have wept like a child in sympathy. It then died away, as if the grief were too great for the strain. Fainter and fainter, like the dying tone of a lute, it sunk away as if the last sigh of sorrow was ended, when suddenly there burst through the arches a cry so piercing and shrill, that it seemed not the voice of song, but the language of a wounded and dying heart in its last agonizing throb. The multitude swayed to it like the forest to the blast. Again it ceased, and the broken sobs of exhausted grief alone were heard. In a moment the whole choir joined their lament, and seemed to weep with the weeper. After a few notes they paused again, and that sweet melancholy voice mourned on alone. Its note is still in my ear. I wanted to see the singer. It seemed as if such sounds could come from nothing but a broken heart. Oh! how unlike the joyful, the triumphant anthem that swept through the same chapel on the morning that symbolized the resurrection!' We could gladly have accompanied Mr Headley through the Campagna, to Perugia, Florence, and Milan; but must here take leave of him, with our best thanks for the amusement and instruction he has afforded us. PHILOLOGICAL CURIOSITY. In the Hebrew tongue all proper names are significant, each individual having received his name from some circumstance connected either with his birth or with his life and character. Thus Abraham signifies the father of a great multitude;' Jacob, the supplanter;' David, 'the beloved,' &c. This often gives a force to particular passages in the original Scriptures that is quite lost in the translation. We shall give a single instance:-When Abigail meets David coming to avenge himself on her husband, she says, 'Let not my lord, I pray thee, regard this man of Belial, even Nabal; for as his name is, so is he: Nabal is his name, and folly is with him.' This has no point at all in English; it is impossible for the mere English scholar to perceive its meaning; but to the Hebrew scholar who understands that 'nabal' signifies foolish, stupid, wicked, abandoned, impious,' and that the word translated folly' is simply the noun substantive formed from the same root, the sentence has a pungency and a zest that can at once be appreciated. A very wonderful example of something of the same kind is the following, which indeed appears to suggest matter for serious reflection. The names of the antediluvian patriarchs, from Adam to Noah inclusive, run thus in the Hebrew:-Adam, Seth, Enos, Cainan, Mahaleel, Jared, Enoch, Methusalah, Lamech, Noah; which names, read in their order and literally translated, give the following English sentence:-Man appointed wretched miserable, the blessed God shall descend teaching, his death sends to the afflicted rest. PROGRESSION. He that is good may hope to become better; he that is bad may fear that he will become worse; for vice, virtue, and time, never stand still. SONNET.* BY THE REV. JOSEPH BLANCO WHITE. Mysterious Night! when our first parent knew That to such countless orbs thou madest us blind? • Coleridge pronounced this sonnet' the finest and most grandly conceived in our language.' THE DIVINE COMPLACENCY. Our Father in heaven desires not to scowl on any of the works of his hands. Fain would he smile and look approvingly on them all. He is pleased with his own glorious sun shining in the heavens. He is pleased with the beauteous landscape. He is pleased with the lambs blithely sporting on the lea. He is pleased with his own children when they strive to do his will. When I grieve for having offended him, God is pleased with me. When I waft up to his throne the penitential prayer or the pure wish, God is pleased with me. When I cherish the lowly and contrite heart, God is pleased with me. When I cling around the cross, and feel my bosom bound with love to him who died on it for my sake, God is pleased with me. When I cherish a kindly feeling towards all who wear my name and nature, God is pleased with me. When I struggle to suppress the emotions of envy, and pride, and jealousy, and discontent, God is pleased with me. When candour, truthfulness, and integrity pervade my doings, God is pleased with me. When affliction darkens my path and I glory in tribulation, oh! my Father in heaven is greatly delighted with me.Rev. G. O. Campbell. No. 54. EDINBURGH, SATURDAY, MARCH 7, 1846. INSTITUTIONS FOR RECLAIMING DESERTED CHILDREN. Is walking through the streets of this city, the most careless observer must have been struck with the great number of children met with, apparently in a wholly neglected condition. It is less the extreme poverty of their outward appearance, the rags in which they are clothed, and the dirt by which they are covered, that moves the compassion of the spectator, than the numerous marks, impressed on their features and manners, of the total want of all moral and intellectual culture. Some of these children have no doubt parents or others interested in their welfare, who may be expected to take charge of them, but others, in no small numbers, are, in the truest sense of the word, orphans, with none to care for them, none to restrain them from evil, or to train them in the right path. Such neglected children, as they grow up, furnish a constant supply of criminals of the worst kind, and all attempts to diminish vice and crime whilst this fountain of both is suffered to remain open must prove fruitless. Yet nothing is attempted to rescue these deserted beings from ignorance and vice. Among the many splendid and richly endowed hospitals for which Edinburgh is distinguished, there is not one that properly meets this want. Almost all of them confine their benefits to certain classes of the community, to children who have some special claim upon their notice, or some friend to recommend them. But the great misfortune in the case of the children to whom we allude is, that they have no friend to take the slightest care of them, and no special claim except poverty and desertion. They wander about the streets during the day, begging or picking up a livelihood as they best may, and at night find shelter in some hovel or low lodging-house. In summer, many of them wander out to the country and beg or work as comes in their way. Many of them in the evening go to the night asylum, but this institution can do nothing for them, and after a night's lodging, they are again cast out to the streets, to wander about wherever chance may guide them. We are well aware that the expediency of hospitals for children has of late years been more than doubted, and some men for whose opinions we entertain a high respect, have wished to see them altogether abolished. Permanent charitable institutions, with large revenues, in which children are as well fed, lodged, and educated as in many, or indeed most, boarding schools, truly seem of doubtful expediency. The children admitted to them are often such as should have been educated at home, and whose parents are more able than willing to provide for them. Such institutions, by the hopes they hold out, have also, it is affirmed, a tendency to produce more misery than they re PRICE 14d. lieve. This question is, however, too important and extensive for us to consider here, and is one with which we are not strictly concerned; for when all has been said of the evils of such institutions, the question still recurs, what is society to do with the poor children mentioned in the commencement of this article? Are they to be left wholly to themselves, to be neglected as they have hitherto been, and to be noticed only when they have become dangerous to societywhen their crimes have forced themselves on the attention of the police, and when those bad habits must be repressed by fear, whose formation might have been prevented by care and proper moral and religious instruction? Or is some endeavour to be made to rescue them from destruction, to instil into their minds some knowledge of their duties to themselves, to society, and to their Maker; and to give them instruction in some trade by which they may afterwards gain an honest and honourable maintenance? To these reflections we have been led by a work, recently published in Stuttgart, entitled, 'History of Institutions for the Rescue of Poor Deserted Children in Wurtemberg, by Ludwig Völter.' Some of the more important facts brought out in this book we shall lay before our readers, and although we are not prepared to recommend the adoption of a precisely similar scheme, still we are of opinion that the experience of our continental neighbours on this highly important question may be of no small service in the guidance of those philanthropic individuals in our own country, who are now devoting their attention to the subject. Before doing so, we may however mention that the population of Wurtemberg is about 1,800,000, of whom rather more than two-thirds are Protestants. About a half of the people are employed in agriculture; schools are found probably in every village, and it is one of the best educated parts of Germany, or rather of Europe. There are considerable orphan-houses supported by the state, and regular legal relief is afforded by the parishes. It might therefore appear that no great field was left for private charity, yet no fewer than thirty-two institutions for poor children have been instituted in that kingdom within the last quarter of a century. It is to them that the following remarks apply. These institutions must not be confounded with common orphan-houses. Both indeed take charge of poor children, and the latter may occasionally receive children whose bodies, morals, or minds, have been greatly neglected. But this is not always, nor even generally the case, and many well educated and well brought up children come to require such public support. These institutions, on the other hand, are exclusively designed for the reception'the rescue' of deserted children. This will at once show how much more difficult is their establishment, and how much greater exertions must be made to attain their end. That they are however much wanted, few will deny who have cast even a passing glance on the lower strata of society, or to speak with more propriety, on those unfortunate beings who are almost out of the ranks of all regular society. Who does not know the spiritual and corporeal destitution of many illegitimate children, the progeny of habitual criminals, vagabonds, and drunkards? Yet institutions for the relief of such cases are comparatively rare. A particular catalogue of all the known institutions in the whole of Europe, given in the work just mentioned, shows that, beside the thirty-two in Wurtemberg, there are only thirty-seven others, of which twenty are found in Switzerland. The first idea of these institutions does not belong to Wurtemberg, but was originally formed in Basle. Still it found a favourable soil in this land; and has taken root principally, if not exclusively, in the religious feeling of the Protestant population, and among this especially in the Pietistic party. However widely any one may dissent from their views of life and religion, they must at least have full justice done them in this respect. The formation of these institutions, their conduct and direction, even their support, is in a great measure dependent on these persons. Their intimate and wide-spread connexion with each other peculiarly adapts them to find out means and persons; and their fixed mode of thought and views of things produce that method of treatment which is, at least relatively, the most proper. Protestants of other religious tendencies have also done much; and even Catholics, though more rarely, have engaged in similar charities; yet all these are unimportant compared to the labours and exertions of the Pietists. And these are truly great and remarkable. It is just twenty-five years since the first institution for destitute children was founded in Wurtemberg, by a legacy from Queen Katherine; and in this short interval more than thirty such houses have arisen. It must also be observed that very few of them have received any considerable public assistance, but depend simply on the voluntary contributions of private individuals. The history of these institutions is almost invariably the same. Attention is aroused by some peculiarly crying case of the neglect of children; a small but increasing society unites for its relief, generally with a clergyman at the head of it. At first a small house is hired; but more and more cases of destitution are brought to light, and now some old monastery, country-house, or such like building is purchased, with a few acres of land; things are put in order, a governor and matron appointed, with teachers and servants. All this usually happens without any capital. A collection is made, a lottery of ladies' work got up, perhaps some small legacy drops in, or a sum of money is lent without interest. The neighbours send presents of provisions, clothes, or bedding; benevolent persons or parishes pay board for certain children; larger societies contribute some assistance; whilst the annual reports and anniversary meetings keep every one concerned active. Sometimes there is great want, sometimes abundance; yet they struggle through; in a few years the economy of the house is established, and it not only subsists, but pays off debts, or acquires more fixed property. However often this course of things is renewed, it never fails. Only one single institution has been broken up. The principal cause of this success is local patriotism, and the compassion excited by the immediate view of distress. Hence there can be no doubt that many other institutions could exist along with those at present established. Each of them requires only a small geographical circle from which to draw its supplies. The internal arrangements present few peculiarities. The children are maintained in a wholesome, but of course very simple manner; are attentively watched; and not only instructed in the usual branches of education, but also employed in various domestic arrangements. The governor and matron manage the whole affairs; and in some of the larger institutions there is also an inspector. The pupils as they grow up are bound apprentices or sent to service, but still retain a kind of claim on the house. Fortunately the government has never interfered; and all the arrangements have been left to the managers. Völter assumes, And now a few statistical details. though without sufficient grounds, that in Wurtemberg there are 18,000 children needing assistance. Of these, on the 31st December, 1844, about 4400 were actually taken care of; 650 being provided for in the two government orphan-houses; 2500 in private boarding-houses, at the expense of the parishes; 200 in institutions belonging to the towns, and 1061 in private institutions. Of the latter, the author only recognises twenty-two, as he takes no notice of those supported by the parishes or otherwise. Of the 1061 children thus maintained, there are 633 boys and 428 girls. Since their origin, however, they have received in all 2684, of whom 29 have died, and 1594 have been sent to apprenticeship or service. In 1844 the debt on these twentytwo institutions was £7650, which was £1300 less than it had been at one time. Only two were entirely free of debt, whilst the greatest sum owing by any one was £1660. They possess about 130 acres of land, besides about fifty acres on lease. The total income from their formation to 1844 was £77,500, of which about £8000 was borrowed, all the remainder being gifts or payments. About £17,000 were spent on the first establishment of the houses, the remainder on current expenses. Each child in 1844 cost on an average £5: 2: 2d.: or three pounds for food, twelve shillings for clothes, nine shillings for firing and light, twentypence for washing, and the remainder for other expenses. What, then, it may be inquired, is the actual result, the moral and social effect of these institutions? On the whole it is undoubtedly favourable. Certain arithmetical data are naturally not to be obtained, or are insufficient. Still the continued and increasing interest of the people in these institutions shows that they work well, and the numerical results of several houses, which also agree tolerably with each other, confirm this opinion. According to these statements, of the pupils sent out, fifty per cent., or a half, turn out well; twenty-five per cent., or a quarter, moderately well; and from six to nine per cent., ill; whilst of the remainder nothing is known, or there is some peculiarity in their circumstances. When we take into account that it is the most corrupted offscourings of society with whom we are concerned with children whose premature wickedness when taken in is almost beyond expression; when we further consider how many persons under far more favourable circumstances fail in life, there is little reason of com. plaint, or ground to call in question the utility of these institutions. Since writing the above, we have seen a notice of a work on charity schools in Switzerland, from which we would extract a few additional observations on this very important subject. The author, J. K. Zellweger, is a teacher in one of these institutions, and has thus the best means of knowing their practical working. Most of the Swiss schools differ essentially from those in Wurtemberg, in that they are intended rather to relieve poverty than to rescue children from moral and physical destruction. The Swiss schools more resemble our common poorhouse schools than those of Wurtemberg, designed to rescue children who would never find their way into a poorhouse, and whose natural protectors are often their worst enemies. There are, properly speaking, only three institutions like the latter in the whole of Switzerland. The great peculiarity of the Swiss charity schools is the connexion of their system of education with agriculture. The pupils during their whole residence in the institutions, are exclusively employed in agricultural labour; except in a few rare instances where circumstances render this impossible. It is thus necessary that each house should have a piece of ground attached to it; and some have a very considerable extent. The usual school instruction is here altogether subsidiary, and much of it is indeed communicated during work hours. Hence it is necessary that the teacher should be constantly with the children, and take part in all their employments. He must consequently be not only a good schoolmaster, but an experienced farmer and diligent labourer-a combination of qualities rarely to be found, and probably almost unattainable in Britain. Even in Switzerland this forms one the great difficulties in the system, though partly remedied by educating teachers expressly for these schools. This system of education, however, produces good farm-servants and day-labourers, accustomed from their youth to industry and diligence, and who, having acquired no delicate or expensive habits, have no difficulty in gaining an honest livelihood even when sent out without any further support. In the work alluded to thirtytwo such institutions are mentioned, and more or less fully described. Most of them have been founded by voluntary societies, some even by charitable individuals, and others by parishes. The greater part have only existed for a very few years, and hence their results and success are still doubtful. BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. LETITIA E. LANDON. MEN have long arrogated to themselves the possession of physical, intellectual, and political power; and to woman they have awarded the social circle as her legitimate sphere. The dominion of man in the field has seldom been disputed, yet history has its Zenobia and Boadicea, and fiction has created its Amazons. The gentler sex have never disputed with the other the possession of the forum, but they have sat with him on thrones, and baffled him in courtly intrigue and finesse. In metaphysical profundity and scientific research they have never rivalled the male sex, but in the pathos, gentleness, and vivacity of poetry, they have earned a reputation as bright as has ever been awarded to a masculine bard. We could name some living poetesses who have drank of the strongest waters of Helicon, and elimbed the hill of song with bold and unfaltering steps. The music of a woman's lyre comes stealing on our spirit with all the force it exercised when youthful feeling sprung heavenward at its touch, and the recollections of Felicia Hemans have outlived our veneration for the sublime yet misanthropic Byron. The song of sorrow and the softer aspirations of love, havo a double charm when woman breathes upon the lute; and while love and sorrow form themes for the songs of the poet, the name of Letitia Elizabeth Landon will be remembered with sympathy and I sorrow. Our gentle poetess was the daughter of John Landon, whose bold and enterprising disposition led him in early life to the sea. His first voyage was to the coast of Africa, his next to Jamaica; but the death of his patron obscured his prospects of promotion in the service, and through the influence of his brother, he exchanged the stormy life of a sailor for a situation in the house of Mr Adair, army-agent in Pall Mall. The situation was lucrative, and Mr Landon becoming a partner, soon became possessor of considerable property. He married a lady of Welsh extraction, named Catharine Jane Bishop, and resided in Hans Place, Chelsea, where Letitia Elizabeth was born on the 14th of August, 1502. She was the eldest of three children, one, a girl, ed in her youth, and her brother, the Rev. Whittington Henry Landon, M.A., survived her. She always retained a strong partiality for her birthplace, poetess as she was, and dear to her as the green fields, and flowers, and azure skies, waving trees, murmuring brooks, and songs of birds must have been, she returned to her carly home with aickened love after various intervals; and although its inmates had often been changed, she still found an asylum within its old familiar walls. In very early life she gave indications of that intellectual activity and kindness of heart which characterised her riper years. An invalid friend taught her to read by scattering the letters of the alphabet before her; every reward which she obtained for her diligence was brought to her brother; and such was her aptitude to learn, that she seldom came home without one. At six years of age, she was sent to Miss Rowden's school, No. 22 Hans Place, a house which seems 19 to have been long devoted to educational purposes, for Miss Mitford and Lady Caroline Lamb are said to have been educated there. to Trevor Park, East Barnet, where her cousin, Miss Landon, superintended her education. Her memory was very When scarcely seven years of age, her family removed retentive, and even at this early period she began to luxuriate in the realms of fancy. When rambling in the garden with a long stick in her hand, she would talk speak to me, I have such a delightful thought in my head.' to herself, and if spoken to, would exclaim, 'Oh, don't Her books were such as are easily procured-Rollin's Ancient History, Hume, Smollett, Plutarch's Lives, Gay's Fables, and those of Esop. She was restricted from reading novels and works of imagination, but she drank largely from that forbidden source, notwithstanding the restriction. The affections of the child were as carefully educated as her intellect, and a hatred of selfishness seems to have been early implanted in her bosom. Her will could only be easily subdued through her love. If she evinced any reciprocity act upon her, that she was careful to subduc perverseness of disposition, her brother had to suffer the penalty of her fault; and so powerfully did this system of Her brother, who loved her with a fraternal tenderness, which was fostered by her virtues as well as by natural her little petulances, and practice courage and self-denial. affection, gives an anecdote which shows her quickness in transferring to the tablets of her memory the thoughts that burn.' He had solicited three shillings from his father for some purpose, but the old gentleman sought to compromise the matter, by offering a new eighteenpenny piece, upon condition that the juvenile applicant would learn the ballad of 'Gentle river, gentle river, The ballad is some thirty verses long, and as the payment was inadequate, the youth refused to capitulate upon Lo thy streams are stained with gore,' &c. such terms. This refusal caused a rupture between the father and son; and the latter was accordingly in disgrace. His sister, without saying one word, took up the book, retired to some quiet nook, and returning in a short time, repeated the ballad-won the three shillings, which she immediately transferred to her brother. This power could be cast upon Letitia, or her brother, was to call was manifested in various ways, and strengthened by the course of reading she pursued. The greatest reproach that reckoned Spartans. The maxims of fortitude and selfdenial of the Lacedemonians she attempted to carry out, them Sybarite;' and their greatest ambition was to be but she rejected their lying and thieving habits. She has been known to part with her dainties to poor children, who might cross her path, observing as she left them, I would rather be a Spartan than a Sybarite.' The indulgence of Spartan propensities sometimes led the youthful amateur Laconians into awkward predicaments. For some trespass, they had been turned out of the garden, and Letitia, finding that a vague idea she had formed of making the gardener a public character was not sufficient revenge upon that functionary, took to the classic alternative of transfixing with arrows the object of her own and brother's antipathy. The darts from their little bows were shot at the horticulturist by the expert archers, and in a short time the luckless Joseph was stuck all over like a porcupine; but Joseph was a Titan, which these Belfeuscian missiles could not discomfit; so, charging with his spade before his face, he captured his enemies, and threw them on a quickset hedge, and there left them roaring most furiously. Amidst their troubles Henry inquired if his sister had read of any Spartans who had been served as they were; this allusion immediately converted Letitia's tears to laughter, as she exclaimed, Very like Spartans indeed!' After an hour's elevation, the gardener accepted their promises of peace, and restored them once more to their feet. This gardener, who could neither read nor write, was taught by Letitia to do both; and his own assiduity, aided by her instructions, finally fitted him for a station of respectability. 6 Miss Landon's chief pleasures consisted in her fanciful allusions. She would walk about for hours, talking to herself, or absorbed in deep thought; and then in the evening she would repeat to her brother the tales of her wayward imagination. Lovely islands in the ocean, peopled with the children of her dreams-far-off lands, with luxurious fruits, and sunny bowers, fairies floating upon sunbeams and sparkling in the orient light, rose upon her vision in the confused beauty of an immature yet teeming fancy. She was removed from Trevor Park when she was thirteen years of age, and after a year's residence at Lewis Place, Fulham, the family resided in Old Brompton, where a considerable portion of her youth was passed. Her mother still continued to cultivate the amiable qualities of her disposition, and here her intellect began to acquire such strength and maturity, as gave promise of that power which it attained in after-years. Emancipated from the dominion of the teacher, and no longer chained to the tasks of the school, she began to transcribe her thoughts, and to receive the laudations of the family circle, and of the friends who listened to her youthful compositions. At last, her manuscripts were submitted to Mr Jerdan of the Literary Gazette.' Scraps of romance and verses of poetry were presented to the kindly critic, with mingled hope and fear, and his opinion was speedily given in a strong and encouraging manner. He had the taste to perceive that her compositions possessed the buoyant vigorous spirit, if not the most finished accessories of poetry; and in a short time she had the pleasure of reading some of her own lucubrations in the original poetry columns of the Literary Gazette.' In the summer of 1821 she published a little volume of poetry, the principal piece in which was a Swiss metrical tale, entitled the Fate of Adelaide:' love, war, and misery, are the subjects of the story, and its close is full of sorrow. After the publication of this volume, she began a series of poetical sketches in the Literary Gazette, to which she appended her initials; and such was the profusion and tenderness of her pieces, that L. E. L., the initials she attached to her effusions, became letters of singular interest and speculative curiosity. These sketches were continued uninterruptedly till 1824, and chiefly consisted of songs, and tales of passion-tossed heroes, or gentle pining maidens; but there was a richness of imagery pervading the creations of her muse, that endeared them to the readers of song, and rendered their authoress famous. Verses were dedicated to her, and inquiries and praises showered into the editorial letter-box concerning her. At last it was announced that the letters L. E. L. represented a young lady in her teens; and then her admirers, associating her poetry with herself, and extracting from the spirit of her songs ideas of her own young spirit's blighted hopes, added to their admiration of her genius pity for her early sorrows. Exaggeration is the very essence of poetry; nothing that is common or mediocre can live in its atmosphere; fancy dresses the most simple and commonplace flower with gorgeous and glowing embellishments, and deepens a very superficial grief into a dark and troubled well of sorrow. While the admirers who did not know her mourned over the sad and wayward fate which had dimmed the eyes of one so young with bitter tears; which had mingled with the bright aspirations of her generous nature, chilling sorrow, forebodings of the future, regrets for the past, and morbid suspicion and predictions, the L. E. L. of reality was enjoying herself most delightfully in the society of her friends and admirers, and fascinating all who knew her with the wit and fancy which sprung from a spirit as light as the unsubstantial dreamings that it had fed upon. In July, 1824, The Improvisatrice, and other Poems, by L. E. L.,' were published by Hurst & Robinson; and the sale was so rapid as to indicate the avidity with which her writings were looked for. The theme was still of blighted hopes and affections, and the darkness of despair. Her own hopes were of a very different character from those she painted; the success of her literary labours incited her to fresh exertions; and although her weekly contributions to the journals were continued with unabated vigour, she commenced another poem before the close of the year; but the death of her father interrupted the progress of this work, and now her heart experienced its first real grief. It was her first desire and endeavour to please her father; and it was a solace to him upon his deathbed to know that her literary labours were likely to enable her to support those whom his unprosperous enterprises had rendered poor, and whom his death would leave without a protector. After a time this poem was recommenced, and the grief that softly clouds its pages was for the first time a transcript of her own feelings. To the Troubadour' was added 'Poetical Sketches of Modern Pictures' and 'Historical Sketches,' the whole forming a volume, published by her former publishers, in July, 1825. L. E. L. was now courted by those whose notice was of itself a proof of her worth and genius; and, as a successful poetess, was hunted by persons who reckon that the soul can be seen, or that the body bears upon it the semblance of the soul's beauty and power. But her very success was the source of bitter and unmerited sorrow. There seems to be a class of beings in this world whose minds are like common sewers, from which the miasma of defamation and the poison of scandal exhale; destroying with their inherent impurities the most spotless characters, and blighting the most unimpeachable fame with their demoniac but unsubstantial whisperings. The rising star of L. E. L. had outshone some speck upon the literary horizon, whose pale-green, jealous eye had changed to yellow with envy, and who, looking upon her sex and orphanage as facilities for vile detraction, had first reviled her writings and then her conduct. Strong in her || own purity, and indignantly smiling at her detractors, she refused to throw the mantle of conventionality over her feelings and words, and spoke and wrote in her usual innocent and lively style, apparently unmoved; so lofty was her pride, and strong her consciousness of rectitude. Her works still continued to multiply. In 1826, she composed the poems of the Golden Violet,' and Erinna,' which were published by Messrs Longman & Co., in December of that year. Her next published volume was issued in 1829; it consisted of the Venetian Bracelet, the Lost Pleiad, the History of the Lyre, and other Poems.' Her strains were still of love, her old familiar theme; but even amidst the turmoil and political contentions of the times, her little volume found eager audiences, despite the disadvantage of monotony. In addition to these works, she contributed to the Annuals,' for scarcely one appeared which did not secure the attraction of her initials. Considerable as the sums were which she obtained for her labours, she never became rich; she had a mother to support, and a brother to whom, with affection and pride, she rendered assistance while prosecuting his studies at Oxford. In 1830, she made her first attempt at novel-writing; and in the following year published Romance and Reality.' This work did not perhaps realise the anticipations which those who estimated her power of delineating the depths and combinations of character had formed, from the excellence of her poetry, but it gave assurance of her capability to penetrate into the philosophy of actual life, in a greater degree than others had reckoned likely, from her sympathies with the fanciful. The next year the first volume of Fisher's Drawing-Room Scrap-book' was issued, and it contained upwards of thirty poems by L. E. L., illustrative of the same number of engravings. Three years afterwards, Miss Landon composed her brilliant and impassioned tale of Francesca Carrara.' Its brilliancy of style, powerful appreciation of character, and sparkling fluency of dialogue, obtained for it more softened criticism than generally falls to the lot of a work containing, as it did, some very grave faults. In the summer of this year she visited Paris, and ever after retained a pleasing recollection of French manners. In 1835, rumour connected the names of L. E. L. and a gentleman, whose literary intimacy was thought to have ripened into love. This announcement revived the scandalous fabrications of a former period, and her friends, who spurned such allegations, determined to trace the report to its source, if possible, and drag the foul fabricator to justice. These reports, although they had no effect upon her |