Life and Literary Remains of L. E. L./Memoir and Letters
MEMOIR,
&c. &c.
All the information relative to the family of L. E. L. that may be requisite as introductory to a record of her life, may be gathered without recurring to a remoter period than the commencement of the eighteenth century. The Landons appear to have been at that time settled at Crednall, in Herefordshire, where they enjoyed some landed property, in the possession of which they flourished until about the period of the South Sea mania, when one of them, Sir William Landon, Knt., concluded a series of enterprises, by which the circumstances of the family had been materially advanced, with some less prosperous speculations, whose issue involved the total loss of the patrimonial estates. Of the next generation, thus left to "sink or swim," as fortune willed it, some kept afloat, and the church seems to have been their ark of safety. One of Sir William's descendants, the great-grandfather of L. E. L., abundantly repaid the succour thus afforded to him, by a zealous and devout championship of the church against "all dissenters" in that day: as is apparent from a tablet on the north wall of the chancel in the church of Tedstone Delamere, near Bromyard, Herefordshire. The inscription runs thus:—"The Rev. John Landon, rector of Nursted and Ilsted, in Kent, died June 3d, 1777, aged 77. His religious principles and literary abilities were evident from what he did and wrote in vindication of the religion he professed, to the utter confutation of all dissenters."
Of the writings of this faithful servant of the church we know nothing whatever; but as the first of the Landons whose "literary abilities" were signalised, or at all events, of whose exercise of them any record remains, his name must be here held worthy of honoring remembrance. The tablet was probably erected by his son, the Rev. John Landon, who had been presented, upwards of thirty years before (in 1749), to the rectory of Tedstone Delamere, and who held that living, to his own honor and the advantage of his parishioners, until 1782. And it may be mentioned that a green and flourishing token of the age and respectability of this family, is still visible in the church above referred to; for there, we believe to this day, is to be seen, round the tomb of one of the Landons, a fresh and luxuriant growth of hazels, thriving within the walls of the old edifice.
Severe injuries, occasioned by a fall from his horse, rendered the latter years of the rector of Tedstone painful to himself, and perhaps less profitable to his family than they might otherwise have been; for about the period of his death (the living being his own), the advowson, together with Tedstone-court and estate, was sold, and a family consisting of eight children were left with very little but their own exertions and a respectable name, to depend upon for their advancement in the world.
The eldest of the sons was John Landon, the father of L. E. L. For him, perhaps, the quiet and unvarying life of a country clergyman would have possessed few charms, even had the fortune of his father and grandfather, the gift of a living, awaited him at the outset of life. At an early age his active and enterprising disposition seemed to point to the sea as the profession best suited to his tastes, and, while yet very young, to sea he went. Of two voyages that he made, the first was to the south coast of Africa—to that country on whose western shores, in after years, a being, who employed to the most virtuous ends, and with generous devotion, the life she drew from him, was destined to find a grave. Thence the young voyager returned in safety; and, with the same promises of success in his career, he sailed subsequently to Jamaica. But the death of his friend and patron, Admiral Bowyer, cast (it may be supposed) a cloud over his sea-prospects, and blighted the hopes that had sprung out of his adoption of a naval profession.
In the meantime his brother, Whittington (the second of the sons of the Rev. John Landon), had made rapid advancement at Oxford. Acquiring the favour and patronage of the Duke of Portland, his career at Worcester college, of which he was Provost for more than thirty years, was accompanied by distinguished fortune in the church, and his course of prosperity was crowned in due season by his appointment to the valuable deanery of Exeter, which he held until his recent decease, in January, 1839. Through the influential connections of the younger brother, better prospects at home were opened to the elder; and at length, through the means of a mutual friend, Mr. Churchill, an introduction was obtained to the respectable and prosperous house of Adair, the army-agent, in Pall Mall. John Landon was speedily established in the lucrative business of an army-agency, becoming a partner in the house, and at no distant date the possessor of considerable property.
Thus settled in life, Mr. Landon married, and with his wife (Catharine Jane Bishop, a lady of Welsh extraction), took up his residence in Hans-place, Chelsea. There, in the house which is now No. 25, their daughter, Letitia Elizabeth Landon, was born, on the 14th of August, 1802. She was the eldest of three children; one, a girl, died in her thirteenth year; the other still survives, the attached brother, and long the inseparable companion of L. E. L.—the Rev. Whittington Henry Landon, M. A.