LÆTITIA ELIZABETH MACLEAN.
This remarkable writer, better known perhaps as Miss Landon, or L. E. L., may, I think, be considered the Byron of our poetesses. In character, history, and genius, there are not a few striking points of similitude between her and the great bard referred to: both acquired a world-wide fame in youth; both were shamefully maligned and misrepresented; both became gloomy and misanthropical under the falsehoods asserted of them; both died young, and abroad.
Mrs. Maclean's history is perhaps the more tragic of the two. Early deprived of parental care and assistance, she had almost from childhood to struggle with the worst difficulties of life; and none but those who have experienced similar endurances can understand how much a young warm heart can be chilled by them, and changed for the worse. When her circumstances became ameliorated by her success in literature, she had to contend against the worst evils of over-praise, unjust censure, and infamous slander. Can we wonder that she acquired unhealthy views of life? Ought we not rather to wonder that her sentiments are on the whole as sound as we find them? Oh, the world is a hard task-master. It first spoils its pupil, and then complains of his deficiencies! Finally, in the zenith of her fame, Mrs. Maclean, formed, more than most beings, for social intercourse, quits her country and her friends, for a solitary home on the coast of Africa: there to pine in loneliness for a month or two, and then to die. Yes! it is a very mournful story.
Of Mrs. Maclean's genius there can be but one opinion. It is distinguished by very great intellectutal power, a highly sensitive and ardent imagination, an intense fervour of passionate emotion, and almost unequalled eloquence and fluency. Of mere art she displays but little. Her style is irregular and careless,
