South Sea Bubble, but afterwards contrived to lose the whole patrimonial estates. A descendant of Sir William was the great grand father of L. E. L. He was rector of Nursted and Ilsted, in Kent, and a zealous antagonist of all Dissent. His son was rector of Tedstone Delamere, near Bromyard, Herefordshire. At his death, the property of the family being exhausted, his children, eight in number, were left to make their way through the world as they could. Miss Landon's father, John Landon, was the eldest of these children. He went to sea, and made two voyages, one to the coast of Africa, and one to Jamaica. His friend and patron, Admiral Bowyer, dying, his career in the naval service was stopped. In the meantime, the next of his brothers, Whittington Landon, had acquired promotion in the Church, and eventually became Dean of Exeter. By his influence the father of the poetess was established as a partner in the prosperous house of Adair, army agents in Pall Mall. On this he married Catharine Jane Bishop, a lady of Welsh extraction, and settled at No. 25, in Hans-place. Here Miss Landon was born on the 14th of August, 1802. Besides her, the only other surviving child was a brother, the present Rev. Whittington Henry Landon.
In her sixth year she was sent to school to Miss Rowden, at No. 22, Hans-place, the house in which she was destined to pass the greater part of her life. This lady, herself a poetess, afterwards became Countess St. Quentin, and died near Paris. In this school Miss Mitford was educated, and here Lady Caroline Lamb was for a time an inmate. At this period, however, Miss Landon was here only a few months. She had occasionally been taken into the country to a farm in which her father was deeply interested, called Coventry Farm, in Hertfordshire. She now went with her family to reside at Trevor Park, East Barnet, where her education was conducted by her cousin, Miss Landon. She was now about seven years old, and here the family continued to live about six years. Here she read a great deal of romance and poetry, and began to show the operation of her fancy, by relating long stories to her parents, and indulging in long meditative walks in the lime-walk in the garden. Her brother was her companion, and, spite of her nascent authorship, they seem to have played, and romped, and enjoyed themselves as children should do. They read Plutarch, and had a great ambition of being Spartans. An anecdote is related of their taking vengeance on the gardener for some affront, by shooting at him with arrows with nails stuck in them for piles, and of his tossing them upon a quickset hedge for punishment,—most probably one of the old-fashioned square-cut ones, where they would be rather prisoners than sufferers. This man, whose name was Chambers, Miss Landon taught to read; and he afterwards saved money, and retired to keep an inn at Barnet. Now she read the Arabian Nights, Scott's Metrical Romances, and Robinson Crusoe, besides a book called Silvester Trampe. This last professed to be a narrative of travels in Africa, and seems especially to have fascinated her imagination. No doubt that the united effects of this book, of other African travels, and of the fact of her father and one of her cousins having made voyages to that continent,
