this great object was uppermost in her mind. On her marriage, she proposed to herself to go on writing still, with the prospect of being thus enabled to devote the whole of her literary profits to the comfort of her mother and the promotion of the fortunes of her brother. In all social and domestic relations no one was ever more amiable or more beloved.
With occasional visits to different parts of the kingdom, and once to Paris, Miss Landon continued living in Hans-place till 1837. The Misses Lance had given up the school, I believe, about 1830, but she continued still to reside there with Mrs. Sheldon, their successor. In 1837 Mrs. Sheldon quitted Hans-place, for 28, Upper Berkeley-street West, whither Miss Landon accompanied her. Here she resided only a few months, when, at the request of some much attached friends, she took up her abode with them in Hyde Park-street. On the 7th of June, 1838, she was married to Mr. Maclean, Governor of Cape Coast Castle, and almost immediately left this country, never to return.
Of the abode where the greater part of Miss Landon's life was spent, and where almost every one of her works was written, the reader will naturally wish to have some description. The following particulars are given by Laman Blanchard, as from the pen of a female friend. "Genius," says our accomplished informant, "hallows every place where it pours forth its inspirations. Yet how strongly contrasted, sometimes, is the outward reality around the poet with the visions of his inward being. Is it not D'Israeli, in his Curiosities of Literature, referring to this frequent incongruity, who mentions, among other facts, that Moore composed his Lalla Rookh in a large barn? L. E. L. remarks on this subject, 'A history of the how and where works of imagination have been produced, would often be more extraordinary than the works themselves.' Her own case was, in some degree, an illustration of independence of mind over all external circumstances. Perhaps to the L. E. L. of whom so many nonsensical things were said—as 'that she should write with a crystal pen, dipped in dew, upon silver paper, and use for pounce the dust of a butterfly's wing;' a dilettante of literature would assign, for the scene of her authorship, a fairy-like boudoir, with rose-coloured and silver hangings, fitted with all the luxuries of a fastidious taste. How did the reality agree with this fairy sketch? Miss Landon's drawing-room, indeed, was prettily furnished, but it was her invariable habit to write in her bed-room. I see it now, that homely-looking, almost uncomfortable room, fronting the street, and barely furnished; with a simple white bed, at the foot of which was a small, old, oblong-shaped sort of dressing-table, quite covered with a common, worn writing-desk, heaped with papers, while some strewed the ground, the table being too small for aught beside the desk; a high-backed cane chair, which gave you any idea rather than that of comfort. A few books scattered about completed the author's paraphernalia."
Certainly one would have imagined a girl's school in London just the last place that a poet would have fixed upon to live and work in.
