great mental faculties with which he was endowed, and in the studio in which he worked and slept and died, he received the distinguished visitors-princes, nobles, poets, painters, sculptors, historians, and orators-who paid him the attentions of reverential affection. His excruciating bodily torments never extracted from him a groan; resigned and patient he exhibited a gentle consideration for those around him, which was womanly in its tenderness and pathos sometimes he would be overcome by a paroxysm of grief, but the violent emotions were always caused by thinking of her. When it was known he could not recover, Louis Napoleon, with a hand red with the massacre of the coup d'état sent him the appointment to the nominal post of Director of Fine Arts, and when it was known that the Count no longer lived the paltry juggler lamented that he had lost his "best friend!"

The great work of D'Orsay's genius, in his last days, was a mausoleum, at Chambourcy, "a pyramid of granite, standing on a square platform, on a level with the surrounding ground, but divided from it by a deep fosse, whose sloping sides are covered with green turf and ivy, transplanted from the garden of the house where Lady Blessington was born. It stands on a hill side, just above the village cemetery, and overlooks a view of exquisite beauty and immense extent, taking in the Seine winding through the fertile valley, and the forest of St. Germain; plains, villages, and far distant hills; and at the back and side it is sheltered by chesnut trees of large size and great age; more picturesque spot it is difficult to imagine."

"Solid, simple, and severe," says Mrs. Romer, "it combines every requisite in harmony with its solemn destination; no meretricious ornament, no false sentiment, mar the purity of its design. The genius which devised it has succeeded in cheating the tomb of its horrors, without depriving it of its imposing gravity. The simple portal is

surmounted by a plain massive cross of stone, and a door secured by an open-work of bronze, leads to a sepulchral chamber, the key of which has been confided to me. All within breathes the holy calm of eternal repose: no gloom, no mouldering damp, nothing to recall the horrible images of decay. An atmosphere of peace pervades the place, and I could almost fancy that a voice from the tomb whispered in the words of Dante's Beatrice :

"Io sono in pace ?"

"The light of the sun, streaming through a glazed aperture above the door, falls like a ray of heavenly hope upon the symbol of man's redemption-a beautiful copy, in bronzè, of Michael Angelo's crucified Saviour-which is affixed to the wall facing the entrance. A simple stone sarcophagus is placed on either side of the chamber, each one surmounted by two white marble tablets, encrusted in the sloping walls." In the one sarcophagus lies Marguerite, Countess of Blessington; in the other, Alfred, Count D'Orsay.

With hearts glowing with tender regret, commiseration, and charity, as best becomes weak and erring men, let us leave undivided in death those two who, whatever were their sins, were so steadfast in their love, and who were never careless of the happiness of those to whom they extended their widely embracing friendship-those two, whom our judgment may condemn, but our affections must defend.

CHAPTER X.

LETITIA ELIZABETH LANDON.

MISS LANDON's fame was won by her poetry; it was in her metrical compositions that her genius displayed itself: her prose-writings are lively, dramatic, forcible, but they contain nothing distinctive,-differing as they do but little from the productions of many other artists far less richly endowed, and marked by no signs of that passion and depth of pathetic feeling which inspired her melodious verses. Still her novels are interesting, and bristle with the indications of rare intellect; and they will long continue to be read, both for their own merits, and because every fact connected with the sad history of their author will for many a day be attractive.

Miss Landon was of respectable extraction. Hergreat-grandfather, the rector of Nursted and Ilsted, in Kent, was in his day active in polemical literature. On his mural tablet in Tedstone Delamere Church, Herefordshire, is the following nervous inscription, "The Revd. John Landon, rector of Nursted and Ilsted, in Kent, died June 3rd, 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." The son of this worthy man, who utterly confuted all dissenters, was like his father, a beneficed clergyman, for he was rector of Tedstone Delamere for more than thirty years, till the year 1782-when he died, leaving a family of eight children, very badly provided for. The eldest of his three sons was John, L. E. L.'s father; another was Whittington, who did something towards restoring the fortunes of the family-for he

was Provost of Worcester College, Oxford, for more than thirty years, and held the lucrative deanery of Exeter.

At an early age John Landon went into the navy, but after two voyages he relinquished the service, and through the aid of his comparatively opulent brother Whittington, was, after the lapse of some years, admitted to a partnership in the house of Adair, the army agent, in Pall-Mall. He married and for a time thrived, but owing to commercial and other losses, he died in very needy circumstances, leaving behind him a daughter, L. E. L., and a son, the Revd. Henry Whittington Landon. Besides these two children he had another daughter, who died in her thirteenth year.

Letitia Landon was born at 25, Hans Place, Chelsea, on the 14th of August, 1802; and in Hans Place and its immediate vicinity she passed the greater part of her days. In her sixth year she was sent to a school kept by Miss Rowden, at No. 22, Hans Place, an establishment that had as pupils Miss Mitford and Lady Caroline Lamb, but she remained there only a few months. Her education she received from a cousin, Miss Landon, whom to the last she loved with all the strength and depth of her affectionate nature.

Her childhood on the whole was a happy-indeed a very happy-one. She was reared on a system that precluded harshness, and from her infancy she found exquisite delight in dream and reverie. For hours together the child would ramble in the garden of her father's house with a favourite long wand in her hand-called her measuring stick. "What is that for?" an intruder would inquire. "Oh," would be the reply, "don't speak to me, I have such a delightful thought in my head." head." In the nursery she was remarkable for strength and quickness of memory, being able with ease to learn by heart long ballads, and for unselfishness and generosity of disposition. Her brother had almost innumerable stories to tell of the unvarying ardour of her affec

tion for him, and her instinctive habits of self-sacrifice. She was a buoyant, laughing, romping, gleeful child, notwithstanding her frequent fits of pensiveness,―a source of light and pleasure to the whole house. And this happy temperament she retained for years after the deep melancholy of her muse had made the wide world weep.

She was quite a child when first her hot thoughts ran into verse, and in respect of age was the fit inmate of the school-room when her first effusions in the "Literary Gazette" (there inserted by her father's old friend, Mr. Jerdan, the editor) made all readers capable of appreciating poetry, aware that "L. E. L." was no common rhymester. Week by week the verses poured forth, eloquent of deep feelings, possessing a melody that Moore never in his sweetest lyrics surpassed, and rolling on with a lawless strength that showed plainly they flowed because they could not be withheld. They were covered with faults, want of polish, carelessness, redundancy of metaphor and ornament; but these very artistic failings were overlooked, nay admired-for they were the proofs and insignia of youthful and impetuous genius. Within the unknown poet's breast swelled a power that was not to be trifled with, an irrepressible force that must have its way like electricity;-how should she pause to count numbers, refer to the rules of Syntax for enlightenment on a dubious expression, or debate on the artistic proprieties, when thoughts, feelings, fancies, images followed in quick succession, struggling for utterance and defying reflection. Here was the secret of "L. E. L's" power; poetry was the natural expression of her ardent feelings; she, like the nightingale which "crowds and hurries and precipitates with thick fast warbling his delicious notes," poured forth her soul into song, because it was the only way nature permitted her to disburthen herself of her ungovernable emotions. Song with her was not a mere mental exercise,