THE COUNTESS OF BLESSINGTON. and hopelessly afflicted, having had water on his brain so long." "I find that Coleridge has lost the beneficent friend at whose house he lived. George IV, the vilest wretch in Europe, gave him £100ayear. Enough, in London, to buy three turnips and half an egg a day. Those men surely were the most dexterous of courtiers who resolved to show William that his brother was not the vilest, by dashing the half egg and three turnips from the plate of Coleridge. No such action as this is recorded of our administration in the British annals." of the quality by the specimen. Most true, as the age and posterity will affirm, is the testimony he has given of himself. Landor has never written a line that does not speak to the spirit of man, as with an angel's voice, bidding him come up higher; though he has selected pagan forms to be the oracles of his wisdom, and shrined his genius in the old marble gods of the past. The letters of Sir Edward Lytton Bulwer and those of Charles Dickens overflow with humor, and radiant, playful brilliancy, though "When I was at Oxford, I wrote my opinion the contrast of the two natures is manifested on the origin of the religion of the Druids. It in every opinion uttered. Dickens evidently appeared to me that Pythagoras, who settled in looks on life with the same earnest sadness Italy, had ingrafted, on a barbarous and bloodand grave humor that characterize his works; thirsty religion, the humane doctrine of the Mewhile the sparkling, mocking irony of Bulwer tempsychosis. It would have been vain to say, Do not murder. No people ever minded this is flung recklessly over everything; one true, doctrine; but he frightened the savages by say- sad feeling, however, pervades all his lettersPrimavera per me non è piu mai!" (with me ing, If you are cruel even to beasts and insects," the cruelty will fall upon yourselves; you shall the spring of life is over). The contrast of the two minds is strikingly shown in their opinions be the same." upon Italy. Bulwer writes:— "Pardon me smiling at your expression, going to the root of the evil. This is always said about the management of Ireland. Alas! the root of the evil lies deeper than the centre of the earth." "The surface of Wordsworth's mind-the poetry-has a good deal of staple about it, and will bear handling; but the inner, the conversational and private, has many coarse, intractable, dangling threads, fit only for the flock-bed equiof grooms. I praised him more before page knew more of him, else I never should; and might have been unjust to the better part, had I This is a great remarked the worse sooner. fault, to which we are all liable, from an erroneous idea of consistency." I freeze in the desolate dulness of Rome, with its prosing antiquaries and insolent slaves. In Venice I found myself on board a ship, viz, in prison, with the chance of being drowned. In Florence I recognized a bad Cheltenham. In Naples I, for the first time, find my dreams of Italy. What a climate, and what a sea! I should be in paradise but for the mosquetoes; they devour me piecemeal; they are worse than a bad conscience, and never let me sleep at night. Of his Italian tour Dickens writes: I had great expectations of Venice, but they Infinite as are the pains I take in composing fell immeasurably short of the wonderful reality. and correcting my imaginary conversations I may The short time I passed there went by me in a indulge all my idleness in regard to myself. In- dream. I hardly think it possible to exaggerate finite pains it has always cost me, not to bring its beauties. A thousand and one realizations of together the materials, not to weave the tissue, the thousand and one nights could scarcely capbut to make the folds of my draperies hang tivate and enchant me more than Venice. becomingly. When I think of writing on any Naples disappointed me greatly. If I had not subject, I abstain a long while from every kind mud, I had dust, and though I had sun I still of reading, lest the theme should haunt me, and some of the ideas take the liberty of playing with mine. I do not wish the children of my brain to learn the tricks of others." There are single sentences in the world far out valuing three or four hundred authors, all entire, as there have been individual men out valuing many whole nations. Washington, for instance, and Kosciusko, and Hofer were fairly worth all the other men of their time. had the Lazzaroni; and they are so ragged, so dirty, so abject, so full of degradation, so sunken and steeped in the hopelessness of better things, that they would make heaven uncomfortable if they ever got there. I did not expect to see a handsome city, but I did expect something better than that long dull line of squalid houses, which stretches from the Chiapa to the Porto Capuana; and while I was quite prepared for a miserable populace, I had some dim belief that there were "I feel I am growing old, for want of some-bright rags among them, and dancing legs, and body to tell me that I am looking as young as shining, sun-browned faces; whereas the honest ever. Charming falsehood! There is a vast deal truth is, that connected with Naples I have not of vital air in loving words. one solitary recollection. The country round it I will never write to please the public, but al-charmed me. Who can forget Herculaneum and ways to instruct and mend it. If Colburn would Pompeii? As to Vesuvius, it burns away in give me twenty thousand pounds to write a tuk-my thoughts, beside the roaring waters of Niaing thing, I would not accept it. gara, and not a splash of the water extinguishes a spark of the fire; but there they go on, tumbling and flaming night and day, each in its fullest glory. These are but a few fragments chipped off a great, resplendent mind; yet we can judge If Bulwer was not satisfied with Italy, he was at all events more than pleased with Ireland, and writes thus : I have been enchanted with the upper lake of Killarney, and a place called Glengariff; and I think that I never saw a country which nature more meant to be great. It is thoroughly classical, and will have its day yet. But man must change first. In one of Dickens's letters we have an interesting glimpse of his own state of mind while composing those wondrous novels that enchant the world. He writes from Milan : the greater Wellington-one of whose wise remarks touching visits of ceremony is worth quoting. He writes: "There is no time so uselessly employed as by a visiter, and him upon whom the visit is inflicted." In fact, the ceremonies of Juggernaut are mild to the sacrifices exacted by social ceremonial. There, the body only is killed-crushed, and killed at once-but in the meaningless morning visitings of ladies, deliberate murder and patient suicide of souls is perpetrated with remorseless punctuality. Time," says Goethe, is a great curse to those who believe that they are born only to kill it." When will men and women learn the value of our most precious heritage-the golden sands of life. I have been beset in many ways; but I shut Sir William Gell and Jekyll are the two myself up for one month, close and tight, over correspondents who pour forth best that clever my little Christmas book, The Chimes. All my affections and passions got twined and knot-gossip in the French style of a century ago. The latter tells anecdotes pleasantly; as ted up in it, and I became as haggard as a mur"We had at the bar a learned person, derer long before I wrote the end. When I had done, I fled to Venice to regain the composure whose legs and arms were so long as to afford the title of Frog Morgan. In the course of an argument, he spoke of our natural enemies, the French; and Erskine, in reply, complimented him on an expression so personally appropriate. I had lost." Again, two years later, when from the ocean-depths of thought a new creation about to rise, he writes: is thus "A toady of old Lady Cork, whom she Vague thoughts of a new book are rife within half maintains, complained to me of her treatme just now, and I go wandering about at night ment. "I have," she said, " a very long chin, into the strangest places, according to my usual and the barbarous Countess often shakes me propensity at such a time, seeking rest and find-by it." It seemed without remedy, as neither the paroxysm nor the chin could be shortened." ing none, How completely this description gives one Jekyll's love for London life was so great, the idea of a man "possessed," spirit-driven-that he said, If he were compelled to live in a prophet commissioned to utter the life-giv- the country, he would have the approach to ing word to men's souls and finding no rest his house paved like the streets of London, until he uttered it. And this is no extrava- and a hackney coach to drive up and down gant expression of the mission of a great writer all day long. -one who, like Dickens, reveals to the world An act of kindness towards the memory of how beautiful a thing Humanity may be made," L. E. L." gives Dr. Madden the opportunity and descends even to the very depths of phy- to introduce a vast deal of most interesting sical wretchedness to show us that God's im- matter concerning the last few, fatal months press of divinity on man is universal and of Mrs. Maclean's life at Cape Coast Castle. eternal. No writer, perhaps, ever softened Lady Blessington had commissioned the editor and strengthened, melted and warmed human to erect, at her expense, a marble slab over nature with such omnipotent power as Dick- the grave of the unhappy poetess, which, up ens. He can give courage to the soul while to that time (three years after her death), had tears rain from the eyes, and there is not a remained without a record. Dr. Madden havwork brought forth from the tossings, and ing an official appointment on the west coast heavings, and unrest of that mighty heart of of Africa, became a guest of Mr. Maclean, at his, that does not fall like a cascade from hea- Cape Coast Castle, for some weeks, and thus ven upon our stony age. had ample means of informing himself as to Had we space, we might continue stringing the kind of person with whom "L. E. L." epistolary gems, ad infinitum, from the Bles- had unfortunately united herself, and also sington correspondence. There are letters could judge of the desolate existence for which from that wonderful compound of poetry and she had exchanged the brilliancy of a sucpolitics, D'Israeli, in which can be traced evi- cessful London literary career. No European dence of both these tendencies along with the lady resided at the settlement. The castle sarcastic contempt he seems to cherish for all was nothing better than a lone, dismal fort, political parties; and eulogistic letters from near a village of half-caste population. The the great Wellesley, and friendly ones from scenery, "a wilderness of seared verdure, a only person to whom the unhappy Mrs. Maclean confided the misery endured in her African bondage. We shall quote the letter entire, as every line has interest :— Gore-House, Jan. 29, 1839. jungle and a swamp, realizing the very idol of desolation." And the husband of the first lyric poetess of England, the Sappho of the age, is described by Dr. Madden as a person whose only intellectual qualification was a study of barometers and thermometers, and whose only taste was for algebraic calculations. My Dear Madam,-Indisposition must plead "He spoke contemptuously of literature, and my excuse for not having sooner given you the affected scorn, even loathing, for poetry and sad particulars I promised in my last; when that poets. By long privation of the society of cause for my silence had subsided, the dangerous educated women previous to his marriage, he illness of Lord Canterbury threw me into such had become selfish, coarse-minded, cynical, a alarm and anxiety, that it is only to-day, when colonial sybarite; who when his bouts of rev-letters from Paris assure me that he is recoverelry were over, devoted himself to theodolites, ing, that I feel equal to the task of writing. Poor, dear L. E. L. lost her father, who was a sextants and quadrants. Openly he expressed to his wife his contempt for verse- He had married the widow of an army agent, a Captain in the army, while she was yet a child. making, and wished to force her to devote her woman not of refined habits, and totally unsuitentire time to the performance of the lowest ed to him. On his death, his brother, the late household duties. Dean of Exeter, interested himself for his nephew and niece, the sole children left by Captain Landon; and deeming it necessary to remove them from their mother, placed the girl (poor L. E. L.) at school; and the boy at another. At an unusually early age she manifested deservedly popular. On leaving school, her unthe genius for which she afterwards became so cle placed her under the protection of her grandmother, whose exigence rendered the life of her gifted grandchild anything but a happy one. Her first practical effusions were published many years ago, and the whole of the sum they produced was appropriated to her grandmother. Everyone knows what led her into this fatal marriage. Unlike Lady Blessington, she had no prestige of rank or wealth to enable her to bear up against social opinion, whether slanderous or true; and, to escape the evils of her position, she rashly, in a fit of terrible desperation, resolved to go through with the marriage then offered to her at all hazards, even of her life. Her feelings at the time may be judged of by some verses, almost the last she wrote, and which conclude with these mournful stanzas: These events are known, but not the secret misery she had endured during those four months, and which she revealed but to one person. All her other letters, written to friends and acquaintances, are full of fabled accounts of her happiness. And if the poison-cup was lifted to her lips intentionally, we cannot wonder, after reading those revelations. Lady Blessington, in a letter full of startling details, gives the true account of "L. E. L. 's" position, as she had it herself from the one - Soon after, L. E. L. became acquainted with Mr. -, who, charmed with her talents, encouraged their exertion by inserting her poems in a Literary Journal, with all the encomiums they merited. This notice drew the attention of publishers on her, and, alas! drew also the calumny and hatred of the envious, which ceased not to persecute her through her troubled life; but absolutely drove her from her native land. There was no slander too vile, and no assertion too wicked, to heap on the fame of this injured creature. Mr. a married man, and the father of a large family, many of whom were older than L. E. L., was said to have been her lover, and it was publicly stated that she had become too intimately connected with him. Those who disbelieved the calumny, refrained not from repeating it, until it became a general topic of connot courage to defend her, and this highly gifted and sensitive creature, without having committed a single error, found herself a victim to slander. More than one advantageous proposal of marriage was made to her; but no sooner was this known, than anonymous letters were sent to the persons who wished to wed her, filled with charges against her honor. Some of her suitors, wholly discrediting these calumnies, but inquiries to trace them to the original source thinking it due to her to refute them, instigated whence they came; not a single proof could be had of even the semblance of guilt, though a thousand were furnished of perfect innocence. versation. Her own sex, fearful of censure, had Wounded and humiliated, poor L. E. L. refused to wed those, who could, however worthy die was cast. Her pride shrunk from the notion of again having it said that another marriage was broken off; and she determined not to break with him. Mystery on mystery followed: no friend or relative of his-though an uncle and aunt were in London-sanctioned the marriage; nay more, it is now known that, two days previous to it, he, on being questioned by his uncle, denied positively the fact of his intention to be married. the motive, seem to doubt her honor, or instigate of proceeding; so did all her friends; but the inquiry into her conduct; and from year to year dragged on a life of mortification and sorrow, Pride led her to conceal what she suffered, but those who best knew her were aware that for many months sleep could only be obtained by the aid of narcotics, and that violent spasms and frequent attacks of the nerves left her seldom free from acute suffering. The effort to force a gayety she was far from feeling, increased her sufferings, even to the last. The first use she made of the money produced by her writings, was to buy an The mariage was a secret one, and not avowannuity for her grandmother, that grandmother ed until a very few days previous to their sailing whose acerbity of temper and wearying exigence for Africa; he refused to permit her own maid, had embittered her home. She then went to re- who had long served her, to accompany her, and side in Hans-Place, with some elderly ladies, it was only at the eleventh hour that he could be who kept a school, and here again calumny as-induced to permit a strange servant to be her atsailed her. Dr. M., a married man, and father tendant. His conduct on boardship was cold of grown daughters, was now named as her and moody; for her broken-hearted ---- whom paramour; and though his habits, age, appear-I have seen, told me that the captain of the ship ance, and attachment to his wife, ought to have said, that Mr. Maclean betrayed the utmost inprecluded the possibility of attaching credence difference towards her. This indifference conto so absurd a piece of scandal, poor L. E. L.tinued at Cape Castle, and, what was worse, diswas again attacked in a manner that nearly sent content, ill-humor, and reproaches at her ignoher to the grave. rance of housekeeping met her every day, until, This last falsehood was invented a little more as she writes to her; her nerves became so than four years ago, when some of those who agitated, that the sound of his voice made her disbelieved the other scandal, affected to give tremble. She was required to do the work of a credit to this, and stung the sensitive mind of menial; her female servant was discharged, and poor L. E. L. almost to madness by their hypo- was to sail the day that the hapless L. E. L. critical conduct. About this time Mr. Maclean died. She has come to England. L. E. L. thus became acquainted with her, and after some writes to her- -:- There are eleven or twelve months proposed for her hand. Wrung to the chambers here empty, I am told, yet Mr. Macquick by the slanders heaped on her, she accept-lean refuses to let me have one of them for my ed his offer; but he deemed it necessary to use, nor will he permit me to enter the bed-room return to Cape Coast Castle for a year, before from the hour I leave it, seven in the morning, the nuptials could be solemnized. He returned until he quits it, at one in the afternoon. He exat the expiration of that term, renewed his offer, pects me to cook, wash, and iron; in short, to and she-poor, dear soul!-informed all her do the work of a servant. I never see him until friends, and me amongst the number, of her ac-seven in the evening, when he comes to dinner; ceptance of it, and of her intention of soon and when that is over, he plays the violin until leaving England with him; soon after this, Mr. | ten o'clock, when I go to bed. He says he will M. went to Scotland, and remained there many never cease correcting me until he has broken months, without writing a single line to his be- my spirit, and complains of my temper, which trothed. Her feelings under this treatment you you know was never, even under heavy trials, may well imagine. Beset by inquiries from all bad' her friends as to where Mr. Maclean was? when she was to be married? etc., etc, all indicating a strong suspicion that he had heard the reports, and would appear no more. A serious illness assailed her, and reduced her to the brink of the grave; when her wrote and demanded an explanation from Mr. Maclean. He answered, that fearing the climate of Africa might prove fatal to her, he had abandoned the intention of marrying, and felt embarrassed at writing to say so. This was the last account Mr. ever re It is now known that Mr. Maclean had formed a liaison at Cape Castle with a woman of that country, by whom he has a large family; such liaisons are not considered disreputable there, and the women are treated as wives. This person lived in the Castle as its mistress, until the arrival of Mr. Maclean and poor L. E. L, when she was sent off up the country. This woman was the niece of one of the merchants who sat She, poor soul! mistook his hesitation and si-on the inquest. All the servants, with the exlence for generosity, and wrote to him a letter ception of the man and his wife, brought ont by fraught with affection; the ill-starred union was again proposed, but on condition that it should be kept a secret even from the friends she was residing with. From the moment of his return from Scotland to that of their departure, he was moody, mysterious, and ill-humored-continually sneering at literary ladies-speaking slightingly of her works and, in short. showing every symptom of a desire to disgust her. Sir remonstrated with her on his extraordinary mode L. E. L., were the creatures of the former mistress, the whole of the female natives detest English women, because the presence of one then banishes them from the society where they are tolerated in their absence. Mr. Maclean admits that indisposition and mental annoyance must have rendered him far from being a kind or agreeable companion to poor Letitia; but adds, that had she lived a little longer, she would have found him very different. MISCELLANEOUS. Believe me, my dear Madam, as he was, when not ill and tormented by various | and proceeded to the Castle, to dislodge his miscircumstances, which he does not explain, easy tress and children. The natives were angry, and and good-tempered to a fault. He says, that offended at seeing their countrywoman driven never was there so kind or so faultless a being from her home. on earth as that poor, poor girl, as he calls her, and that he never knew her value until he had lost her. In fact, his letter seems an answer to charges preferred against him by the departed, and, what is strange, the packet that brought the fatal news brought no letter of recent date for her --though she never missed an opportunity, and they occur rarely, of writing to him. Her letters, all of which have breathed the fondest affection for him, admit that she had little hope of happiness from her stern, cold, and morose husband. I have now, my dear madam, given you this sad tale. I have perused all her letters to her, as well as Mr. Maclean's to him. I ought to add, that when they landed in Africa, Mr. Maclean set off, leaving his wife, This is a mournful tale, with which to conclude our notice of this most brilliant addition to our literary history. Did space permit, we might cull details of other celebrities, equally interesting, though none so mournful, from the vast accumulation of biographical matter crowded into the work, which may take permanent rank in the world of letters, not merely as the life of one literary individual, but as a miniature biographical encyclopedia, of all the modern celebrities of England. it from the Lounger's Common place Book. The biographical articles are frequently very curious, and prove the author to have had an extended literary knowledge. When I compare the power of the Turks with our own, I confess the consideration fills me with anxiety and dismay, and a strong conviction forces itself on my mind that we cannot long resist the destruction which awaits us; they possess immense wealth, strength unbroken, a perfect knowledge of the art of war, patience under every difficulty, union, order, frugality, and a On our side, exhausted finances and universal luxury, our national spirit broken by repeated defeats. mutinous soldiers, mercenary officers licentiousness, intemperance, and a total contempt or neglect of military discipline, fill up the dismal catalogue. ON YEARS APPARENTLY DIMINISHING AS WE ADVANCE IN AGE.-We are all sensible, in proportion as we advance in age, how much shorter a year appears to be than it did in earlier days. Let a man who has passed his grand climacteric look back upon the time he spent at school or college, and it seems as if a life had been passed at each. Let the same man look back on the last four or five years, and, in comparison with the former, they scarcely appear more than so many months. Well, then, let us suppose a person to have numbered the allotted three score years and ten, or by reason of strength to have come to fourscore years: or let us suppose him constant state of preparation. to have continued on this earth for many hun. dred anniversaries of his birth, and if each year should diminish in proportion to the number already passed, as it is reasonable to think it will, to what a narrow span must a year be reduced! Thus in all probability, nay to an almost certainty, the antediluvian life appeared to the then in- Is it possible to doubt how such an unequal habitants of the earth far less protracted than conflict must terminate? The enemy's forces we are in the habit of supposing. But this being at present directed against Persia, only thought may be carried still farther. If our suspends our fate; after subduing that power, measures of duration continue in the future state, the all-conquering Mussulman will rush with what could a year appear to a spirit who had liv- undivided strength and overwhelm at once ed down thousands and millions of the same?-Europe as well as Germany.-Notes and Queries. Would it not, according to this law, be reduced to a minute, to a second, to less and less ad infinitum? And would not this with other circumstances which I shall not advert to now, the notion that time has no independent exist-" And coming events cast their shadows before," ence in itself; or that, at all events, the stream of time will not run on beyond the limits of this world, but will lose itself and be swallowed up in the wide ocean of eternity?-Christian Observer. induce FORMER POWER OF THE TURKS. — At the present time, the following passage from the letters of Busbequius, ambassador from Ferdinand II. to the Sultan Solyman II., may interest the readers of " N. & Q" I extract! CAMPBELL'S IMITATIONS.-The line has been compared with similar thoughts in Leib- |