150-] English Literature

150-] English Literature

Letitia Elizabeth Landon  

 

List of works

In addition to the works listed below, Landon was responsible for numerous anonymous reviews, and other articles whose authorship is unlikely now to be established (compare Emma Roberts above). She also assumed the occasional pseudonym: for one, she adopted the name Iole for a period from 1825 to 1827. Two of her Iole poems, The Wreck and The Frozen Ship, were later included in the collection, The Vow of the Peacock. Mary Mitford said that the novels of Catherine Stepney were honed and polished by Landon—e.g. The Heir Presumptive (1835). In the case of Duty and Inclination, she is declared as editor but no originator has been named and the extent of Landon's involvement is unclear.

On her death, she left a list of projected works. Besides the novel Lady Anne Granard (first volume completed) and her "tragedy" (Castruccio Catrucani), there were: a critical work in 3 volumes to be called Female Portrait Gallery in Modern Literature for which she says she has collected a vast amount of material (only some portraits based on Walter Scott were produced); a romance called Charlotte Corday for which a plan was sketched plus a "chapter or two"; and a projected 2 volume work on "travels in the country I am about to visit, including the history of the slave trade of which I shall [have] the opportunity of collecting so many curious facts".

The Fate of Adelaide. A Swiss Romantic tale and other poems. London: John Warren, 1821.

Fragments in Rhyme. London. The Literary Gazette, 1822–3.

Poetic Sketches (5 series). London. The Literary Gazette, 1822–4.

Medallion Wafers. London. The Literary Gazette, 1823.

Poetical Catalogue of Pictures. London. The Literary Gazette, 1823.

The Improvisatrice and other poems, with embellishments. London, Hurst Robinson & Co., 1824.

The Troubadour. Catalogue of pictures and historical sketches. London: Hurst, Robinson and Co., 1825.

The Golden Violet with its tales of Romance and Chivalry, and other poems. London, Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown and Green, 1827.

The Venetian Bracelet, The Lost Pleiad, A History of the Lyre and other poems. London, Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown and Green, 1829.

Romance and Reality. London: Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley. 1831.

The Easter Gift, A Religious Offering. London: Fisher, Son, & Co, 1832.

Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Books. London & Paris: Fisher, Son, & Co., 1832–1839.

The Book of Beauty; or, Regal Gallery. London: Rees, Orme, Brown, Green, and Longmans, 1833.

"The Enchantress and Other Tales." The Novelists Magazine 1 (1833): 90-118.

Metrical versions of the Odes tr. in Corinne, or Italy by Madame de Staël tr. by Isabel Hill. London. Richard Bentley, 1833.

Francesca Carrara. London: Richard Bentley. 1834.

Calendar of the London Seasons. The New Monthly Magazine, 1834.

The Vow of the Peacock and other poems. London: Saunders and Otley, 1835.

Versions from the German. London. The Literary Gazette, 1835.

Traits and Trials of Early Life. London. H. Colburn, 1836.

Subjects for Pictures.. London. The New Monthly Magazine, 1836–8.

Schloss's (English) Bijou Almanacks, 1836-1839.

Pictorial Album; or, Cabinet of Paintings, Chapman and Hall, 1837.

Ethel Churchill; or, The Two Brides. London: Henry Colburn, 1837.

Flowers of Loveliness. London: Ackerman & Co., 1838.

Duty and Inclination: A Novel (as editor). London: Henry Colburn, 1838.

The Female Picture Gallery. London. The New Monthly Magazine, 1838 and Laman Blanchard.

Castruccio Castrucani, a tragedy in 5 acts. In Laman Blanchard.

Lady Anne Granard, or Keeping Up Appearances. London, Henry Colburn, 1842 - L.E.L. volume 1, completed by another.

The Zenana, and minor poems of L.E.L. London: Fisher, Son & Co. 1839. p. 204.

"The Love Letter, circa 1816"

The Marriage Vow

Numerous short stories in various publications .

In translation

Die Sängerin. Frankfurt: M. Brönner, 1830. Translation by Clara Himly, together with The Improvisatrice, in English .

Francesca Carrara . Bremen: A. D. Geisler, 1835. Translation by C. W. Geisler .

Adele Churchill , oder die zwei Bräute. Leipzig: Kirchner & Schwetschte, 1839. Translation by Fr. L. von Soltau .

Ethel Churchill , of De twee bruiden. Middelburg: J.C & W. Altorffer, 1844. (Translator unknown) .

Les Album des Salons, 1832 onwards, accompagnées de Poésies Descriptives par L.E.L. Fisher.

Family

In 2000, scholar Cynthia Lawford published birth records implying that Landon had in fact borne children in the 1820s from a secret affair with William Jerdan. Details of Letitia's children by Jerdan (Ella, Fred and Laura) and their descendants can be found in Susan Matoff.

Erinna

BY LETITIA ELIZABETH LANDON

Was she of spirit race, or was she one

Of earth's least earthly daughters, one to whom

A gift of loveliness and soul is given,

Only to make them wretched?

 

There is an antique gem, on which her brow

Retains its graven beauty even now .

Her hair is braided, but one curl behind

Floats as enamour'd of the summer wind;

The rest is simple. Is she not too fair

Even to think of maiden's sweetest care?

The mouth and brow are contrasts. One so fraught

With pride, the melancholy pride of thought

Conscious of power, and yet forced to know

How little way such power as that can go;

Regretting, while too proud of the fine mind,

Which raises but to part it from its kind:

But the sweet mouth had nothing of all this;

It was a mouth the rose had lean'd to kiss

For her young sister, telling, now though mute,

How soft an echo it was to the lute .

The one spoke genius, in its high revealing;

The other smiled a woman's gentle feeling.

It was a lovely face: the Greek outline

Flowing, yet delicate and feminine;

The glorious lightning of the kindled eye,

Raised , as it communed with its native sky.

A lovely face the spirit's fitting shrine;

The one almost, the other quite divine .

 

My hand is on the lyre which never more

With its sweet commerce, like a bosom friend,

Will share the deeper thoughts which I could trust

Only to music and to solitude .

It is the very grove, the olive grove,

Where first I laid my laurel crown aside,

And bathed my fever'd brow in the cold stream;

As if that I could wash away the fire

Which from that moment kindled in my heart .

I well remember how I flung myself,

Like a young goddess, on a purple cloud

Of light and odour — the rich violets

Were so ethereal in bloom and breath:

And I — I felt immortal, for my brain

Was drunk and mad with its first draught of fame .

'Tis strange there was one only cypress tree,

And then, as now, I lay beneath its shade.

The night had seen me pace my lonely room,

Clasping the lyre I had no heart to wake,

Impatient for the day: yet its first dawn

Came cold as death; for every pulse sank down,

Until the very presence of my hope

Became to me a fear .    The sun rose up;

I stood alone 'mid thousands: but I felt

Mine inspiration; and, as the last sweep

Of my song died away amid the hills,

My heart reverb'rated the shout which bore

To the blue mountains and the distant heaven

Erinna's name, and on my bended knee,

Olympus, I received thy laurel crown.

 

   And twice new birth of violets have sprung,

Since they were first my pillow, since I sought

In the deep silence of the olive grove

The dreamy happiness which solitude

Brings to the soul o'erfill'd with its delight:

For I was like some young and sudden heir

Of a rich palace heap'd with gems and gold,

Whose pleasure doubles as he sums his wealth

And forms a thousand plans of festival;

Such were my myriad visions of delight.

The lute, which hitherto in Delphian shades

Had been my twilight's solitary joy,

Would henceforth be a sweet and breathing bond

Between me and my kind .    Orphan unloved,

I had been lonely from my childhood's hour,

Childhood whose very happiness is love:

But that was over now; my lyre would be

My own heart's true interpreter , and those

To whom my song was dear, would they not bless

The hand that waken'd it ? I should be loved

For the so gentle sake of those soft chords

Which mingled others' feelings with mine own .

 

    Vow'd I that song to meek and gentle thoughts,

To tales that told of sorrow and of love,

To all our nature's finest touches, all

That wakens sympathy: and I should be

Alone no longer; every wind that bore,

And every lip that breathed one strain of mine,

Henceforth partake in all my joy and grief.

Oh! glorious is the gifted poet's lot,

And touching more than glorious: 'tis to be

Companion of the heart's least earthly hour;

The voice of love and sadness, calling forth

Tears from their silent fountain: 'tis to have

Share in all nature's loveliness; giving flowers

A life as sweet, more lasting than their own;

And catching from green wood and lofty pine

Language mysterious as musical;

Making the thoughts , which else had only been

Like colours on the morning's earliest hour,

Immortal, and worth immortality;

Yielding the hero that eternal name

For which he fought; making the patriot's deed

A stirring record for long after-time;

Cherishing tender thoughts, which else had pass'd

Away like tears; and saving the loved dead

From death's worst part — its deep forgetfulness .

 

From the first moment when a falling leaf,

Or opening bud , or streak of rose-touch'd sky,

Waken'd in me the flush and flow of song,

I gave my soul entire unto the gift

I deem'd mine own, direct from heaven; it was

The hope, the bliss, the energy of life;

I had no hope that dwelt not with my lyre,

No bliss whose being grew not from my lyre ,

No energy undevoted to my lyre.

It was my other self that had a power;

Mine, but o'er which I had not a control.

At times it was not with me, and I felt

A wonder how it ever had been mine :

And then a word, a look of loveliness,

A tone of music, call'd it into life;

A song came gushing, like the natural tears,

To check whose current does not rest with us .

 

    Had I lived ever in the savage woods,

Or in some distant island, which the sea

With wind and wave guards in deep loneliness;

Had my eye never on the beauty dwelt

Of human face, and my ear never drank

The music of a human voice; I feel

My spirit would have pour'd itself in song,

Have learn'd a language from the rustling leaves,

The singing of the birds, and of the tide .

Perchance, then, happy had I never known

Another thought could be attach'd to song

Than of its own delight.    Oh ! let me pause

Over this earlier period, when my heart

Mingled its being with its pleasures, fill'd

With rich enthusiasm , which once flung

Its purple colouring o'er all things of earth,

And without which our utmost power of thought

But sharpens arrows that will drink our blood .

Like woman's soothing influence o'er man

Enthusiasm is upon the mind;

Softening and beautifying that which is

Too harsh and sullen in itself .    How much

I loved the painter's glorious art, which forms

A world like, but more beautiful than, this;

Just catching nature in her happiest mood!

How drank I in fine poetry, which makes

The hearing passionate, fill'd with memories

Which steal from out the past like rays from clouds!

And then the sweet songs of my native vale,

Whose sweetness and whose softness call'd to mind

The perfume of the flowers, the purity

Of the blue sky; oh, how they stirr'd my soul! —

Amid the many golden gifts which heaven

Has left, like portions of its light, on earth

None hath such influence as music hath.

The painter's hues stand visible before us

In power and beauty; we can trace the thoughts

Which are the workings of the poet's mind:

But music is a mystery, and viewless

Even when present, and is less man's act,

And less within his order; for the hand

That can call forth the tones, yet cannot tell

Whither they go, or if they live or die,

When floated once beyond his feeble ear;

And then, as if it were an unreal thing,

The wind will sweep from the neglected strings

As rich a swell as ever minstrel drew.

 

    A poet's word, a painter's touch, will reach

The innermost recesses of the heart,

Making the pulses throb in unison

With joy or grief, which we can analyse;

There is the cause for pleasure and for pain:

But music moves us, and we know not why;

We feel the tears, but cannot trace their source.

Is it the language of some other state ,

Born of its memory?    For what can wake

The soul's strong instinct of another world,

Like music?    Well with sadness doth it suit

To hear the melancholy sounds decay,

And think (for thoughts are life's great human links,

And mingle with our feelings) even so

Will the heart's wildest pulses sink to rest .

 

How have I loved, when the red evening fill'd

Our temple with its glory, first, to gaze

On the strange contrast of the crimson air,

Lighted as if with passion, and flung back,

From silver vase and tripod rich with gems,

To the pale statues round, where human life

Was not, but beauty was, which seem'd to have

Apart existence from humanity:

Then, to go forth where the tall waving pines

Seem'd as behind them roll'd a golden sea

Immortal and eternal; and the boughs,

That darkly swept between me and its light,

Were fitting emblems of the worldly cares

That are the boundary between us and heaven;

Meanwhile, the wind, a wilful messenger

Lingering amid the flowers on his way,

At intervals swept past in melody,

The lutes and voices of the choral hymn

Contending with the rose-breath on his wing!

Perhaps it is these pleasures' chiefest charm,

They are so indefinable, so vague.

From earliest childhood all too well aware

Of the uncertain nature of our joys,

It is delicious to enjoy, yet know

No after-consequence will be to weep.

Pride misers with enjoyment, when we have

Delight in things that are but of the mind:

But half humility when we partake

Pleasures that are half wants, the spirit pines

And struggles in its fetters, and disdains

The low base clay to which it is allied .

But here our rapture raises us: we feel

What glorious power is given to man, and find

Our nature's nobleness and attributes,

Whose heaven is intellect; and we are proud

To think how we can love those things of earth

Which are least earthly; and the soul grows pure

In this high communing, and more divine.

 

    This time of dreaming happiness pass'd by,

Another spirit was within my heart;

I drank the maddening cup of praise, which grew

Henceforth the fountain of my life; I lived

Only in others' breath; a word, a look,

Were of all influence on my destiny:

If praise they spoke, 'twas sunlight to my soul;

Or censure, it was like the scorpion's sting.

 

And yet a darker lesson was to learn —

The hollowness of each: that praise, which is

But base exchange of flattery; that blame,

Given by cautious coldness, which still deems

'Tis safest to depress; that mockery,

Flinging shafts but to show its own keen aim ;

That carelessness, whose very censure's chance;

And, worst of all, the earthly judgment pass'd

By minds whose native clay is unredeem'd

By aught of heaven, whose every thought falls foul

Plague-spot on beauty which they cannot feel,

Tainting all that it touches with itself .

O dream of fame, what hast thou been to me

But the destroyer of life's calm content!

I feel so more than ever, that thy sway

Is weaken'd over me . Once I could find

A deep and dangerous delight in thee;

But that is gone.    I am too much awake.

Light has burst o'er me, but not morning's light;

'Tis such light as will burst upon the tomb,

When all but judgment's over .    Can it be ,

That these fine impulses, these lofty thoughts,

Burning with their own beauty, are but given

To make me the low slave of vanity,

Heartless and humbled ?     O my own sweet power,

Surely thy songs are made for more than this!

What a worst waste of feeling and of life

Have been the imprints of my roll of time,

Too much, too long!    To what use have I turn'd

The golden gifts in which I pride myself ?

They are profaned; with their pure ore I made

A temple resting only on the breath

Of heedless worshippers .    Alas ! that ever

Praise should have been what it has been to me —

The opiate of my heart .    Yet I have dream'd

Of things which cannot be; the bright, the pure,

That all of which the heart may only dream;

And I have mused upon my gift of song,

And deeply felt its beauty , and disdain'd

The pettiness of praise to which at times

My soul has bow'd; and I have scorn'd myself

For that my cheek could burn, my pulses beat

At idle words.    And yet it is in vain

For the full heart to press back every throb

Wholly upon itself .    Ay, fair as are

The visions of a poet's solitude,

There must be something more for happiness;

They seek communion.    It had seem'd to me

A miser's selfishness, had I not sought

To share with others those impassion'd thoughts,

Like light, or hope, or love, in their effects.

When I have watch'd the stars write on the sky

In characters of light, have seen the moon

Come like veiled priestess from the east,

While, like a hymn, the wind swell'd on mine ear,

Telling soft tidings of eve's thousand flowers,

Has it not been the transport of my lute

To find its best delight in sympathy ?

Alas! the idols which our hopes set up,

They are Chaldean ones, half gold, half clay;

We trust we are deceived, we hope, we fear,

Alike without foundation; day by day

Some new illusion is destroyed, and life

Gets cold and colder on towards its close .

Just like the years which make it, some are check'd

By sudden blights in spring; some are dried up

By fiery summers; others waste away

In calm monotony of quiet skies,

And peradventure these may be the best:

They know no hurricanes, no floods that sweep

As a God's vengeance were upon each wave;

But then they have no ruby fruits, no flowers

Shining in purple, and no lighted mines

Of gold and diamond .    Which is the best, —

Beauty and glory, in a southern clime,

Mingled with thunder, tempest; or the calm

Of skies that scarcely change, which, at the least,

If much of shine they have not, have no storms?

I know not: but I know fair earth or sky

Are self-consuming in their loveliness,

And the too radiant sun and fertile soil

In their luxuriance run themselves to waste,

And the green valley and the silver stream

Become a sandy desert.    O! the mind,

Too vivid in its lighted energies,

May read its fate in sunny Araby .

How lives its beauty in each Eastern tale,

Its growth of spices, and its groves of balm!

They are exhausted; and what is it now?

A wild and burning wilderness .    Alas!

For such similitude . Too much this is

The fate of this world's loveliest and best.

 

    Is there not a far people, who possess

Mysterious oracles of olden time,

Who say that this earth labours with a curse ,

That it is fallen from its first estate,

And is now but the shade of what it was?

I do believe the tale.    I feel its truth

In my vain aspirations, in the dreams

That are revealings of another world,

More pure, more perfect than our weary one,

Where day is darkness to the starry soul .

 

    O heart of mine! my once sweet paradise

Of love and hope! how changed thou art to me!

I cannot count thy changes: thou hast lost

Interest in the once idols of thy being;

They have departed, even as if wings

Had borne away their morning; they have left

Weariness, turning pleasure into pain,

And too sure knowledge of their hollowness .

  

    And that too is gone from me; that which was

My solitude's delight!    I can no more

Make real existence of a shadowy world.

Time was, the poet's song, the ancient tale,

Were to me fountains of deep happiness ,

For they grew visible in my lonely hours,

As things in which I had a deed and part;

Their actual presence had not been more true :

But these are bubbling sparkles, that are found

But at the spring's first source .    Ah! years may bring

The mind to its perfection, but no more

Will those young visions live in their own light ;

Life's troubles stir life's waters all too much,

Passions chase fancies, and though still we dream,

The colouring is from reality.

 

    Farewell, my lyre! thou hast not been to me

All I once hoped.    What is the gift of mind ,

But as a barrier to so much that makes

Our life endurable, — companionship,

Mingling affection, calm and gentle peace,

Till the vex'd spirit seals with discontent

A league of sorrow and of vanity,

Built on a future which will never be!

 

    And yet I would resign the praise that now

Makes my cheek crimson, and my pulses beat,

Could I but deem that when my hand is cold ,

And my lip passionless, my songs would be

Number'd mid the young poet's first delights;

Read by the dark-eyed maiden in an hour

Of moonlight, till her cheek shone with its tears;

And murmur'd by the lover when his suit

Calls upon poetry to breathe of love .

I do not hope a sunshine burst of fame,

My lyre asks but a wreath of fragile flowers.

I have told passionate tales of breaking hearts,

Of young cheeks fading even before the rose;

My songs have been the mournful history

Of woman's tenderness and woman's tears;

I have touch'd but the spirit's gentlest chords, —

Surely the fittest for my maiden hand; —

And in their truth my immortality .

 

    Thou lovely and lone star, whose silver light,

Like music o'er the waters, steals along

The soften'd atmosphere; pale star, to thee

I dedicate the lyre, whose influence

I would have sink upon the heart like thine.

     In such an hour as this, the bosom turns

Back to its early feelings; man forgets

His stern ambition and his worldly cares,

And woman loathes the petty vanities

That mar her nature's beauty; like the dew,

Shedding its sweetness o'er the sleeping flowers

Till all their morning freshness is revived,

Kindly affections, sad but yet sweet thoughts,

Melt the cold eyes, long, long unused to weep.

O lute of mine , that I shall wake no more!

Such tearful music, linger on thy strings,

Consecrate unto sorrow and to love;

Thy truth, thy tenderness, be all thy fame!