s; she would argue that a conversation of facts would be as dull
as a work on algebra, and that all she did was to put her poetry into
practice. In these moods you might as well attempt to imprison a sunbeam
as keep her to matter-of-fact; and the misery was, that gradually the
number of detractors increased, who caught up these "effective" scraps,
and set them in circulation.

She was not more than fifteen years old when the letters "L. E.
L."--appended to some verses in the "Literary Gazette"--riveted public
attention; and when it became known that the author was scarcely in her
teens, a full gush of popularity burst upon her that might have turned
older heads and steadier dispositions. She became a "lion," courted and
flattered and feted; yet never was she misled by the notion that
popularity is happiness, or lip-service the true homage of the heart.

She was residing at Old Brompton, when her first poem appeared in the
"Literary Gazette," which Mr. Jerdan had not long previously
established. It would be difficult to conceive the enthusiasm excited by
the magical three letters appended to the poems, whenever they appeared.
Mr. Jerdan was a near neighbor of the Landons, and he thus refers to
their residence at Old Brompton:--

"My cottage overlooked the mansion and grounds of Mr. Landon, the father
of 'L. E. L.,' at Old Brompton, a narrow lane only dividing our
residences. My first recollection of the future poetess is that of a
plump girl, grown enough to be almost mistaken for a woman, bowling a
hoop round the walks, with a hoop-stick in one hand and a book in the
other, reading as she ran, and as well as she could managing both
exercise and instruction at the same time."

She was born on the 14th of August, 1802, at Hans Place, Chelsea, where
her father, a junior partner in the prosperous house of Adair,
army-agents, then resided. And in that locality, with few brief
intervals, the whole of her life was passed.

When we first knew her, in 1825, she lived with her grandmother in Sloane
Street; subsequently she was a boarder in the school-establishment
of the Misses Lance, at No. 22, Hans Place, the house in which she had
been a pupil when but six years old; and here she was residing up to
within a few months of her marriage, when, in consequence of the
retirement of the Misses Lance, she became an inmate in the family of
Mrs. Sheddon.

Her grandmother's grave was, if I recollect rightly, the third that was
mad