INTRODUCTION.
The following sketch of the literary and personal life of L. E L. has been executed in fulfilment of a pledge given to her long before she meditated leaving England, and renewed immediately previous to her departure. I should not otherwise have presumed to attempt anything of the kind. A few years ago, when England had just lost one of her ablest writers, she thus expressed herself in a letter replying to my suggestion that she should review his works—"I almost fear to praise such a man; but comfort myself with thinking that though few can raise the carved marble over a great author's remains, all may throw a flower on his grave."
When supplying me with some materials for a slight sketch of her life, published in the "New
