theme, and in depicting its effect upon the female heart, she maintained a melancholy creed, giving to the greater number of her effusions a pensive cast of thought, and making all her stories of true love end unhappily. It was perhaps the natural gaiety of her disposition, which occasioned her to indulge in the plaints and sorrows of her somewhat mournful song, when her spirits were exhausted by the lively flow of conversation, and wanted repose. It need scarcely be said, since the fact is so well established, that it is not the writers of the gayest and most sprightly works, who are always blessed with the most cheerful temperaments; comic effusions proving often the relief of minds oppressed with many cares; while the mirthful and the happy as frequently abandon themselves to what may be truly denominated the luxury of wo. While dwelling with apparently earnest tenderness upon the sorrows of love, its disappointments and treacheries, L. E. L. identified herself with the beings of her fancy, lamenting, frequently in the first person, over miseries which she had never felt, and to which she was by no means likely to be subjected, since both then and subsequently, she manifested an almost extraordinary want of susceptibility, upon all occasions when attempts were made upon her heart.
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