We should say that it is the young and the ardent who must always be the warmest admirers of the larger poems of L.E.L. They are filled with the faith and the fancies of the young. The very scenery and ornaments are of that rich and showy kind which belongs to the youthful taste—the white rose, the jasmine, the summer garniture of deep grass, and glades of greenest foliage; festal gardens with lamps and bowers; gay cavaliers and jewelled dames, and all that glitters in young eyes and love-haunted fancies. But amongst these, numbers of her smaller poems from the first dealt with subjects and sympathies of a more general kind, and gave glimpses of a nobility of sentiment, and a bold expression of her feeling of the unequal lot of humanity, of a far higher character. Such, in the Improvisatrice, are the Guerilla Chief, St. George's Hospital, The Deserter, Gladesmuir, The Covenanters, The Female Convict, The Soldier's Grave, &c. Such are many that we could point out in every succeeding volume. But it was in her few last years that her heart and mind seemed every day to develope more strength, and to gather a wider range of humanity into their embrace. In the later volumes of the Drawing-Room Scrap Book, many of the best poems of which have been reprinted with the Zenana, nothing was more striking than the steady development of growing intellectual power, and of deep, and generous, and truly philosophical sentiments, tone of thought, and serious experience.
But when L. E. L. had fixed her character as a poet, and the public looked only for poetical productions from her, she suddenly came forth as a prose writer, and with still added proofs of intellectual vigour. Her prose stories have the leading characteristics of her poetry. Their theme is love, and their demonstration, that all love is fraught with destruction and desolation. But there are other qualities manifested in the tales. The prose page was for her a wider tablet, on which she could, with more freedom and ampler display, record her views of society. Of these, Francesca Carrara, and Ethil Churchill, are unquestionably the best works, the latter pre-eminently so. In these she has shown, under the characters of Guido and Walter Maynard, her admiration of genius, and her opinion of its fate; under those of Francesca and Ethil Churchill, the adverse destiny of pure and high-souled woman.
These volumes abound with proofs of a shrewd observation of society, with masterly sketches of character, and the most beautiful snatches of scenery. But what surprise and delight more than all, are the sound and true estimates of humanity, and the honest boldness with which her opinions are expressed. The clear perception of the fearful social condition of this country, and the fervent advocacy of the poor, scattered through these works, but especially the last, do honour to her woman's heart. These portions of L. E. L.'s writings require to be yet more truly appreciated.
There is another characteristic of her prose writings which is peculiar. Never were the feelings and experiences of authorship so cordially and accurately described. She tells us all that she has learned freely. She puts words into the mouth of Walter Maynard, of which all who have known anything of literary life, must instantly acknowledge the correctness. The author's heart never was more completely laid open, with all its hopes, fears, fatigues, and enjoyments, its bitter and its glorious experiences. In the last hours of Walter Maynard, she makes him utter what must, at that period, have been daily more and more her own conviction. "I am far cleverer than I was. I have felt, have thought so much! Talk of the mind exhausting itself!—never! Think of the mass of material which every day accumulates! Then experience, with its calm, clear light corrects so many youthful fallacies; every day we feel our higher moral responsibility, and our greater power."
