Page:Blanchard on L. E. L.pdf/121

Rh could not possibly know the real circumstances of the case, throw some momentary colour of credit upon the tales of slanderers. This old familiar thought occasioned her far more pain than any, fear of consequences likely to ensue from the bygone domestic arrangements of her intended husband.

Her health in spite of all improved; and every rumour, new and old, soon gave way to one of a more definite and authorized nature—that L. E. L. was to be married "almost" immediately to the Governor of Cape Coast Castle; and this rumour happened to be "almost" the only one that was not utterly without foundation.

It is now necessary to turn back, to trace the literary progress of L. E. L. during the period to which the events referred to belong. It was not less active and regular than in seasons more free from perturbation and ill-health. Gay or sorrowful, she wrote still, and her imagination shaped for itself about the same tasks, and expressed itself in the same tone, in both conditions.

The interest and admiration awakened in the spring of 1835 by the exhibition of Mr. Maclise's picture of the Vow of the Peacock, attracted L. E. L.'s attention to the subject as one on which her pen might be poetically employed. The brilliancy and power of the painting captivated her fancy, and kindled it to the production of an appropriate narrative, embodying something of the history as well as the romance of chivalry. "Vows on the heron," she observes, "on the pheasant, and the peacock, to do some deed of arms, were common in the olden time. My story, founded on this