Page:Blanchard on L. E. L.pdf/26

26 feelings with which, when those days were passed, she commenced her career in the world.

a year's residence at Lewis-place, Fulham, Mr. Landon removed with his family to Old Brompton. Here a considerable period of L. E. L.'s youth was passed. Under the guiding care of her mother, the good and generous qualities of her nature continued to have fair play and to flourish; while those powers of intellect and imagination, which had been early signalized, acquired ripeness and strength so gradually as to insure, in the minds of her friends, the fulfilment of every gratifying promise. The days of tasks and lessons over, her studies took their own turn, and the tastes she displayed were those of the poetry and the romance that coloured all her visions, waking or asleep. Pen and ink had succeeded to the slate, writing to scribbling, distinct images to phantasies that had as little form as substance; and it followed that ideas of publication and a thirst for fame should succeed to the first natural charm of parental kisses and family pats on the head—the delicious encouragement of an occasional "not so bad!" or even a "very clever, indeed!" from some more enthusiastic patron. The desire was soon gratified. Mr. Jerdan, under whose management the "Literary Gazette," then recently established, was rapidly acquiring a large circulation and exercising great literary influence, happened to be a