Page:Blanchard on L. E. L.pdf/60

60 quantity of poetical miseries; but my aim is not to draw neglected genius, or 'mourn a laurel planted on the tomb'—but to trace the progress of a mind highly-gifted, well-rewarded, but finding the fame it won a sting and a sorrow, and finally sinking beneath the shadows of success. Apropos des bottes, I have purchased such a pretty straw bonnet for—but you must guess, when you see it."

Few readers of the poem ('Erinna') thus adverted to—a poem that formed one of the most striking features of the volume, published about two months afterwards, will hesitate to admit that L. E. L. did succeed in "writing up to the idea she had formed," and that thus the high aim was accomplished. In it she takes a lofty view of the poet's lot, entering into his feelings, painting his visions that are realities, exhibiting the moods of his waywardness, and the vicissitudes of his course—delineating his purposes and his ambition—glorifying his strength, sympathizing with his weakness, and all in L. E. L. herself, the while, proving her own to be, indeed, the poet's true vocation, by employing her genius in "giving flowers A life as sweet, more lasting than their own." But all these, the healthier and more cheerful parts of the poem, are heavily overshadowed by the spirit of the philosophy in which it is conceived; the thoughts are of a high cast, but chilling as the snows on the peaks of mountains; and the sweet and lovely images that cheer what else must be wholly desolate, breaking through the