Page:Blanchard on L. E. L.pdf/61

Rh of the picture, are as lilies flung into a grave.

There are poems in the volume referred to, that, to a woman's grace, add a masculine energy. The "Golden Violet, with its tales of Chivalry and Romance," published by Messrs. Longman and Co., in December, 1826, comprises some of the best conceived and most finished of L. E. L.'s earlier compositions. This poem represents a different species of poetical competition for the prize of the Golden Violet; and introduces the minstrels of various countries, with their ballads, tales, and romances, in every species of measure, singing and reciting on "the first-born day of loveliest May" for the beautiful flower of gold. The characters are various, the subjects fitting to them, the measure, in most instances, skilfully adapted to both. L. E. L.'s taste for the old ballad, and her love of the old romance, animated her here to excellent purpose; and catching, as she was sure to do, the true tone and spirit of the "lay and legend proper," she achieved also an unwonted felicity of construction and appropriateness of expression, in working out her many-storied subject. This volume, which, like the former two, was published at a price rather above than under the average, had an immediate and extensive sale.

Still she went writing on, romancing in verse, and reviewing, as we shall presently have to mention, in prose. Her next published volume was "The Venetian Bracelet, the Lost Pleiad, the History of the Lyre, and other Poems," issued by the same publishers, in October 1829. The fierce political contentions of the time were unfavourable to poetry such as hers; yet her sweet and sorrowful songs again found a fit audience. Her critics