Page:Cousins's Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature.djvu/240

228 presence brightened their lives until her marriage in 1833 to E. Moxon, the publisher. In 1825 L. retired, and lived at Enfield and Edmonton. But his health was impaired, and his sister's attacks of mental alienation were ever becoming more frequent and of longer duration. During one of his walks he fell, slightly hurting his face. The wound developed into erysipelas, and he d. on December 29, 1834. His sister survived until 1847.

The place of L. as an essayist and critic is the very highest. His only rival in the former department is, but in depth and tenderness of feeling, and richness of fancy L. is the superior. In the realms of criticism there can be no comparison between the two. L. is here at once profound and subtle, and his work led as much as any other influence to the revival of interest in and appreciation of our older poetry. His own writings, which are self-revealing in a quite unusual and always charming way, and the recollections of his friends, have made the personality of Lamb more familiar to us than any other in our literature, except that of Johnson. His weaknesses, his oddities, his charm, his humour, his stutter, are all as familiar to his readers as if they had known him, and the tragedy and noble self-sacrifice of his life add a feeling of reverence for a character we already love.

Life and Letters and Final Memorials by Talfourd, also Memoir by B. W. Proctor and A. Ainger prefixed to ed. of Works (1883-88). Life, Works, and Letters of Charles and Mary Lamb, in 9 vols., E.V. Lucas, and 12 vols. ed. W. Macdonald.

 Author:Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802-1838).—Poetess, dau. of an army agent, was b. in London. She was a prolific and, in her day, remarkably popular writer, but she wrote far too easily and far too much for permanent fame. Many of her poems appeared in the Literary Gazette, and similar publications, but she pub. separately The Fate of Adelaide (1821), The Improvisatrice (1824), The Troubadour (1825), The Venetian Bracelet (1829), etc. She also wrote a few novels, of which Ethel Churchill was the best, and a tragedy Castruccio Castracani (1837). She m. a Mr. Maclean, Governor of one of the West African Colonies, where, shortly after her arrival, she was found dead from the effects of an overdose of poison, which it was supposed she had taken as a relief from spasms to which she was subject. She was best known by her initials, L.E.L., under which she was accustomed to write.

 Author:Walter Savage Landor (1775-1864).—Poet and miscellaneous author, s. of a physician, was b. at Ipsley Court, Warwick, the property of his mother, and ed. at Rugby and Oxf., where he earned the nickname of "the mad Jacobin," and whence he was rusticated. His whole long life thereafter was a series of quarrels, extravagances, and escapades of various kinds, the result of his violent prejudices, love of paradox, and ungovernable temper. He quarrelled with his f., his wife, most of his relations, and nearly all his friends, ran through a large fortune, and ended his days in Italy supported by a pension granted by his brothers. Yet he was not devoid of strong affections and generosity. His earliest publication was Poems (1795); Gebir (1798), an epic, had 