National Progress page 6

Lady Morgan (Sydney Owenson) was before the country as an author for nearly half a century. She was born in Dublin, in 1783. Before she was sixteen years of age she was the author of two novels. Her third work, "The Wild Irish Girl," brought to her the fame for which she longed, and made her a celebrity. In 1811 she married Sir Charles Morgan, a Dublin physician. Her principal works as a novelist were "Patriotic Sketches," " O'Donnell," " Florence M'Carthy," and " The O'Briens and O'Flahertys," which was published in 1827. She was also the author of works on France and Italy; " The Life and Times of Salvator Rosa." In 1841 she published, in connection with her husband, a collection of sketches, called The Book without a Name." She had for a number of years enjoyed a pension of £300, conferred on her by Earl Grey.

One of the most charming poets of the time was Mrs. Hemans, whose maiden name was Felicia Dorothea Browne, daughter of a Liverpool merchant, and sister of Colonel Browne, a distinguished officer, who was for many years one of the commissioners of the metropolitan police in Dublin. Her father being unfortunate in business, removed, when she was nine years old, to North Wales, where she remained until she was sixteen, imbibing, amidst its wild and romantic scenery, the impassioned love of Nature that distinguishes all her poetry. She may be said to have lisped in numbers, for she published a volume of poems - " Early Blossoms " - before she was fifteen years of age Shortly after she met with Captain Hemans, of the 4th regiment, who was smitten with her charms, and after an engagement of three years they were married in 1812. She was at that time a very lovely creature. Her sister, in her "Memoirs of Mrs. Hemans," thus describes her appearance: - " The mantling bloom of her cheeks was shaded by a profusion of natural ringlets, of a rich golden brown; and the ever-varying expression of her brilliant eyes gave a changeful play to her countenance, which made it impossible for a painter to do justice to it." The union was an unhappy one. After six years, during which they had five sons, Captain Hemans removed to Italy, ostensibly for the benefit of his health; but from that time until her death, in 1835, she never beheld her husband's face, during those long years of heartless desertion nobly struggling to maintain her children, and bitterly bewailing that worship which had been the brightest dream of her young and confiding heart. In 1819 she obtained a prize of £50 for the best poem on the subject of Sir William Wallace; and in 1821 that awarded by the Royal Society of Literature for the best poem on the subject of Dartmoor. Her next production was a tragedy, "The Vespers of Palermo," which was unsuccessful on the stage. "The Forest Sanctuary" appeared in 1826, and in 1828 "Records of Woman." In 1830 appeared "Songs of the Affections," and in four years after, "National Lyrics," "Hymns for Childhood," and "Scenes and Hymns of Life." There was a collective edition of her works published, with a memoir by her sister, in 1839, and several other editions subsequently, not only in this country, but in America, where her poems were exceedingly popular. In 1829 she paid a visit to Scotland, where she received a most cordial welcome from Sir Walter Scott, Lord Jeffrey, and other distinguished literary characters. In the following year she visited Wordsworth, and was delighted with the scenery of the Lakes. On her return she went to reside in Dublin, where she devoted herself to the education of her five boys. She was the object of regard and affectionate interest to a large circle; but she suffered greatly from ill health, and her death was preceded by a long and painful illness.

Lord Jeffrey described her poetry as "infinitely sweet, elegant, and tender; touching and contemplative, rather than vehement and overpowering; finished throughout with exquisite delicacy of execution, and informed with purity and loftiness of feeling; the diction always beautiful, harmonious, and free; and the themes, though of infinite variety, uniformly treated with a grace, originality, and judgment which marked the master hand." Sir Archibald Alison remarks "that the genius of woman at this period produced a rival to Coleridge, if not in depth of thought, at least in tenderness of feeling and beauty of expression. Mrs. Hemans was imbued with the very soul of lyric poetry; she only required to have written a little less to have been one of the greatest in that branch that England ever produced." The Ettrick Shepherd described every line of her poetry as like a sad or cheerful smile, and every poem as being in a sense a picture of herself. "Her genius," says Allan Cunningham, "is of the domestic kind, and her best songs are rightly named 'of the affections.' She was by far the most popular of our poetesses, alike at home and beyond the Atlantic." " Her poetry," says Mr. Moir, "is intensely and entirely feminine; and in my estimation, this is the highest praise which, in one point of view, could be awarded it." Bancroft, the American historian, remarks: "She adds the dignity of her sex to a high sense of the duties of a poet; and in the pursuit of literary renown, she never forgets what is due to feminine reserve." " Her inspiration," says Gilfillan, "always pauses at the feminine point. She is no sibyl, tossed to and fro in the tempest of furious excitement, but ever the calm mistress of her highest and stormiest emotions. The finest compliment we can pay her, perhaps the finest compliment that it is possible to pay a woman as a moral being, is to compare her to one of Shakespeare's women, and to say, Had Imogen, or Isabella, or Cornelia become an author, she had so written." Mr. William Howitt remarks, in his work upon "Eminent British Poets," that from the hour of Mrs. Hemans' acquaintance with German literature "she discovered her own forte, and a new life of tenderness and feeling was manifest in all she wrote. She became an almost constant writer in Blackwood's and Colburn's Magazines. Schiller, Goethe, Korner, and Tieck - how sensibly is the influence of their spirit felt in 'The Forest Sanctuary.' How different was the tone of this to all which had gone before. The cold classical model was abandoned; the heart and the fancy spoke out in every line - warm, free, solemn, and tenderly thoughtful."

In Mrs. Hemans woman's heart, purified and spiritualised by affliction, became a fountain of poetry, and by its sacred and beneficent outpourings she merited the beautiful tribute of Mrs. Sigourney: -

"Every unborn age
Shall mix thee with its household charities;
The hoary sire shall bow his deafened ear,
And greet thy sweet words with his benison.
The mother shrine thee as a vestal flame
In the lone temple of her sanctity;
And the young child that takes thee by the hand,
Shall travel with a surer step to heaven."

Letitia Elizabeth Landon, known as one of the most eminent female poets of her time, by the signature "L. E. L." which she appended to her numerous contributions in the magazines, was born at Hans Place, Chelsea, in 1802. Her "Poetical Sketches" were published first in the "Literary Gazette." In 1824 appeared her "Improvisatrice." She was the author of two other volumes of poetry, and of a successful novel. She was an industrious worker, and after her father's death she not only supported herself, but assisted her relatives, by her unrelaxing literary labours. A spirit of melancholy pervades her writings; but it is stated by Mr. L. Blanchard, in her "Life and Literary Remains," which he published, that she was remarkable for the vivacity and playfulness of her disposition. Her poetry ranked very high in public estimation for its lyric beauty and touching pathos; but the circumstances of her early death, which was the subject of much controversy, invested her name with a tragic and romantic interest. In 1838 she was married to Mr. George Maclean, Governor of Cape Coast Castle.

She landed there with her husband in the August of that year, and was settling down to literary labour, apparently in the enjoyment of her usual health. She had been employed writing a number of affectionate letters to her friends in England, breathing a cheerful and hopeful spirit, when on the 16th of October she was found lying dead on the floor of her room, having in her hand a bottle containing prussic acid, a portion of which she had taken. Whether it was taken with a view to self-destruction, or whether it was an accidental over-dose of a remedy which, as her husband alleged, she had been accustomed to use for spasmodic pain in the stomach, was long a question keenly discussed in the public journals. The circumstances of her marriage seemed to favour the supposition that the unhappy lady committed suicide. A more unsuitable match it seems impossible to conceive. She was gentle, refined, preeminently gifted with genius and sensibility, with a heart yearning for affection. He was coarse and licentious in his manners, with a savage temper, and sneered at poetry and sentiment. Her maid was the only European in the place with whom she could exchange a thought, and she was about to return home the next day, leaving her mistress in a condition of perfect loneliness. We can easily understand how a mind like hers, delighting in genial and cultivated society, should, under such circumstances, have been suddenly prostrated with a sense of loneliness, desolation, and despair, to find all the joyous aspirations of her youth, all the fond illusions and blissful dreams of life, thus ended. These facts are stated on the authority of Dr. R. R. Madden, of Dublin, in his "Life of Lady Blessington," at whose request he visited Cape Coast Castle, for the purpose of erecting a votive tablet to the memory of "L. E. L."

The Hon. Mrs. Caroline Elizabeth Norton, the second daughter of Thomas Sheridan, the actor, and granddaughter of the celebrated Richard Brinsley Sheridan, was born in 1808. She early manifested the proverbial /talent of her family. At the age of nineteen, having been left an orphan, she married the Hon. George Norton, brother to Lord Grantley, and then a police magistrate in London. The marriage proved unhappy, and she was separated from her husband, in 1836, under the most painful circumstances; the effect of which on her mind is indeed perceptible in the pervading sadness of her subsequent works. In her seventeenth year she had composed "The Sorrows of Rosalie," a pathetic story of village life, in verse. Her next poem was "The Undying One," founded upon the legend of "The Wandering Jew." This was followed, in 1840, by "The Dream," and other poems. Her pen has been ever since incessantly employed. Among her works was one of the best novels of her time, "Stuart of Dunleath." A writer in the Quarterly Review speaks of Mrs. Norton as "the Byron of modern poetesses. She has very much of that intense personal passion by which Byron's poetry is distinguished from the larger grasp and deeper communion with man and Nature of Wordsworth. She has also Byron's beautiful intervals of tenderness, his strong practical thought, and his forceful expression. It is not an artificial imitation, but a natural parallel."

Among the female poets of the day the following deserve honourable mention, though not stars of the first magnitude; - Caroline Bowles (Mrs. Southey), author of "The Widow's Tale," and other poems, published in 1822; "Solitary Hours," in 1826; and "The Birthday," and other poems, in 1836. Elizabeth B. Browning was so good a classical scholar that she wrote a translation of " Prometheus Bound." She was also the author of two original volumes, "The Seraphim," and other poems; and "The Romaunt of the Page."

Mrs. Mary Howitt is the author of many works, concerning which it has been truly said that " the whole are marked by a graceful intelligence and a simple tenderness which at once charm the reader, and win his affections for the author." In 1823 Mr. and Mrs. Howitt published a joint work, " The Forest Minstrel," and, in 1827, " The Desolation of Eyam," and other poems. They also commenced jointly " The Book of the Seasons," in 1831.

Robert Pollock was a young Scottish minister, who rose suddenly to popularity by the publication of a poem in blank verse, entitled " The Course of Time." It was long and discursive, extending to ten books. The style was very unequal, sometimes rising to Miltonic heights, and often sinking to tame prose. The author had a wonderful command of words for one so young, and time would, no doubt, have mellowed what was crude and refined what was coarse, if he had not been prematurely cut off, just when his genius and his goodness had gathered round him a host of warm friends. He died of consumption, on the 15th of September, 1827. His early death contributed to the popularity of the poem, which ran through many editions.

John Wilson, though born so far back as 1785, was one of the writers of our times most distinguished for originality, freshness, power, and rich fancy, combined with learning and eloquence. As " Christopher North," he was long the delight of the readers of Blackwood's Magazine. His criticisms on poetry were distinguished by a profusion of thought and imagery, which flowed forth so rapidly, and sometimes so little under the control of judgment, that there seemed no reason why the stream of illustration should not flow on for ever. He was a poet as well as a critic; but it is a singular fact that his imagination, like that of Milton, was more active in prose than in verse. In the latter, his genius was like a spirited horse in harness; in the former, like the same horse unbridled, and bounding wildly over the prairies. Accordingly, as Lord Jeffrey remarks, " almost the only passions with which his poetry is conversant are the gentler sympathies of our nature - tender compassion, confiding affection, and guiltless sorrow. From all these there results, along with the most touching and tranquil- lising sweetness, a certain monotony and languor, which, to those who read poetry for amusement merely, will be apt to appear like dulness, and must be felt as a defect by all who have been used to the variety, rapidity, and energy of the popular poetry of the day." Yet in his nature he was the reverse of all this - ardent, energetic, impetuous, dashing; a fine, athletic man, vigorous alike in body and mind. His principal poetical work was " The Isle of Palms," published in 1812, which was followed by one more elaborate, "The City of the Plague." Among the most popular of his prose fictions are, " The Lights and Shadows of Scottish Life," "The Trials of Margaret Lyndsay," and "The Foresters." But it was in periodical literature that he shone most brightly. Soon after the establishment of Blackwood's Magazine, in 1817, he became its chief editor, and thenceforward he poured forth through this organ all the treasures of his intellect. He produced, month after month, a series of articles " which long filled the public with mingled delight and astonishment by their extraordinary combination of the most opposite qualities - pathos the purest, the deepest, and the most tender; wild, wanton, and withering sarcasm; sentiment refined and exalted to the pitch of devotion; and humour of the freest, broadest, and most exuberant vein." In 1820 he succeeded Dr. Thomas Brown as Professor of Moral Philosophy in the University of Edinburgh, which he held till 1851, when he resigned, in consequence of ill-health, receiving about the same time a pension of £300 a year from the Crown. As a professor, he was greatly beloved by his students, on account of his genial nature and the warm interest he took in their welfare; and he was always surrounded by troops of friends, who respected his character almost as much as they admired his genius. He died in 1854.