Letitia Elizabeth Landon, 1802-1839: more gifted, and yet not as well trained as either of the preceding, Miss Landon (L. E. L.) has given vent to impassioned sentiment in poetry and prose. Besides many smaller pieces, she wrote The Improvisatrice, The Troubadour, The Golden Violet, and several prose romances, among which the best are Romance and Reality, and Ethel Churchill. She wrote too rapidly to finish with elegance; and her earlier pieces are disfigured by this want of finish, and by a lack of cool judgment; but her later writings are better matured and more correct. She married Captain Maclean, the governor of Cape Coast Castle, in Africa, and died there suddenly, from an overdose of strong medicine which she was accustomed to take for a nervous affection.
Maria Edgeworth, 1767-1849: she was English born, but resided most of her life in Ireland. Without remarkable genius, she may be said to have exercised a greater influence over her period than any other woman who lived in it. There is an aptitude and a practical utility in her stories which are felt in all circles. Her works for children are delightful and formative. Every one has read and re-read with pleasure the interesting and instructive stories contained in The Parents' Assistant. And what these are to the children, her novels are to those of larger growth. They are eighteen in number, and are illustrative of the society, fashion, and morals of the day; and always inculcate a good moral. Among them we may particularize Forester, The Absentee, and The Modern Griselda. All critics, even those who deny her great genius, agree in their estimate of the moral value of her stories, every one of which is at once a portraiture of her age and an instructive lesson to it. The feminine delicacy with which she offers counsel and administers reproof gives a great charm to, and will insure the permanent popularity of, her productions.
Jane Austen, 1775-1817: as a novelist she occupied a high place in her day, but her stories are gradually sinking into an historic repose, from which the coming generations will not care to disturb them. Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility are perhaps the best of her productions, and are valuable as displaying the society and the nature around her with delicacy and tact.
Mary Ferrier, 1782-1855: like Miss Austen, she wrote novels of existing society, of which The Marriage and The Inheritance are the best known. They were great favorites with Sir Walter Scott, who esteemed Miss Ferrier's genius highly: they are little read at the present time.
Robert Pollok, 1799-1827: a Scottish minister, who is chiefly known by his long poem, cast in a Miltonic mould, entitled The Course of Time. It is singularly significant of religious fervor, delicate health, youthful immaturity, and poetic yearnings. It abounds in startling effects, which please at first from their novelty, but will not bear a calm, critical analysis. On its first appearance, The Course of Time was immensely popular; but it has steadily lost favor, and its highest flights are "unearthly flutterings" when compared with the powerful soarings of Milton's imagination and the gentle harmonies of Cowper's religious muse. Pollok died early of consumption: his youth and his disease account for the faults and defects of his poem.
Leigh Hunt, 1784-1859: a novelist, a poet, an editor, a critic, a companion of literary men, Hunt occupies a distinct position among the authors of his day. Wielding a sensible and graceful rather than a powerful pen, he has touched almost every subject in the range of our literature, and has been the champion and biographer of numerous literary friends. He was the companion of Byron, Shelley, Keats, Lamb, Coleridge, and many other authors. He edited at various times several radical papers—The Examiner, The Reflector, The Indicator, and The Liberal; for a satire upon the regent, published in the first, he was imprisoned for two years. Among his poems The Story of Rimini is the best. His Legend of Florence is a beautiful drama. There are few pieces containing so small a number of lines, and yet enshrining a full story, which have been as popular as his Abou Ben Adhem. Always cheerful, refined and delicate in style, appreciative of others, Hunt's place in English literature is enviable, if not very exalted; like the atmosphere, his writings circulate healthfully and quietly around efforts of greater poets than himself.
James Hogg, 1770-1835: a self-taught rustic, with little early schooling, except what the shepherd-boy could draw from nature, he wrote from his own head and heart without the canons and the graces of the Schools. With something of the homely nature of Burns, and the Scottish romance of Walter Scott, he produced numerous poems which are stamped with true genius. He catered to Scottish feeling, and began his fame by the stirring lines beginning;
My name is Donald McDonald,
I live in the Highlands so grand.
His best known poetical works are The Queen's Wake, containing seventeen stories in verse, of which the most striking is that of Bonny Kilmeny. He was always called "The Ettrick Shepherd." Wilson says of The Queen's Wake that "it is a garland of fresh flowers bound with a band of rushes from the moor;" a very fitting and just view of the work of one who was at once poet and rustic.
Allan Cunningham, 1785-1842; like Hogg, in that as a writer he felt the influence of both Burns and Scott, Cunningham was the son of a gardener, and a self-made man. In early life he was apprenticed to a mason. He wrote much fugitive poetry, among which the most popular pieces are, A Wet Sheet and a Flowing Sea, Gentle Hugh Herries, and It's Hame and it's Hame. Among his stories are Traditional Tales of the Peasantry, Lord Roldan, and The Maid of Elwar. His position for a time, as clerk and overseer of Chantrey's establishment, gave him the idea of writing The Lives of Eminent British Painters, Sculptors, and Architects. He was a voluminous author; his poetry is of a high lyrical order, and true to nature; but his prose will not retain its place in public favor: it is at once diffuse and obscure.