Part 14

These calumnies, however, must for years have been a source of anguish to her, haunting, but, happily, not disabling her in the midst of her incessant exertions for the holiest of purposes. They put an end to one engagement of marriage; they very probably threw their weight into the decision which conducted her into the fatal one she ultimately formed.

The circumstances connected with her marriage and death are too well known, to require narrating here. Time has shown no clear light on the mystery. Mr. Laman Blanchard, in his memoir of her, has labored hard to prove that she did not die by the poison of prussic acid. His reasoning will not bear a moment's examination. That she died with a bottle in her hand, which contained it, he confesses is proved by other evidence than that of Mrs. Bailey, who first found her dead. He quotes Dr. Thomson, who furnished her order for her medicine-chest, and examined the list of articles actually put into it, and who also, on referring to the prescriptions written by him for her on former occasions, certified that on no occasion had he ordered her prussic acid. On this, Mr. Blanchard says, very innocently, how then could she possibly have got it? and adds, that very probably she was quite ignorant of its existence and nature; as he says he himself was! That is, that hydrocyanic acid was prussic acid!

Unfortunately, the fact stands that she was found _by the surgeon_ with an empty bottle, labeled "hydrocyanic acid," in her hand, and was dead. "An empty bottle, though it bear on its label the words, 'hydrocyanic acid,' ceases to be a proof of her having taken any, when it is found there in her hand!" Poor Blanchard! How little did he think, in his generous desire to rescue his friend from the stigma of self-destruction, that no person, except himself, would require more conclusive evidence of the fact of a person's dying from the taking of prussic acid, than that of finding her dead on the floor, with an exhausted bottle of it in her hand! But, unfortunately, there are other facts which, however we may conclude as to the circumstance of her having thus taken it willfully, leave us no doubt of her being well acquainted with the effects of this poison; of her being in the habit of keeping it; and of her having actually, years before, threatened to make a fatal use of this very remedy.

In Ethel Churchill will be found her own recital of the Countess Marchmont distilling herself this very poison from the laurel, and keeping secretly by her this poison, for the purpose of self-destruction under certain circumstances. This shows, most unanswerably, that Miss Landon not only was well aware of the character of this poison, but of the mode of its preparation. She does not send her heroine at once to the druggist's shop for it; though scores, as is too well known, have found no difficulty in procuring it there; but she details to us the process of its distillation, bottling, and secreting for use.

There is a still more painful fact in existence, which, I believe, has never been before adverted to in print, but is unquestionable, which brings the matter more painfully home. During the agonies of mind which Miss Landon suffered, at a time when calumny was dealing very freely with her name, her old friend, and, for a long time, co-inmate, Miss Roberts, came in one day, and found her very much agitated. "Have those horrible reports," she eagerly inquired, "got into the papers, Miss Roberts?" Miss Roberts assured her they had not. "If they do," she exclaimed, opening a drawer in the table, and taking out a vial, "I am resolved--here is my remedy!" The vial was a vial of prussic acid. This fact I have on the authority of the late Emma Roberts herself. There remains, therefore, no question that Miss Landon was well acquainted with the nature of prussic acid, for she kept it by her, and had declared, under circumstances of cruel excitement, her resolve to use it on a certain contingency. Being found, therefore, with an emptied vial of this very poison in her hand, and dead on the floor, can leave no rational doubt that she died by it, and by her own hand.

But there remains the question, whether she took it purposely; and it may be very strongly doubted that she did. From all that has transpired, it is more probable that she had taken it by mistake. That being in the habit of taking, by Dr. Thomson's prescription, the _Tinctura Hyosciami_, she had been misled, in seeking hastily in her spasms for it, by the similar label of _Acidum Hydrocyanicum_; and, perceiving her mistake, had hurried toward the door to call for assistance, but in vain; the usual quantity of _Hyosciamus_ being an almost instant death-draught of the acid.

That Mrs. Maclean was likely to take this poison purposely, there is no ground to imagine. On the contrary, to the very last, her letters to England were full of a cheerfulness that has all the air of thorough reality. It is true, there are many circumstances that we could wish otherwise: that her husband had a connection with, and, it is believed, a family by, a native Fantee woman; that he insisted on the marriage with Miss Landon in England remaining a secret till just before sailing, as if fearful of the news preceding him home; that he went on shore in the night, through the surf, and at great risk, as if to remove this woman from the spot, or see that she was not on it; that the last two letters written to her family in England, were detained by her husband; that the Mrs. Bailey, who attended on Mrs. Maclean, and was about to sail the next day with her husband for England, not only gave up these letters, but stayed there a year longer; and that she turned out to be any thing but truthful in her statements. Beside these, there are other facts which surprise us. That Mrs. Maclean should have married under the impression that she was not to go out to Cape Coast at all; that then she was to stay only three years; that though Mr. Maclean knew the position L. E. L. had held here--that she had been occupied with writing, and not with cooking; that a woman who had been, as she had been for the greater part of her life, the cherished and caressed favorite of the most intelligent society of London, could not make, for the man of her choice, a more entire sacrifice, than to go out to a distant barbarous coast and settlement, in which was no single Englishwoman, except the wife of a missionary; and might, therefore, reasonably expect that that man should make every arrangement possible for her comfort; that he should not object to her taking an English maid; that he should at least have pots and pans in his house, where his celebrated wife was to become housekeeper, and almost cook; that he should not lie in bed all day, and leave her to entertain strange governors and their suites. There are these and other things, which we must always wish had been much otherwise; but all these will not induce us to let go the belief to which we cling, that L. E. L., though she unquestionably died by her own hand, died so through accident, and not through resolve or cause for it.

The circumstances connected with this last home of the young poetess are strange enough in themselves, independent of the closing tragedy. That she who was educated in, and for, London; who could hardly bear the country; who says, she worshiped the very pavement of London; who was the idolized object of the ever moving and thronging social circles of the metropolis, should go voluntarily out to the desert of an African coast, to a climate generally fatal to Englishwomen, and to the year-long solitude of that government fort, was a circumstance which astonished every one. The picture of this home of exile, and of herself and her duties in it, is drawn livingly by herself. Before giving this, we may here simply state that Cape Coast Castle is one of the eight British settlements on the Gold Coast. The castle stands on a rock of gneiss and mixed slate, about twenty feet above the level of the sea, in 5° 6' N. lat., and 1° 10' W. long. Outside there is a native town; and the adjacent country, to a considerable distance, has been cleared, and rendered fit for cultivation. The ruling natives are the Fantees, a clever, stirring, turbulent race.

In one of her letters, she gives this account of the situation and scenery of the castle:--"On three sides we are surrounded by the sea. I like the perpetual dash on the rocks--one wave comes up after another, and is forever dashed in pieces, like human hopes, that only swell to be disappointed. We advance,--up springs the shining froth of love or hope,--'a moment white, then gone forever!' The land view, with its cocoa and palm-trees, is very striking--it is like a scene in the Arabian Nights. Of a night, the beauty is very remarkable; the sea is of a silvery purple, and the moon deserves all that has been said in her favor. I have only been once out of the fort by daylight, and then was delighted. The salt lakes were first dyed a deep crimson by the setting sun, and as we returned they seemed a faint violet by the twilight, just broken by a thousand stars; while before us was the red beacon-light."

We may complete the view, exterior and interior, by other extracts. "I must say, in itself, the place is infinitely superior to all that I ever dreamed of. The castle is a fine building--the rooms excellent. I do not suffer from heat; insects there are few, or none; and I am in excellent health. The solitude, except an occasional dinner, is absolute: from seven in the morning till seven, when we dine, I never see Mr. Maclean, and rarely any one else. We were welcomed by a series of dinners, which I am glad are over,--for it is very awkward to be the only lady; still the great kindness with which I have been treated, and the very pleasant manners of many of the gentlemen, made me feel it as little as possible. Last week we had a visit from Captain Castle of the Pylades. We had also a visit from Colonel Bosch, the Dutch governor, a most gentlemanlike man. But fancy how awkward the next morning!--I can not induce Mr. Maclean to rise; and I have to make breakfast, and do the honors of adieu to him and his officers--white plumes, mustaches, and all. I think I never felt more embarrassed.

"The native huts I first took for ricks of hay; but those of the better sort are pretty white houses, with green blinds. The English gentlemen resident here have very large houses, quite mansions, with galleries running round them. Generally speaking, the vegetation is so thick, that the growth of the shrubs rather resembles a wall. The solitude here is Robinson Crusoeish. The hills are covered to the top with what we should call calf-weed, but here is called bush: on two of these hills are small forts built by Mr. Maclean. The natives seem obliging and intelligent, and look very picturesque, with their fine dark figures, with pieces of the country cloth flung round them: they seem to have an excellent ear for music. The band seems to play from morning to night.

"The castle is a fine building, a sort of double square, shaped like an H, of which we occupy the middle. A large flight of steps leads to the hall, on either side of which is a suite of rooms. The one in which I am writing would be pretty in England. It is of a pale blue, and hung with some beautiful prints, for which Mr. Maclean has a passion.

"You can not imagine how different every thing is here to England. I hope, however, in time to get on pretty well. There is, nevertheless, a deal to do. I have never been accustomed to housekeeping, and here every thing must be seen to by yourself; it matters not what it is, it must be kept under lock and key. I get up at seven, breakfast at eight, and give out flour, butter, sugar, all from the store. I have found the bag you gave me so useful to hold the keys, of which I have a little army. We live almost entirely on chickens and ducks, for if a sheep be killed it must be all eaten that day. The bread is very good: they use palm wine for yeast. Yams are a capital substitute for potatoes; pies and puddings are scarce thought of, unless there is a party. The washing has been a terrible trouble, but I am getting on better. I have found a woman to wash some of the things, but the men do all the starching and ironing. Never did people require so much looking after. Till Mr. Maclean comes in from court at seven, I never see a living creature but the servants. * * * The weather is now very warm; the nights so hot that you can only bear the lightest sheet over you. As to the beds, the mattresses are so hard, they are like iron. The damp is very destructive; the dew is like rain, and there are no fireplaces: you would not believe it, but a grate would be the first of luxuries. Keys, scissors, every thing rusts. * * * I find the servants civil, and not wanting in intelligence, but industry. Each has servants to wait on him, whom they call sense-boys, _i.e._, they wait on them to be taught. Scouring is done by the prisoners. Fancy three men employed to clean a room, which, in England, an old woman could do in an hour, while a soldier stands over them with a drawn bayonet."

Such was the last strange, solitary home of L. E. L.; such the strange life of one who had been before employed only in diffusing her beautiful fancies amid her countrymen. Here she was rising at seven, giving out flour, sugar, etc. from the stores, seeing what room she would have cleaned, and then sitting down to write. In the midst of this new species of existence, she is suddenly plunged into the grave, leaving the wherefore a wonder. The land which was the attraction of her childhood, singularly enough, thus became her sepulcher. A marble slab, with a Latin inscription, is said to be erected there by her husband; and in Brompton Church a monument has been placed by her admiring friends.

SIR WALTER SCOTT.

Many and wonderful as are the romances which Sir Walter Scott wrote, there are none of them so wonderful as the romance of his own life. It is not that from a simple son of a Writer to the Signet, he raised himself to wealth and title;--that many have done before him, and far more than that. That many a man of most ordinary brain can achieve; can, as it were, almost stumble into, he knows not how. That many a scrivener, a paviour, or a pawnbroker, has accomplished, and been still deemed no miracle. The city of London, from the days of Dick Whittington to those of Sir Peter Laurie, can show a legion of such culminations. But Sir Walter Scott won _his_ wealth and title in fields more renowned for starvation and "Calamities," than for making of fortunes--those of literature. It was from the barren hills of Parnassus that he drew down wealth in quantities that struck the whole world with astonishment, and made those famous mountains, trodden bare with the feet of glorious paupers, rivals of the teeming heights of Mexico and Peru. At a period when the sources of literature appeared to have exhausted themselves; when it was declared that nothing original could be again expected in poetry, that all its secret places were rifled, all its fashions outworn, all its imagery beaten into triteness; when romance was grown mawkish and even childish; when Mrs. Radcliffe and Horace Walpole had exhausted its terrors, and the novelist's path through common life, it was thought, had been gleaned of all possible discovery by Fielding, Richardson and Smollett, Goldsmith and Sterne,--when this was confirmed in public opinion by the sentimentalities of Henry Mackenzie, forth started Scott as a giant of the first magnitude, and demolished all the fond ideas of such dusty-brained dreamers. He opened up on every side new scenes of invention. In poetry and romance, he showed that there was not a corner of these islands which was not, so far from being exhausted, standing thick with the richest materials for the most wonderful and beautiful creations. The reign of the schoolmen and the copyists was at an end. Nature, history, tradition, life, every thing and every place, were shown by this new and vigorous spirit to be full to overflowing with what had been, in the dim eyes of former _soi-disant_ geniuses, only dry bones; but which, at the touch of this bold necromancer, sprung up living forms of the most fascinating grace. The whole public opened eyes of wonder, and in breathless amazement and delight saw this active and unweariable agent call round him, from the brooks and mountains of his native land, troop after troop of kings, queens, warriors, women of regal forms and more regal spirits; visions of purity and loveliness; and lowly creations of no less glorious virtues. The whole land seemed astir with armies, insurrections, pageantries of love, and passages of sorrow, that for twenty years kept the enraptured public in a trance, as it were, of one accumulating marvel and joy. There seemed no bounds to his powers, or the field of his operations. From Scotland he descended into England, stepped over into France, Germany, Switzerland, nay, even into Palestine and India; and people asked, as volumes, any one of which would have established a first-rate reputation, were poured out, year after year, with the rapid prodigality of a mountain stream,--is there no limit to the wondrous powers of this man's imagination and creative faculty? There really seemed none. Fresh stories, of totally novel construction, fresh characters, of the most startling originality, were continually coming forward, as from an inexhaustible world of soul. Not only did the loftiest and most marked characters of our history, either the Scotch or English, again move before us in all their vitality of passions and of crimes, of virtue and of heroism as--Bruce, James V. and VI., Richard Coeur de Lion, Elizabeth, Mary of Scots, Leicester, James I. of England, Montrose, Claverhouse, Cumberland the butcher; not only did the covenanters preach and fight anew, and the highland clans rise in aid of the Stuart, but new personages, of the rarest beauty, the haughtiest command, or the most curious humor, swarmed out upon the stage of life, thick, as if their creation had cost no effort. Flora M'Ivor, Rose Bradwardine, Rebecca, the high-souled Jewess, the unhappy Lucy Ashton and Amy Robsart, the lowly Effie Deans, and her homely yet glorious sister Jenny, the bewitching Di Vernon, and Brenda Troil of the northern isles, stand radiant amid a host of lesser beauties; while Rob Roy, the Robin Hood of the hills, treads in manly dignity his native heather; Balfour of Burley issues a stalwart apparition from his hiding-places; and for infinitude of humor, and strangeness of aspect and mood, where are the pages that can present a troop like these: the Baron of Bradwardine, Dominie Sampson, Meg Merrilies, Monkbarns, Edie Ochiltree, Dugald Dalgetty, Old Mortality, Bailie Nicol Jarvie, Andrew Fairservice, Caleb Balderstone, Flibbertigibbet, Norna of the Fitful Head, and that fine fellow, the farmer of Liddesdale, with whom every one feels a desire to shake hands, honest Dandie Dinmont, with all his Peppers and Mustards yaffling at his heels?

It may be safely said that, in twenty years, one man enriched the literature of his country with more story of intense beauty, and more original character, than all its literati together for two hundred years before. And this is only part of the wonder with Sir Walter Scott; he was all this time a man of business, of grave and various business--a Clerk of Session, sitting in the Parliament-house of Edinburgh daily, during term, from ten to four o'clock--the Sheriff of Selkirk, with its calls--an active cavalry volunteer--a sitter on gas and other committees--a zealous politician and reviewer--mixed up in a world of printing and publishing concerns, and ready to run off and traverse as diligently sea and land, in all directions, at every possible interval. Beside all this, he was a buyer of lands, a planter of extensive woods, a raiser of a fairy castle, a keen sportsman with grayhound and fish-spear. Amid all these avocations and amusements, his writing appeared the produce of his odd hours; and this mass of romance, on which his fame chiefly rests, after all, but a fragment of his literary labor. In the enormous list of his works, to be found at the end of his Life by Lockhart, his novels and poems appear but a slight sprinkling amid his heavier toils: reviews, translations, essays, six volumes; Tales of a Grandfather, twelve volumes; sermons, memoirs, a multitude; editions of Swift and Dryden, in nineteen volumes and eighteen volumes; Somers's Tracts, in thirteen volumes; antiquities, lives, etc., etc. The array of works, written and edited, is astounding: and when we recollect that little of this was done before forty, and that he died at the age of sixty-one, our astonishment becomes boundless. It is in vain to look for another such life of gigantic literary labor, performed by a man of the world, and no exclusive, unmitigated bookworm; much less of such an affluent produce of originality. In these particulars, Scott stands alone.