LAKDEN, JAMEa 



DOR, WALTER SAVAGE. 



78 



elf to abandon bit dreams of ' high art.' or be content to give up his 

 bopM of uniting in himself the excellence of HafTm-He and Titian. 

 While punning hi* historical atudiec, and when thrown on bin own 

 resource*, be eopied, a* uaual, a good dral after the leading painters 

 of various school. . and it may be mentioned aa a proof of him! 

 in thu craft that air. Lance claims to have repainted entirely certain 

 oonaidcrable portions of the large ' Boar Hunt ' by Velasquez, now in 

 the National Gallery, it baring while it was the property of I-ord 

 Oewley, been inadvertently damaged by the ' restorer ' to whom it bad 

 been entrusted to clean. 



A* toon as Mr. Lance fairly pave up his lofty notions and devoted 

 himrolf in earnest to painting fruit, dead birds, and the like, his rare 

 ability begun to make iUelf felt Before his time such subjects bad in 

 England 1 e* n left to painters whose artistic education had been of the 

 most imperfect kind, and whose taste was usually on a level with 

 tht ir education. Lance brought to bear on this lower walk of art the 

 technical knowledge and manual skill he had acquired in studying for 

 tbn highest; and along with this be combined a natural aptitude for 

 colour and a cultivated taste. Year after year as lie continued to 

 erinl to the exhibitions of the Royal Academy and the British Institu- 

 tion (where his works were always seen to the most advantage), his 

 picture* displayed growing power. It was toon perceived that a really 

 orivinal painter l.nd arisen, one as original in his lino, and as thoroughly 

 independent in hi.- course, as Ktty or Lsndse r in theirs ; and while 

 the uninitiated stayed to gaze with unquestioning admiration at the 

 rare tmth with which tho luscious grapes and melons mid other 

 dainty fruit, or birds, worn spread out on the cleverly copied piece of 

 baiS'inatting. or piled on the costly plate, the students and practitioners 

 of art looked with equal delight and almost equal wonder at the 

 painter's | erfect mastery over his materials, bis skill in composition, 

 and th exquisite arrangement of his colour, by which, while preserving 

 to each peach or plum or grape ita exact degree of light and shadow, of 

 opacity or Ermi transparency, its peculiar surface, and its most delicate 

 bloom, as wdl as its precise colour, the whole was wrought into 

 admirable harmony and unity of effect. In minute elaboration Mr. 

 Lance has not attempted to rival some of the famous Dutch and 

 Flemish fruit and flower painter), but for that he fully atones by a 

 more manly style of execution ; and where he hag been tempted to 

 fini-h more minutely than usual his pictures have certainly not gained 

 by the additional labour. For many a year Mr. Lance seldom varied 

 much in the titles of the pictures he sent to the British Institution 

 they were called either ' Fruit' or ' Game,' or by some equally general 

 term : at the Academy he perhaps assumed the more sounding phrase 

 of ' Preparation for a Banquet," or ' Kresh from tho Lake,' or ' Just 

 Shot,' or 'Just (lathered.' But of late years he has occasionally 

 enlarged his canvass and introduced into his composition, a ' 6gure ' (us 

 artists somewhat irreverently designate the 'human form divine'), and 

 added some such title ns ' The Seneechal,' without either figure or 

 fruit benefiting by the conjunction. He has also coquetted, without 

 much success, with history, as in 'Mclancthon,' 'The Due do Biron 

 and his Sister' (1845); with genre, as 'The Grandmother's Blessing' 

 (1844), 'The Blonde,' and ' The Brunette,' 4c. But from these harmless 

 aberrations Mr. Lance always returns with renewed power to his ' still 

 life;' and in that class some of his more recent works as 'Modern 

 Fruit Mediaeval Art,' and ' Harold,' as he quaintly termed a f." . 

 composition of fruit and flowers, with a peacock in all the glory of ita 

 expanded plumaee, are in their way for truth to nature and glow of 

 colour almost without a rival. 



Jlr. I.ance is neither member nor associate of the Royal Academy, 

 nor docs the National Gallery contain any of his works. There are 

 however in the Vernon collection two or three good examples from 

 hia pencil Fruit,' painted in 1832, 'Fruit,' 184 a, and' Red Cap,' a 

 duplicate slightly varied from a picture originally painted for Mr. 

 Broderip. 



LANDEX, JAMES, a mathematician of tho last century, was born 

 at i'tukirk, near Peterborough, in January 1718, and died at Melton, 

 near the same place, January 1790. He was for many yeais agent to 

 Karl I-'it/.williani ; but no details have been published of his life, neither 

 have we heard of any which it would be worth while to give. 



The writings of London stretch over a long period, from his first 

 eatays in the Ladies' Diary,' in 1744, to his paper on rotatory motion 

 in the ' Phil. Trans.' for 1 786. The thing by which ho is now most 

 known is his attempt to derive the differential calculus from algebraical 

 principle*, often called his residual analysis. Hia writings, though 

 they contain many curious and original theorems, yet are mostly upon 

 isolated subject*, and, except as being all the work of one man, need 

 no more detailed description than a volume of miscellaneous memoirs. 

 They relate for the most part to points of the integral calculus, and 

 of dynamics ; we may take, for instance, his determination of the arc 

 of an hyperbola by means of two elliptic arcs, in the ' Phil. Trans.' for 

 1775. 



The writings of Landcn which are not contained in tho ' Philoso- 

 phical Transactions ' are, bis ' Mathematical Lucubrations,' 1765 ; the 

 ' Kesidual Analysis,' 1764 ; two volumes of ' Memoirs,' tho first pub- 

 luhed in 1 7t>0, the second written near the end of his life, and published 

 posthumously ; ' Tracts on Converging Series,' 1781-82-83. 



LANDON, LETITIA ELlZAliKTH (Miis. MACLEAN), generally 

 known by her initial*, 'L. E. L.,' wcs born in the year 1802 at Old 



Brompton, a suburb of London. Her father waa an army agent, and 

 she was the niece of Dr. Lan-lon, dean of Exeter, and the aiater of the 

 Rev. Whittington Landou. Her early years were spent with a relative 

 in the country, at Trevor Park in Hertfordshire. She read a great 

 deal, displayed a Uvely and inventive imagination, and began to writo 

 short poetical pieces at the early age of thirteen. Having returned to 

 her father's resilience at Old Brompton, where Mr. Jrrdau, the editor 

 of the ' Literary Gazette,' was a neighbour, ahe sent some short poema 

 to that gentleman for his approval. They were published in the ' Lite- 

 rary Gazette' in the year 1820, and were followed by others, which 

 were favourably received by the public. Her father soon afterwards 

 died, leaving his family in reduced circumstances. She then began to 

 devote nearly the whole of her time to literature, and not only sup- 

 ported herself by it, but contributed largely to the maintenance of her 

 relatives. Her poems in the ' Literary Gazette,' which were signed 

 ' L. E. L.,' excited a good deal of admiration, and tho editor began to 

 employ her in criticising books of general literature, chiefly poetry and 

 works of fiction. The assistance which she thus gave to the editor, at 

 first casual, by degrees became permanent, and for many years she was 

 rather an effective colleague than an occasional contributor, so that her 

 labours on tho ' Literary Gazette ' were, as Mr. Jerdan himself states, 

 little less than his own. 



Miss Landon's labours however were not confined to the ' Literary 

 Gazette.' In 1821 she published 'The Fate of Adelaide, n 

 Romantic Tale, and other Poems,' 12mo. This first collection of poems 

 was succeeded by ' The Improvieatrice,' ' The Troubadour,' ' Tlio 

 Golden Violet,' 'The Goldeu Bracelet,' 'The Lay of tho Peacock,' 

 and, shortly after tho announcement of her death, ' The Zenana, and 

 -Minor Poems of L. E. L., with a Memoir by Emma Roberts,' 

 She also contributed largely to the Annuals, and published three novels, 

 'Romance and Reality,' ' Franceses Carrara.' and ' Kthel Churchill.' 

 Her poems are generally of a sentimental and melancholy cast, and 

 the versification is loose and irregular, but always with a pleasing 

 musical rhythm. Her poems, probably from their romantic character, 

 rather tlmn from their intrinsic value, were very popular in their day. 

 Her novels were less successful. The romantic melancholy of her 

 poems waa entirely imaginative. In private life she was full of mirth, 

 and her conversation was very lively and entertaining. 



On the 7th of June 1833 Miss Landon was married to George Moo- 

 lean, Esq., governor of Cape Coast Castle, now the principal fortress 

 of the Gold Coast Colony, West Africa. She soon afterwards sailed 

 from England with her husband, and bad not been long settled in her 

 new residence at the Castle when her death occurred, October 15, 1880. 

 She had been for many years subject to spasms and hysteric affections, 

 as a n lief for which she was in the habit of taking, by the advice of 

 her physician, email doses of pru-sic-acid. When her female servant 

 weut into Mrs. Maclean's room, in the forenoon of that day, she found 

 her mistres.i lying on the floor dead, with a bottle in her hand, having 

 the label on it. She appears by some accident to have taken on over- 

 dose of the poisonous medicine. The coroner's jury found no cause 

 for suspicion that her death had been produced intentionally. On the 

 contrary, she had written in tho morning of the same day a letter to 

 one of her female friends in London, which was afterwards published, 

 describing her occupations in lively terms, and expressing herself as 

 contented and happy. In 1841 Mr. Laman Blanchard published 'The 

 Life and Literary Remains of L. E. L.,' 2 vols. 



LANDOU, WALTER SAVAGE, was born at Ipsley Court, War- 

 wickshire, on the 30th of January 1770. His father, Walter Landor, 

 Esq., was a gentleman of ancient family and large property, which was 

 much increased by his marriage with his second wife, Elizabeth 

 Savage, a wealthy Warwickshire heiress. Walter Savage Landor was 

 the eldest son of this marriage. He was educated with great care at 

 Rugby School, and afterwards at Trinity College, Oxford. He was, at 

 first, intended for the army, and then for the law ; but a certain 

 stubborn independence of spirit, accompanied by an earnest theoretical 

 republicanism, led him to decline both professions, and to devote 

 himself, on an income allowed him by his father, to a life of freedom 

 and literature. In tho year 1795 he published a volume of ' Poems,' 

 thus following by only a short interval Crabbe, Burns, Wordsworth, 

 Coleridge, Rogers, and others of the poets who begun the new 1 

 movement which signalised tho close of the last century in Britain, 

 and preceding Campbell, and Scott, if not Southcy. In 1S02, during 

 the peace of Amiens, he visited Paris and saw the accession of Bona- 

 parte to the consulship for lifo. In 1803 he published a Latin trans- 

 lation of his poem ' Gobir,' previously composed in English. On the 

 death of his father he succeeded to tho family estates, and bought 

 others in Monmouthshire; but after expending largo sums of money 

 ill building on his estates, and otherwise, improving them, ha became 

 disgusted with the conduct of some of his tenants whom be had 

 befriended, and (1806) selling off his property, part of which is said 

 to have been in the possession of his family lor seven hundred years, 

 lie resolved to be an English landlord no more, but to spend his life 

 abroad as an untrammelled citizen of the world. In 1808 he raised 

 men at his own expense and joined tho Spanish patriots under Blake, 

 then fighting for the independence of the peninsula against Napoleon I. 

 For some years he assisted this cause personally and by gifts of money 

 to the Spanish junta; and ho was made a colonel of the Spanish 

 service. On the restoration of the Spanish king Ferdinand and the 



