The Magical Letters L.E.L.                             9

appears in the manuscript, and does not represent an editorial
query.) Equally characteristic is the sense of urgency beneath the
bright surface of words.

Finally there is at the Library a manuscript of a poem of forty-
four lines titled, "The return." The poem appears in The Keepsake
for 18 31 to accompany an engraving of a picture by J. M. W Turner
titled Nantes; like many of L. E. L.'s poems, it does not appear in the
collected editions. It is an example ofthe sort of writing that L.E.L.
cranked out in quantity, this specimen for the most part neither
much above nor much below her average standard. A monologue is
spoken by a traveler returning to his native city. According to the
headnote, "he left it poor, but he came back rich, and the home of
his youth was again to be the home of his age." Much ofthe verse is
thoroughly conventional, both in sentiment and in language, as:
"And I have learnt life's dearest things / Are those which never
wealth could buy." But in the final stanza we read:

Oh for some voice 1 used to hear
The grasp of one familiar hand,
So long desired, and now so near
On boatmen on, 1 long to land.

In these lines one can begin to hear the accents and tone and themes
of L.E.L.'s best poetry. And beyond, one hears an anticipation of
some ofthe best of Tennyson (see "Break, break, break," for exam¬
ple), another writer who began by composing for the annuals, and
who in his early years had undoubtedly been, like many of his con¬
temporaries, more than a litde enchanted by the undying "magic"
in the voice of Letitia Elizabeth Landon.