The Sun.
London, England, 1846-01-10 00:00:00

SKETCHES FROM LIFE. 3 Vols. By Laman

Blanchco d.
What pleasant and gentle recollections are con-
nected with the name of Laman Blanchard in his
long association with the magazines and floating
literature of the age What tender and mournful
reflections, when we call to mind the gloomy and
desolating character of his death ! Now that this
amiable writer is snatched from us for ever, now that
his ever-welcome outpourings of quaintness have sent
their last gush into the monthly periodicals—
now that, like his contemporaries and co-
partners, Toni Hood, and Barham, and Hook,
(alas for the catalogue !) he may be enumerated
among the bygones, a collection of his effusions,
scattered over a variety of sometimes unattainable
pages, is at once a fitting monument to his memory,
and a mark of extreme value to the many with
whom he had become a favourite. In the three
elegant volumes before us these articles from the
pen of poor Blanchard are admirably arranged,
beautifully printed, and exquisitely embellished.
Honour to Daniel Maclise for that evidence of his
genius and his friendship in the frontispiece, a likeness
of Laman Blanchard " drawn from memory !"
Honour to Kenny Meadows for that touching group
of the dead author's children weeping over his tomb,
the lyre traced overhead, as a symbol of his fate,
with its strings rent asunder ! Honour also to Buck-
stone for the anecdotes which he furnishes, bearing
testimony to his late friend's sweetness and amenity
of disposition ! But a triple honour to Sir Edward
Bulwer Lytton for the tender and melancholy
earnestness of the memoir prefixed to this compilation !
There is something eminently pathetic in the tone
which characterises this biography, whether it arises
from a predisposition to sadness in the reader's
mind, or the sorrowing heart of the biographer
breathed over every sentence, or the constant presence
of the catastrophe which more particularly led to its
production. Our regrets for the departure of Laman
Blanchard are, if possible, doubled, on learning the
real character of the man as delineated by one of his
intimate associates, a character fraught with such a
self-forgetful generosity, such a winning suavity of
manner, such a never-flagging gaiety of disposition,
such an unjealous admiration for his various and more
fortunate rivals in the school of letters. In the early
portion of his career he appears to have battled up
the steep and rugged acclivity which every literary
aspirant encounters at the outset, and to have done
this, moreover, manfully, resolutely, courageously.
Not the least acceptable part of Sir Bulwer Lytton 's
narrative is that in which he interpolates some deli-
cious sonnets written by Blanchard at his commence-
ment of authorcraft, and assuredly did they justify
the biographer's augury of still higher achievements
of their composer. The sudden and terrible calamity,
however, which, in the February of 1845, stilled his
heart
h
andte shrouded
his imagination, for ever
accomplishmentpre-
vented of his or vn views and as-
pirations—in the production of some substantial effort
of dramatic poetry, a class of writings for which he
Lwiafse,ls'owhemich constitute these volumes,
'" Sketches fromes,
e
eminently
ygte
we neverthe-
less possess sufficient evidence of his capacity as an
essayist to entitle him to our uraptialified regard.
They body forth his own peculiar and: charming tem-
perament, namely, a great shrewdness and sagacity
of observation, a very delightful and genial merri-
ment, a total absence of bitterness, and an excel-
lent purity in thought and language. For these
characteristics they are valuable additions to the
library of modern literature. As Addison and Steele
reflect their own stilted and furbelowed generations,
so has Laman Blanchard, in his " Sketches from
Life," mirrored forth the variable and motley pecu-
liarities of the present day; they have but to be read
to be admired, and admired they will be read again.
Thousands must remember the pleasure they have
derived from articles in the Monthly and in Ainsworth
identified with the name of Laman Blanchard, pour-