Louisa Stuart Costello
Encyclopedia
Louisa Stuart Costello was a writer on travel and French history.

Costello was born in Ireland
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...

 or Sussex
Sussex
Sussex , from the Old English Sūþsēaxe , is an historic county in South East England corresponding roughly in area to the ancient Kingdom of Sussex. It is bounded on the north by Surrey, east by Kent, south by the English Channel, and west by Hampshire, and is divided for local government into West...

.

She resided in Paris, France, near the Seine River (per her death certificate).

She had no true home, but wandered place to place staying with friends and acquaintances. With her brother Dudley Costello
Dudley Costello
Dudley Costello , English journalist and novelist, son of Colonel JF Costello, was born in Ireland.He was educated for the army at Sandhurst, and served for a short time in India, Canada and the West Indies. His literary and artistic tastes led him to quit the army in 1828, and he then passed some...

, also a well known for his travel writing, they promoted the copying of illuminated manuscript
Illuminated manuscript
An illuminated manuscript is a manuscript in which the text is supplemented by the addition of decoration, such as decorated initials, borders and miniature illustrations...

, (b. 1803 in Sussex d. 1865 from liver failure) drank himself to death after the death of his wife.

She wrote over 100 texts, articles, poems, songs and knew such people as Sir Walter Scott, Charles Dickens
Charles Dickens
Charles John Huffam Dickens was an English novelist, generally considered the greatest of the Victorian period. Dickens enjoyed a wider popularity and fame than had any previous author during his lifetime, and he remains popular, having been responsible for some of English literature's most iconic...

, Lord Byron, Thomas Moore
Thomas Moore
Thomas Moore was an Irish poet, singer, songwriter, and entertainer, now best remembered for the lyrics of The Minstrel Boy and The Last Rose of Summer. He was responsible, with John Murray, for burning Lord Byron's memoirs after his death...

. She was a poet, historian, journalist, painter and novelist. Her father was Colonel James Francis Costello, who died in April 1814 while fighting Napoleon.

Costello published Memoirs of Eminent Englishwomen (1844), which included her illustrations, and several other popular works of poetry and travel. Her collection Songs of a Stranger was dedicated to William Lisle Bowles
William Lisle Bowles
William Lisle Bowles was an English poet and critic.-Life and career:He was born at King's Sutton, Northamptonshire, where his father was vicar. At the age of fourteen he entered Winchester College, the headmaster at the time being Dr Joseph Warton...

.
She did not return to France until after her mother sent for her in 1815/18 and then lived chiefly in Paris, where she was a miniature-painter.

In 1815 she published The Maid of the Cyprus Isle, etc.
She also wrote books of travel, which were very popular, as were her novels, chiefly founded on French history. Another work, published in 1835, is Specimens of the Early Poetry of France. She died in Boulogne sur Mer
Boulogne Sur Mer
Boulogne Sur Mer is a town in Buenos Aires Province, Argentina. It is in San Isidro Partido and forms part of the Greater Buenos Aires urban conurbation, 16 km  north of Buenos Aires. It has a population of 73,496...

, France of mouth cancer.

An example of her work - an early expression of anti-war sentiment:-

On Reading the Account of the Battle of Waterloo
OH! who can listen with delight
To tales of battles won?
And who can hear without affright
The news of war begun.

Oh! when the glory does their hearts inspire,
Did they reflect what woes some bosoms fire?
Oh did their thoughts fly to the battle plain,
And mark the writhing agony and pain,
And hear the cries, and see the bleeding slain !

Ah! sure no more their hearts with joy would bound,
But shrink in horror from the vict'ry's sound.
While thro' the streets the news of conquest spread,
Each parent listens with consuming dread.

Those shouts of triumph breath'd from every tongue,
Some anxious heart with agony has wrung.
The meanest soldier sunk to death's repose,
Has cuas'd some breast to fell affliction's throes:
How can they bear each joyful shout to hear,
Which still renews remembrances so dear!

Oh! long may battle's terrors cease!
Be war and vengeance fled:
That Europe, wrapt in lasting peace,
May rest her laurell'd head!
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