wear out one of the celestial lives of a triple century's duration, and exquisitely to grow old, in reciprocating dinners and teas with the immortals of old books! Will Fielding 'leave his card' in the next world? Will Berkeley (an angel in a wig and lawn sleeves) come to ask how Utopia gets on? Will Shakespeare (for the greater the man, the more the good-nature might be expected) know by intuition that one of his readers (knocked up with bliss) is dying to see him at the Angel and Turk's Head, and come lounging with his hands in his doublet-pockets accordingly?" VI. WITH AN OLD LION. "And that deep-mouthed Beotian Savage Landor Has taken for a swan rogue Southey's gander." BYRON. "It was a dream, ah! what is not a dream?" LANDOR. WHILST at Como, Landor received a visit from Southey; and this visit must have been highly gratifying to both if what Landor put into Southey's mouth in the Imaginary Conversations was in any way near the truth. "Well do I remember," he makes Southey say, "our long conversation in the silent and solitary church of Sant' Aboudis (surely the coolest spot in Italy), and how often I turned my head toward the open door, fearing lest some pious passer-by, or some more distant one in the wood above, pursuing the pathway that leads to the tower of Luitprand, should hear the roof echo with your laughter at the stories you had collected about the brotherhood and sisterhood of the place." The hastiness of Landor's temper was known to his friends as well as to himself. Crabb Robinson speaks of him as a ' leonine man, with a fierceness of tone well suited to his name, his decisions being confident, and on all subjects, whether of taste or life, unqualified, each standing for itself, not caring whether it was in harmony with what had gone before or would follow from the same oracular lips.* Robinson * Landor's conduct in this direction was certainly a brilliant commentary on the words of Emerson: "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and adds: "He was conscious of his own infirmity of temper, and told me he saw few persons, because he could not bear contradictions." And yet between this "Deep-mouthed Beotian Savage Landor" and the "Gentle Elia" sympathy of a kind existed. Whilst in London, philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict everything you said to-day.' On the 15th of May, 1833, Emerson dined with Landor, and thus records his experience: "I found him noble and courteous, living in a cloud of pictures at his Villa Gherardesca, a fine house commanding a beautiful landscape. I had inferred from his books, or magnified from some anecdotes, an impression of Achillean wrath-an untamable petulance. I do not know whether the imputation were just or not, but certainly on this May day his courtesy veiled that haughty mind, and he was the most patient and gentle of hosts. He.. talked of Wordsworth, Byron, Massinger, Beaumont and Fletcher. To be sure, he is decided in his opinions, likes to surprise, and is well content to impress, if possible, his English whim upon the immutable past." Landor was taken by Robinson to see Charles Lamb, and was delighted with him and his sister. It is said that tipsy or sober, for a few years before his death, Lamb was continually repeating Landor's Rose Aylmer; and all admirers of these two famous men must remember the tenderness of the verses addressed by Landor to Mary Lamb on the death of her brother: "Comfort thee, O thou mourner, yet awhile! Again shall Elia's smile Refresh thy heart, where heart can ache no more. What is it we deplore? "He leaves behind him, freed from griefs and years, Far worthier things than tears. The love of friends without a single foe : "His gentle soul, his genius, these are thine ; He may have left the lowly walks of men ; "Are not his footsteps followed by the eyes Tho' the warm day is over, yet they seek |