It was on the night of the day on which I had arrived, that Doctor Mayhew and I were sitting in his sanctum; composedly and happily as men sit whom care has given over for a moment to the profound and stilly influences of the home and hearth. One topic of conversation had given place easily to another, and there seemed at length little to be said on any subject whatever, when the case of the idiot, which my own troubles had temporarily dismissed from my mind, suddenly occurred to me, and afforded us motive for the prolongation of a discourse, which neither seemed desirous to bring to a close.

"What have you done with the poor fellow?" I enquired.

"Nothing," replied the physician. "We have fed him well, and his food has done him good. He is a hundred per cent better than when he came; but he is still surly and tongue-tied. He says nothing. He is not known in the neighbourhood. I have directed hand-bills to be circulated, and placards to be posted in the villages. If he is not owned within a week, he must be given to the parish-officers. I can't help thinking that he is a runaway lunatic, and a gentleman by birth. Did you notice his delicate white hand, that diamond ring, and the picture they found tied round his neck?"

"What picture, sir?"

"Did I not tell you of it? The portrait of a lovely female—an old attachment, I suppose, that turned his brain, although I fancy sometimes that it is his mother or sister, for there is certainly a resemblance to himself in it. The picture is set in gold. When Robin first discovered it, the agony of the stricken wretch was most deplorable. He was afraid that the man would remove it, and he screamed and implored like a true maniac. When he found that he might keep it, he evinced the maddest pleasure, and beckoned his keeper to notice and admire it. He pointed to the eyes, and then groaned and wept himself; until Robin was frightened out of his wits, and was on the point of throwing up his office altogether."

"Do you think the man may recover his reason?"

"I have no hope of it. It is a case of confirmed fatuity I believe. If you like to see him again, you shall accompany me to-morrow when I visit him. What a strange life is this, Stukely! What a strange history may be that of this poor fellow whom Providence has cast at our door! Well, poor wretch, we'll do the best we can for him. If we cannot reach his mind, we may improve his body, and he will be then perhaps quite as happy as the wisest of us."

The clock struck twelve as Doctor Mayhew spoke. It startled and surprised us both. In a few minutes we separated and retired to our several beds.

When I saw the idiot on the following day, I could perceive a marked improvement in his appearance. The deadly pallor of his countenance had departed; and although no healthy colour had taken its place, the living blood seemed again in motion, restoring expression to those wan and withered features. His coal-black eye had recovered the faintest power of speculation, and the presence of a stranger was now sufficient to call it into action. He was clean and properly attired, and he sat—apart from his keeper—conscious of existence. There was good ground, in the absence of all positive proof, for the supposition of the doctor. A common observer would have pronounced him well-born at a glance. Smitten as he was, and unhinged by his sad affliction, there remained still sufficient of the external forms to conduct to such an inference. Gracefulness still hovered about the human ruin, discernible in the most aimless of imbecility's weak movements, and the limbs were not those of one accustomed to the drudgery of life. A melancholy creature truly did he look, as I gazed upon him for a second time. He had carried his chair to a corner of the room, and there he sat, his face half-hidden, resting upon his breast, his knee drawn up and pressed tightly by his clasped hands—those very hands, small and marble-white, forming a ghastful contrast to the raven hair that fell thickly on his back. He had not spoken since he rose. Indeed, since his first appearance, he had said nothing but the unintelligible word which he had uttered four times in my presence, and which Dr. Mayhew now believed to be the name of the lady whose portrait he wore. That he could speak was certain, and his silence was therefore the effect of obstinacy or of absolute weakness of intellect, which forbade the smallest mental effort. I approached him, and addressed him in accents of kindness. He raised his head slowly, and looked piteously upon me, but in a moment again he resumed his original position.

For the space of a week I visited the afflicted man dally, remaining with him perhaps a couple of hours at each interview. No clue had been discovered to his history, and the worthy physician had fixed upon one day after another as that upon which he would relieve himself of his trust; but the day arrived only to find him unwilling to keep his word. The poor object himself had improved rapidly in personal appearance, and, as far as could be ascertained from his gestures and indistinct expressions, was sensible of his protector's charity, and thankful for it. He now attempted to give to his keeper the feeble aid he could afford him; he partook of his food with less avidity, he seemed aware of what was taking place around him. On one occasion I brought his dinner to him, and sat by whilst it was served to him. He stared at me as though he had immediate perception of something unusual. It was on the same day that, whilst trifling with a piece of broken glass, he cut his hand. I closed the wound with an adhesive plaster, and bound it up. It was the remembrance of this act that gained for me the affection of the creature, in whom all actions seemed dried up and dead. When, on the day that succeeded to this incident, Robin, as was his custom, placed before the idiot his substantial meal, the latter turned away from it offended, and would not taste it. I was sent for. The eyes of the imbecile glistened when I entered the apartment, and he beckoned me to him. I sat at his side, as I had done on the day before, and he then, with a smile of triumph, took his food on his knees, and soon devoured it. When he had finished, and Robin had retired with the tray and implements, the poor fellow made me draw my chair still nearer to his own. He placed his hand upon my knee in great delight, patted it, and then the wound which I had dressed. There was perfect folly in the mode in which he fondled this, and yet a reasonableness which the heart could not fail to detect and contemplate with emotion. First, he gently stroked it, then placed his head upon it in utmost tenderness, then hugged it in his arm and rocked it as a child, then kissed it often with short quick kisses that could scarce be heard; courting my observation with every change of action, making it apparent how much he loved, what care he could bestow, upon the hand which had won the notice and regard of his new friend and benefactor. This over, he pointed to his breast, dallied for a time, and then drew from it the picture which he so jealously carried there. He pressed it between his hands, sighed heavily from his care-crazed heart, and strove to tell his meaning in words which would not flow, in which he knew not how to breathe the bubble-thought that danced about his brain. Closer than ever he approached me, and, with an air which he intended for one of confidence and great regard, he invited me to look upon his treasure. I did so, and, to my astonishment and terror—gazed upon the portrait of the unhappy EMMA HARRINGTON. Gracious God! what thoughts came rushing into my mind! It was impossible to err. I, who had passionately dwelt upon those lineaments in all the fondness of a devoted love, until the form became my heart's companion by day and night—I, who had watched the teardrops falling from those eyes, in which the limner had not failed to fix the natural sorrow that was a part of them—watched and hung upon them in distress and agony—I, surely I, could not mistake the faithful likeness. Who, then, was he that wore it? Who was this, now standing at my side, to turn to whom again became immediately—sickness—horror! Who could it be but him, the miserable parricide—the outcast—the unhappy brother—the desperately wicked son! There was no other in the world to whom the departed penitent could be dear; and he—oh, was it difficult to suppose that merciful Heaven, merciful to the guiltiest, had placed between his conscience and his horrible offence a cloud that made all dim—had rendered his understanding powerless to comprehend a crime which reason must have punished and aggravated endlessly My judgment was prostrated by what I learned so suddenly and fearfully. The discovery had been miraculous. What should I do? How proceed? How had the youth got here? What had been his history since his flight? Whither was he wandering? Did he know the fate of his poor sister? How had he lived? These questions, and others, crowded into my mind one after another, and I trembled with the violent rapidity of thought. The figure of the unhappy girl presented itself—her words vibrated on my ears—her last dying accents; and I felt that to me was consigned the wretched object of her solicitude and love—that to me Providence had directed the miserable man; yes, if only that he who had shared in the family guilt, might behold and profit by the living witness of the household wreck. Half forgetful of the presence of the brother, and remembering nothing well but her and her most pitiable tale, oppressed by a hundred recollections, I pronounced her name.

"Poor, poor, much-tried Emma!" I ejaculated, gazing still upon her image. The idiot leaped from my side at the word, and clapped his hands, and laughed and shrieked. He ran to me again, and seized my palm, and pressed it to his lips. His excitement was unbounded. He could only point to the picture, endeavour to repeat the word which I had spoken, and direct his finger to my lips beseechingly, as though he prayed to hear the sound again. Alarmed already at what I had done, and dreading the consequences of a disclosure, because ignorant of the effect it would produce upon the idiot, I checked myself immediately, and spake no more. Robin returned. I contrived to subdue by degrees the sudden ebullition, and having succeeded, I restored the criminal to his keeper, and departed.

It was however, necessary that I should act in some way, possessed of the information which had so strangely come to me. I desired to be alone to collect myself, and to determine quietly. I retired to my bedroom, endeavoured to think composedly, and to mark out the line of duty. It was a fruitless undertaking. My mind would rest on nothing but the tragedy in which this miserable creature held so sad a part, and his unlooked-for resuscitation here—here, under the roof which sheltered his sister's paramour. Whether to keep the secret hidden in my bosom, or to communicate it to the physician, was my duty, I could not settle now. It had been a parting injunction of my friend Thompson to sleep upon all matters of difficulty, and to avoid rashness above all things. Alas! I had not profited by his counsel, nor, in my own case, recurred to it, even for a moment; but it was different now. The fate, perhaps the life, of another was involved in my decision; and not to act upon the good advice, not to be temperate and cautious, would be sinful in the extreme. What, had she been alive, would the sister have required—entreated at my hands? And now, if the freed spirit of the injured one looked down upon the world, what would it expect from him to whom had been committed the forlorn and stricken wanderer? What if not justice, charity, and mercy? "And he shall have it!" I exclaimed. "I will act on his behalf. I will be cool and calm. I will do nothing until tomorrow, when the excitement of this hour shall have passed away, and reason resumed its proper influence and rule."

I rose, contented with my conclusion, and walked to the window, which overlooked the pleasure-garden of the house. Robin and his patient were there; the former sitting on a garden chair, and reposing comfortably after his meal, heedless of the doings of his charge. The latter stood immediately below the window, gazing upwards, with the portrait as before pressed between his marble hands. He perceived me, and screamed in triumph and delight. The keeper started up; I vanished instantly. He surely could not have known the situation of my room—could not have waited there and watched for my appearance. It was impossible. Yes, I said so, and I attempted to console myself with the assurance; but my blood curdled with a new conviction that arose and clung to me, and would not be cast off—the certainty that, by the utterance of one word, I had, for good or ill, linked to my future destiny the reasonless and wretched being, who stood and shrieked beneath the casement long after I was gone.

I joined my friend, the doctor, as usual in the evening, and learnt from him the news of the day. He had visited his patient at the parsonage, and he spoke favourably of her case. Although she had been told of my absence, she was still not aware that I had quitted the house for ever. Her father thought she was less unquiet, and believed that in a few days all would be forgotten, and she would be herself again. Doctor Mayhew assured me that nothing could be kinder than the manner in which the incumbent spoke of me, and that it was impossible for any man to feel a favour more deeply than he appeared to appreciate the consideration which I had shown for him. The doctor had been silent as to my actual presence in the vicinity, which, he believed, to have mentioned, would have been to fill the anxious father's heart with alarms and fears, which, groundless as they were, might be productive of no little mischief. I acquiesced in the propriety of his silence, and thanked him for his prudence. Whilst my friend was speaking, I heard a quick and heavy footstep on the stairs, which, causing me to start upon the instant, and hurling sickness to my heart, clearly told, had doubt existed, how strongly apprehension had fixed itself upon me, and how certainly and inextricably I had become connected with the object of my dark and irresistible conceptions. I had no longer an ear for Doctor Mayhew, but the sense followed the footstep until it reached the topmost stair—passed along the passage—and stopped—suddenly at our door. Almost before it stopped, the door was knocked at violently—quickly—loudly. Before an answer could be given, the door itself was opened, and Robin rushed in—scared.

"What is the matter?" I exclaimed, jumping up, and dreading to hear him tell what I felt must come—another tale of horror—another crime—what less than self-destruction?

"He's gone, sir—he's gone!" roared the fellow, white as death, and shaking like an aspen.

"Gone—how—who?" enquired the doctor.

"The madman, sir," answered Robin, opening his mouth, and raising his eyebrows, to exhibit his own praiseworthy astonishment at the fact.

"Go on, man," said the doctor. "What have you to say further? How did it happen? Quick!"

"I don't know, sir. I eat something for dinner as disagreed. I have been as sleepy as an owl ever since. We was together in his room, and I just sot down for a minute to think what it could be as I had eaten, when I dozed off directly—and when I opened my eyes again, not quite a minute arterwards, I couldn't find him nowheres—and nobody can't neither, and we've been searching the house for the last half hour."

"Foolish fellow—how long was this ago?"

"About an hour, sir."

The doctor said not another word, but taking a candle from the table, quitted the room, and hurried down stairs. I followed him, and Robin, almost frightened out of his wits, trod upon my heel and rubbed against my coat, in his eagerness not to be left behind me. The establishment was, as it is said, at sixes and sevens. All was disorder and confusion, and hustling into the most remote corner of the common room. Mr. Williams especially was very much unsettled. He stood in the rear of every body else, and looked deathly white. It was he who ejaculated something upon the sudden entrance of his master, and was the cause of all the other ejaculations which followed quickly from every member of the household. Doctor Mayhew commanded order, and was not long in bringing it about. The house was searched immediately Wherever it was supposed that the idiot might hide himself, diligent enquiry was made; cupboards, holes, corners, and cellars. It was in vain. He certainly had escaped. The gardens and paddocks, and fields adjacent were scoured, and with like success. There was no doubt of it—the idiot was gone—who could tell whither? After two hours' unprofitable labour, Doctor Mayhew was again in his library, very much disturbed in mind, and reproaching himself bitterly for his procrastination. "Had I acted," said he, "upon my first determination, this would never have happened, and my part in the business would have been faithfully performed. As it is, if any mischief should come to that man, I shall never cease to blame myself, and to be considered the immediate cause of it." I made no reply. I could say nothing. His escape occurring so soon after my identification of the unfortunate creature, had bewildered and confounded me. I could not guess at the motive of his flight, nor conceive a purpose to which it was likely the roused maniac would aspire; but I was satisfied—yes, too satisfied, for to think of it was to chill and freeze the heart's warm blood—that the revelation of the day and his removal were in close connexion. Alas, I dared not speak, although my fears distracted me whilst I continued dumb! Arrangements were at last made for watching both within and without the house during the night—messengers were dispatched to the contiguous villages, and all that could be done for the recovery of the runaway was attempted. It was already past twelve o'clock when Dr. Mayhew insisted upon my retiring to rest. I did not oppose his wish. He was ill at ease, and angry with himself. Maintaining the silence which I had kept during the evening, I gave him my hand, and took my leave.

I thought I should have dropped dead in the room when, lost in a deep reverie, I opened my chamber-door, and discovered, sitting at the table, the very man himself. There the idiot sat, portrait in hand, encountering me with a look of unutterable sorrowfulness. He must have hid himself amongst the folds of the curtains, for this room, as well as the rest, was looked into, and its cupboards investigated. I recoiled with sudden terror, and retreated, but the wretch clasped his hands in agony, and implored me in gestures which could not be mistaken, to remain. I recovered, gained confidence, and forbore.

"What do you desire with me?" I asked quickly. "Can you speak? Do you understand me?" The unhappy man dropped on his knees, and took my hand—cried like a beaten child—sobbed and groaned. He raised the likeness of his sister to my eyes, and then I saw the fire sparkling in his own lustrous orb, and the supplication bursting from it, that was not to be resisted. He pointed to his mouth, compelled an inarticulate sound, and looked at me again, to assure me that he had spoken all his faculties permitted him. He waited for any answer.

Melted with pity for the bruised soul before me, I could no longer deny him the gratification he besought.

"Emma!" I ejaculated; "Emma Harrington!"

He wept aloud, and kissed my hand, and put my arm upon his breast, and caressed it with his own weak head. I permitted the affectionate creature to display his childish gratitude, and then, taking him by the wrist, I withdrew him from the room. An infant could not have been more docile with its nurse. In another moment he was again in custody.

It was in vain that I strove to fall asleep, and to forget the circumstances of the day—in vain that I endeavored to carry out the resolution which I had taken to my pillow. Gladly would I have expelled all thought of the idiot from my mind, and risen on the morrow, prepared by rest and sweet suspension of mental labour for profitable deliberation. Sound as was the advice of my friend, and anxious as I was to follow it, obedience rested not with me, and was impossible. Should I make known the history of the man? Should I discover his crime? This was the question that haunted my repose, and knocked at my ears until my labouring brain ached in its confusion. What might be the effect of a disclosure upon the future existence of the desolate creature, should he ever recover his reason? Must he not suffer the extreme penalty of the law? It was dreadful to think that his life should be forfeited through, and only through, my agency. There were reasons again equally weighty, why I should not conceal the facts which were in my possession. How I should have determined at length, I know not, if an argument—founded on selfishness had not stepped in and turned the balance in favour of the idiot. Alas, how easy is it to decide when self-interest interposes with its intelligence and aid! Neither Mr. Fairman nor Doctor Mayhew knew of my connexion with the unfortunate Emma Harrington. To expose the brother would be to commit myself. I was not yet prepared to acknowledge to the father of Miss Fairman, or to his friend, the relation that I had borne to that poor girl. And why not? If to divulge the secret were an act of justice, why should I hesitate to do it on account of the incumbent, with whom I had broken off all intercourse for ever? Ah, did I in truth believe that our separation had been final? Or did I harbour, perhaps against reason and conviction, a hope, a thought of future reconciliation, a shadowy yet not weak belief that all might yet end happily, and that fortune still might favour love! With such faint hope, and such belief, I must have bribed myself to silence, for I left my couch resolved to keep my secret close. Doctor Mayhew was deep in the contemplation of a map when I joined him at the breakfast-table. He did not take his eyes from it when I entered the apartment, and he continued his investigations some time after I had taken my seat. He raised his head at last, and looked hard at me, apparently without perceiving me, and then he resumed his occupation without having spoken a syllable: after a further study of five or ten minutes, he shook his head, and pressed his lips, and frowned, and stroked his chin, as though he was just arriving at the borders of a notable and great discovery. "It will be strange indeed!" he muttered to himself. "How can we find it out?"

I did not break the thread of cogitation.

"Well," continued Doctor Maybew, "he must leave this house, at all events. I will run the risk of losing him no longer. I will write this morning to the overseer. Yet I should like to know—really—it may be, after all, the case. Stukely, lad, look here. What county is this?" he continued, placing his finger on the map.

Somerset was written in the corner of it, and accordingly I answered.

"Very well," replied the doctor. "Now, look here. Read this. What do these letters spell?"

He pointed to some small characters, which formed evidently the name of a village that stood upon the banks of a river of some magnitude. I spelt them as he desired, and pronounced, certainly to my own surprise, the word—"Belton."

"Just so. Well, what do you say to that? I think I have hit it. That's the fellow's home. I never thought of that before, and I shouldn't now, if I hadn't had occasion for the road-book. It was the first thing that caught my eye. Now—how can we find it out?"

"It is difficult!" said I.

"It is likely enough, you see. What should bring him so far westward, if he hadn't some object? He was either wandering from or to his home, depend upon it, when the gypsies found him. If Belton be his home, his frequent repetition of the word was natural enough. Eh, don't you see it?"

"Certainly," said I.

"Very well; then, what's to be done?"

"I cannot tell," I answered.

The doctor rung the bell.

"Is Robin up yet?" he asked, when Williams came in to answer it.

"He is, sir."

"And the man?"

"Both, sir. They have just done breakfast."

"Very well, Williams, you may go. Now, follow me, Stukely," continued the physician, the moment that the butler had departed. "I'll do it now. I am a physiognomist, and I'll tell you in the twinkling of an eye if we are right, You mark him well, and so will I." The doctor seized his map and road book, and before I could speak was out of the room. When I overtook him, he had already reached the idiot, and dismissed Robin.

My friend commenced his operations by placing the map and book upon the table, and closely scanning the countenance of his patient, in order to detect and fix the smallest alteration of expression in the coming examination. He might have spared himself the trouble. The idiot had no eye for him. When I appeared he ran to me, and manifested the most extravagant delight. He grasped my hand, and drew me to his chair, and there detained me. He did not introduce his treasure, but I could not fail to perceive that he intended to repeat the scene of the previous day, as soon as we were again alone. I did not wish to afford him opportunity, and I gladly complied with the physician's request when he called upon me to interrogate the idiot, in the terms he should employ. He had already himself applied to the youth, but neither for himself nor his questions could he obtain the slightest notice. The eye, the heart, and, such as it was, the mind of the idiot, were upon his sister's friend.

"Ask him, Stukely," began the doctor, "if he has ever been in Somerset?"

I did so, and, in truth, the word roused from their long slumber, or we believed they did, recollections that argued well for the physician's theory. The idiot raised his brow, and smiled.

The doctor referred to his map, and said, whispering as before, "Mention the river Parret."

I could not doubt that the name had been familiar to the unhappy man. He strove to speak, and could not, but he nodded his head affirmatively and quickly, and the expression of his features corroborated the strong testimony.

"Now—Belton?" added the doctor.

I repeated the word, and then the agony of supplication which I had witnessed once before, was re-enacted, and the shrill and incoherent cries burst from his afflicted breast.

"I am satisfied!" exclaimed the doctor, shutting his book. "He shall leave my house for Belton this very afternoon."

And so he did, In an hour, arrangements were in progress for his departure, and I was his guardian and companion. Robin, as soon as Dr. Mayhew's intention was known, refused to have any thing more to say, either inside the house or out of it, to the devil incarnate, as he was pleased to call the miserable man. If his place depended upon his taking charge of him, he was ready to resign it. There was not another man whom the physician seemed disposed to trust, and in his difficulty he glanced at me. I understood his meaning. He proceeded to express his surprise and pleasure at finding an attachment so strong towards me on the part of the idiot. "It was remarkable," he said—"very! And what a pity it was that he hadn't cultivated the same regard for somebody else. A short journey then, to Somerset, would have been the easiest thing in the world. Nothing but to pop into the coach, to go to an inn on arriving in Belton, and to make enquiries, which, no doubt, would be satisfactorily answered in less than no time. Yes, really, it was a hundred pities!"

The doctor looked at me again, and then I had already determined to meet the request he was not bold to ask. I believed, equally with the physician, from the conduct and expressions of young Harrington, that the riddle of his present condition waited for explanation in the village, whose name seemed like a load upon his heart, and constituted the whole of his discourse since he had arrived amongst us. It was there he yearned to be. It was necessary only to mention the word to throw him into an agitation, which it took hours entirely to dissipate. Yes, for a reason well known to him and hidden from us all, his object, his only object as it appeared, was to be removed, and to be conducted thither. I had but one reason for rejecting the otherwise well sustained hypothesis of my friend. During my whole intercourse with Emma, I had never heard her speak of Somerset or Belton, and in her narrative no allusion was made either to the shire or village. In what way, then, could it be so intimately connected with her brother—whence was the origin of the hold which this one word had taken of his shattered brain? I could not guess. But, on the other hand, it was true that I was ignorant of his history subsequently to the fearful death of his most sinful father. How could I tell what new events had arisen, what fresh relations might have sprung up, to attach and bind him to one particular spot of ground? Urged by curiosity to discover all that yet remained to know of his career, and more by a natural and strong desire to serve the youth—not to desert him in the hour of his extremity—I resolved, with the first hint of the doctor, to become myself the fellow traveller of his protege. I told him so, and the doctor shook me by the hand, and thanked me heartily.

That very evening we were on our road, for our preparations were not extensive. My instructions were to carry him direct to Belton, to ascertain, if possible, from his movements the extent of his acquaintance with the village, and to present him at all places of resort, in the hope of having him identified. Two days were granted for our stay. If he should be unknown, we were then to return, and Doctor Mayhew would at once resign him to the parish. These were his words at parting. We had no opposition in the idiot. His happiness was perfect whilst I remained with him. He followed me eagerly whithersoever I went, and was willing to be led, so long as I continued guide. I took my seat in the coach, and he placed himself at my side, trembling with joyousness, and laughing convulsively. Once seated, he grasped my hand as usual, and did not, through the livelong night, relinquish it altogether. A hundred affectionate indications escaped him, and in the hour of darkness and of quiet, it would have been easy to suppose that an innocent child was nestling near me, homeward bound, and, in the fulness of its expectant bliss, lavish of its young heartfelt endearments. Yes, it would have been, but for other thoughts, blacker than the night itself—how much more fearful!—which rendered every sign of fondness a hollow, cold, and dismal mockery. Innocence! Alas, poor parricide!

In the morning the sun streamed into the coach, of which we were the only inside passengers. Dancing and playing came the light, now here, now there, skipping along the seat, and settling nowhere—cheerful visitant, and to the idiot something more, for he gazed upon it, and followed its fairy motion, lost in wonder and delight. He looked from the coach-window, and beheld the far-spreading fields of beauty with an eye awakened from long lethargy and inaction. He could not gaze enough. And the voice of nature made giddy the sense of hearing that drank intoxication from the notes of birds, the gurgling of a brook, the rustling of a thousand leaves. His feeble powers, taken by surprise, were vanquished by the summer's loveliness. Once, when our coach stopped, a peasant girl approached us with a nosegay, which she entreated me to buy. My fellow-traveller was impatient to obtain it. I gave it to him, and, for an hour, all was neglected for the toy. He touched the flowers one by one, viewed them attentively and lovingly, as we do children whom we have known, and watched, and loved from infancy—now caressing this, now smiling upon that. What recollections did they summon in the mind of the destitute and almost mindless creature? What pictures rose there?—pictures that may never be excluded from the soul of man, however dim may burn the intellectual light. His had been no happy boyhood, yet, in the wilderness of his existence, there must have been vouchsafed to him in mercy the few green spots that serve to attach to earth the most afflicted and forlorn of her sad children. How natural for the glimpses to revisit the broken heart, thus employed, thus roused and animated by the light of heaven, rendering all things beautiful and glad!

As we approached the village, my companion ceased to regard his many-coloured friends with the same exclusive attention and unmixed delight. His spirits sank—his joy fled. Clouds gathered across his brow; he withdrew his hand from mine, and he sat for an hour, brooding. He held the neglected nosegay before him, and plucked the pretty leaves one by one—not conscious, I am sure, of what he did. In a short time, every flower was destroyed, and lay in its fragments before him. Then, as if stung by remorse for the cruel act, or shaken by the heavy thoughts that pressed upon his brain, he covered his pallid face, and groaned bitterly. What were those thoughts? How connected with the resting-place towards which we were hastening rapidly? My own anxiety became intense.

The village of Belton, situated near the mouth, and at the broadest part of the river Parret, consisted of one long narrow street, and a few houses scattered here and there on the small eminences which sheltered it. The adjacent country was of the same character as that which we had quitted—less luxuriant, perhaps, but still rich and striking. We arrived at mid-day. I determined to alight at the inn at which the coach put up, and to make my first enquiries there. From the moment that we rattled along the stones that formed the entrance to the village, an unfavourable alteration took place in my companion. He grew excited and impatient; and his lips quivered, and his eyes sparkled, as I had never seen them before. I was satisfied that we had reached the object of his long desire, and that in a few minutes the mysterious relation in which he stood to the place would be ascertained. "He MUST be known," I continued to repeat to myself; "the first eye that falls on him, will recognize him instantly." We reached the inn; we alighted. The landlord and the ostler came to the coach door, and received us with extreme civility, and the former assisted the idiot in his eager endeavour to reach the ground—I watched the action, expecting him to start, to speak, to claim acquaintance—and having completed the polite intention, he stood smiling and scraping. I looked at him, then at the idiot, and saw at once that they were strangers. A dozen idlers stood about the door. I waited for a recognition: none came.

Seated in the parlour of the inn, I asked to see the landlady. The sight of the idiot caused as little emotion in her, as it had produced in her husband. I ordered dinner for him. Whilst it was preparing, I engaged the landlord in conversation at the door. I did not wish to speak before young Harrington. I dared not leave him. I enquired, first, if the face of the idiot were familiar to him. I received for answer, that the man had never seen him in his life before, nor had his wife.

"Do you know the name of Harrington?" said I.

"No—never heard on it," was the reply.

"Fitzjones, perhaps?"

"Many Joneses hereabouts, sir," said the landlord, "but none of that there Christian name."

The excitement of the idiot did not abate. He would not touch his food nor sit quietly, but he walked swiftly up and down the room, breathing heavily, and trembling with increasing agitation. He urged me in his own peculiar way to leave the house and walk abroad. He pointed to the road and strove to speak. The attempt was fruitless, and he paced the room again, wringing his hands and sighing sorrowfully. At length I yielded to his request, and we were again in the village, I following whithersoever he led me. He ran through the street, like a madman as he was, bringing upon him the eyes of every one, and outstripping me speedily. He stopped for a moment to collect himself—looked round as though he had lost his way, and knew not whither to proceed; then bounded off again, the hunted deer not quicker in his flight, and instantly was out of sight. Without the smallest hope of seeing him again, I pursued the fugitive, and, as well as I could guess it, continued in his track. For half a mile I traced his steps, and then I lost them. His last footmark was at the closed gate of a good-sized dwelling house. The roof and highest windows only of the habitation were to be discerned from the path, and these denoted the residence of a wealthy man. He could have no business here—no object. "He must have passed," thought I, "upon the other side." I was about to cross the road, when I perceived, at the distance of a few yards, a man labouring in a field. I accosted him, and asked if he had seen the idiot.

No—he had not. He was sure that nobody had passed by him for hours. He must have seen the man if he had come that way.

"Whose house is that?" I asked, not knowing why I asked the question.

"What? that?" said he, pointing to the gate. "Oh, that's Squire Temple's."

The name dropped like a knife upon my heart. I could not speak. I must have fallen to the earth, if the man, seeing me grow pale as death, had not started to his feet, and intercepted me. I trembled with a hundred apprehensions. My throat was dry with fright, and I thought I should have choked. What follows was like a hideous dream. The gate was opened suddenly. JAMES TEMPLE issued from it, and passed me like an arrow. He was appalled and terrorstricken. Behind him—within six feet—almost upon him, yelling fearfully, was the brother of the girl he had betrayed and ruined—his friend and schoolfellow, the miserable Frederick Harrington. I could perceive that he held aloft, high over his head, the portrait of his sister. It was all I saw and could distinguish. Both shot by me. I called to the labourer to follow; and fast as my feet could carry me, I went on. Temple fell. Harrington was down with him. I reached the spot. The hand of the idiot was on the chest of the seducer, and the picture was thrust in agony before his shuddering eyes. There was a struggle—the idiot was cast away—and Temple was once more dashing onward. "On, on!—after him!" shrieked the idiot. They reached the river's edge. "What now—what now?" I exclaimed, beholding them from afar, bewildered and amazed. The water does not restrain the scared spirit of the pursued. He rushes on, leaps in, and trusts to the swift current. So also the pursuer, who, with one long, loud exclamation of triumph, still with his treasure in his grasp, springs vehemently forward, and sinks, once and for ever. And the betrayer beats his way onward, aimless and exhausted, but still he nears the shore. Shall he reach it? Never!

* * * * *



IMAGINARY CONVERSATION, BETWEEN MR. WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR AND THE EDITOR OF BLACKWOOD'S MAGAZINE.

To Christopher North, Esq.

SIR,—Mr. Walter Savage Landor has become a contributor to Blackwood's Magazine! I stared at the announcement, and it will presently be seen why. There is nothing extraordinary in the apparition of another and another of this garrulous sexagenarian's "Imaginary Conversations." They come like shadows, so depart.

"The thing, we know, is neither new nor rare, But wonder how the devil it got there."

Many of your readers, ignorant or forgetful, may have asked, "Who is Mr. Landor? We have never heard of any remarkable person of that name, or bearing a similar one, except the two brothers Lander, the explorers of the Niger." Mr. Walter Savage would answer, "Not to know me argues yourself unknown." He was very angry with Lord Byron for designating him as a Mr. Landor. He thought it should have been the. You ought to have forewarned such readers that the Mr. Landor, now your Walter Savage, is the learned author of an epic poem called Gebir, composed originally in Egyptian hieroglyphics, then translated by him into Latin, and thence done into English blank verse by the same hand. It is a work of rare occurrence even in the English character, and is said to be deeply abstruse. Some extracts from it have been buried in, or have helped to bury, critical reviews. A copy of the Anglo-Gebir is, however, extant in the British Museum, and is said to have so puzzled the few philologists who have examined it, that they have declared none but a sphinx, and that an Egyptian one, could unriddle it. I would suggest that some Maga of the gypsies should be called in to interpret. Our vagrant fortune-tellers are reputed to be of Egyptian origin, and to hold converse among themselves in a very strange and curious oriental tongue called Gibberish, which word, no doubt, is a derivative from Gebir. Of the existence of the mysterious epic, the public were made aware many years ago by the first publication of Mr. Leigh Hunt's Feast of the Poets, where it was mentioned in a note as a thing containing one good passage about a shell, while in the text the author of Gebir was called a gander, and Mr. Southey rallied by Apollo for his simplicity in proposing that the company should drink the gabbler's health. That pleasantry has disappeared from Mr. Hunt's poem, though Mr. Landor has by no means left off gabbling. Mr. Hunt is a kindly-natured man as well as a wit, and no doubt perceived that he had been more prophetic than he intended—Mr. Landor having, in addition to verses uncounted unless on his own fingers, favoured the world with five thick octavo volumes of dialogues. From the four first I have culled a few specimens; the fifth I have not read. It is rumoured that a sixth is in the press, with a dedication in the issimo style, to Lord John Russell, Mr. Landor's lantern having at last enabled him to detect one honest man in the Imperial Parliament. Lord John, it seems, in the House of Commons lately quoted something from him about a Chinese mandarin's opinion of the English; and Mr. Landor is so delighted that he intends to take the Russells under his protection for ever, and not only them, but every thing within the range of their interests. Not a cast horse, attached to a Woburn sand-cart, shall henceforth crawl towards Bedford and Tavistock Squares, but the grateful Walter shall swear he is a Bucephalus. You, Mr. North, have placed the cart before the horse, in allowing Mr. Landor's dialogue between Porson and Southey precedence of the following between Mr. Landor and yourself.

You may object that it is a feigned colloquy, in which an unauthorized use is made of your name. True; but all Mr. Landor's colloquies are likewise feigned; and none is more fictitious than one that has appeared in your pages, wherein Southey's name is used in a manner not only unauthorized, but at which he would have sickened.

You and I must differ more widely in our notions of fair play than I hope and believe we do, if you refuse to one whose purpose is neither unjust nor ungenerous, as much license in your columns as you have accorded to Mr. Landor, when it was his whim, without the smallest provocation, to throw obloquy on the venerated author of the Excursion.

I am, Sir, your faithful servant, EDWARD QUILLINAN.

* * * * *

Landor.—Good-morning, Mr. North, I hope you are well.

North.—I thank you, sir.—Be seated.

Landor.—I have called to enquire whether you have considered my proposal, and are willing to accept my aid.

North.—I am almost afraid to trust you, sir. You treat the Muses like nine-pins. Neither gods nor men find favour in your sight. If Homer and Virgil crossed your path, you would throw stones at them.

Landor.—The poems attributed to Homer, were probably, in part at least, translations. He is a better poet than Hesiod, who has, indeed, but little merit![49] Virgil has no originality. His epic poem is a mere echo of the Iliad, softened down in tone for the polite ears of Augustus and his courtiers. Virgil is inferior to Tasso. Tasso's characters are more vivid and distinct than Virgil's, and greatly more interesting. Virgil wants genius. Mezentius is the most heroical and pious of all the characters in the Aeneid. The Aeneid, I affirm, is the most misshapen of epics, an epic of episodes.[50] There are a few good passages in it. I must repeat one for the sake of proposing an improvement.

"Quinetiam hyberno moliris sidere classem, Et mediis properas aquilonibus ire per altum ... Crudelis! quod si non arva aliena domosque Ignotas peteres, et Troja antiqua maneret, Troja per undosum peteretur classibus aequor?"

If hybernum were substituted for undosum, how incomparably more beautiful would the sentence be for this energetic repetition? [51]

North.—I admire your modesty, Mr. Landor, in quoting Virgil only to improve him; but your alteration is not an improvement. Dido, having just complained of her lover for putting out to sea under a wintry star, would have uttered but a graceless iteration had she in the same breath added—if Troy yet stood, must even Troy be sought through a wintry sea? Undosum is the right epithet; it paints to the eye the danger of the voyage, and adds force to her complaint.

Landor. Pshaw! You Scotchmen are no scholars. Let me proceed. Virgil has no nature. And, by the way, his translator Dryden, too, is greatly overrated.

North..—Glorious John?

Landor.—Glorious fiddlestick! It is insufferable that a rhymer should be called glorious, whose only claim to notice is a clever drinking song.

North.—A drinking song?

Landor. Yes, the thing termed an Ode for St. Cecilia's Day.

North.—Hegh, sir, indeed! Well, let us go on with the Ancients, and dispatch them first. To revert to the Greeks, from whom Virgil's imitation of the Iliad drew us aside, favour me with your opinion of Plato.

[Footnote 48: See Mr. Landor's "Imaginary Conversations."—Vol. i. p. 44, and ii. p. 322, note.]

[Footnote 50: Vol. i p. 269, 270.]

[Footnote 51: Vol. i. p. 300.]

Landor.—Plato is disingenuous and malicious. I fancy I have detected him in more than one dark passage, a dagger in his hand and a bitter sneer on his countenance.[52] He stole (from the Eyptian priests and other sources) every idea his voluminous books convey. [53] Plato was a thief.

North.—"Taffy was a Welshman, Taffy was a thief."

Landor.—Do you mean to insinuate that my dialogues are stolen from Plato's?

North.—Certainly not, Mr. Landor; there is not the remotest resemblance between them. Lucian and Christopher North are your models. What do you think of Aristotle?

Landor.—In Plato we find only arbours and grottoes, with moss and shell work all misplaced. Aristotle has built a solider edifice, but has built it across the road. We must throw it down again. [54]

North.—So much for philosophy. What have you to say to Xenophon as an historian?

Landor.—He is not inelegant, but he is unimpassioned and affected; [55] and he has not even preserved the coarse features of nations and of ages in his Cyropaedia.[56]

North.—The dunce! But what of the Anabasis?

Landor.—You may set Xenophon down as a writer of graceful mediocrity.[57]

North.—Herodotus?

Landor.—If I blame Herodotus, whom can I commend? His view of history was nevertheless like that of the Asiatics, and there can be little to instruct and please us in the actions and speeches of barbarians.[58]

North.—Which of the Greek tragedians do you patronise?

Landor.—Aeschylus is not altogether unworthy of his reputation; he is sometimes grand, but oftener flighty and obscure.[59]

North.—What say you of Sophocles?

Landor.—He is not so good as his master, though the Athenians thought otherwise. He is, however, occasionally sublime.

North.—What of Euripides? [60]

Landor.—He came further down into common life than Sophocles, and he further down than Aeschylus: one would have expected the reverse. Euripides has but little dramatic power. His dialogue is sometimes dull and heavy; the construction of his fable infirm and inartificial, and if in the chorus he assumes another form, and becomes a more elevated poet, he is still at a loss to make it serve the interests of the piece. He appears to have written principally for the purpose of inculcating political and moral axioms. The dogmas, like valets de place, serve any master, and run to any quarter. Even when new, they are nevertheless miserably flat and idle.

North.—Aristophanes ridiculed him.

Landor.—Yes, Aristophanes had, however, but little true wit. [61]

North.—That was lucky for Euripides.

Landor.-A more skilful archer would have pierced him through bone and marrow, and saved him from the dogs of Archelaus.

North.—That story is probably an allegory, signifying that Euripides was after all worried out of life by the curs of criticism in his old age.

Landor.—As our Keats was in his youth, eh, Mr. North? A worse fate than that of Aeschylus, who had his skull cracked by a tortoise dropt by an eagle that mistook his bald head for a stone.

North.—Another fable of his inventive countrymen. He died of brain-fever, followed by paralysis, the effect of drunkenness. He was a jolly old toper: I am sorry for him. You just now said that Aristophanes wanted wit. What foolish fellows then the Athenians must have been, in the very meridian of their literature, to be so delighted with what they mistook for wit as to decree him a crown of olive! He has been styled the Prince of Old Comedy too. How do you like Menander?

[Footnote 52: Vol. ii. p. 298.]

[Footnote 53: Vol. iii p. 514.]

[Footnote 54: Vol. iv. p 80.]

[Footnote 55: Vol. i. p. 233.]

[Footnote 56: Vol. ii. p. 331.]

[Footnote 57: Vol. iii. p. 35.]

[Footnote 58: Vol. ii. p. 332.]

[Footnote 59: Vol. i. pp. 299, 298, 297.]

[Footnote 60: Vol. i. p. 298.]

[Footnote 61: Vol. ii. p. 12.]

Landor.—We have not much of him, unless in Terence. [62] The characters on which Menander raised his glory were trivial and contemptible.

[Footnote 62: Vol. ii. p. 5. At p. 6th, Mr. Landor produces some verses of his own "in the manner of Menander," fathers them on Andrew Marvel, and makes Milton praise them!]

North.—Now that you have demolished the Greeks, let us go back to Rome, and have another touch at the Latins. From Menander to Terence is an easy jump. How do you esteem Terence?

Landor.—Every one knows that he is rather an expert translator from the Greek than an original writer. There is more pith in Plautus.

North.—You like Plautus, then, and endure Terence?

Landor.—I tolerate both as men of some talents; but comedy is, at the best, only a low style of literature; and the production of such trifling stuff is work for the minor geniuses. I have never composed a comedy.

North.—I see: farewell to the sock, then. Is Horace worth his salt?

Landor.—There must be some salt in Horace, or he would not have kept so well. [63] He was a shrewd observer and an easy versifier; but, like all the pusillanimous, he was malignant.

[Footnote 63: Vol. ii. p. 249.]

North.—Seneca?

Landor.—He was, like our own Bacon, hard-hearted and hypocritical, [64] as to his literary merits, Caligula, the excellent emperor and critic, (who made sundry efforts to extirpate the writings of Homer and Virgil,) [65] spoke justly and admirably when he compared the sentences of Seneca to lime without sand.

[Footnote 64: Vol. iv. p. 31.]

[Footnote 65: Vol. i. p. 274.]

North.—Perhaps, after all, you prefer the moderns?

Landor.—I have not said that.

North.—You think well of Spenser?

Landor.—As I do of opium: he sends me to bed [66].

[Footnote 66: Thee, gentle Spenser fondly led, But me he mostly sent to bed.—LANDOR. ]

North.—You concede the greatness of Milton?

Landor.—Yes, when he is great; but his Satan is often a thing to be thrown out of the way among the rods and fools' caps of the nursery [67].

[Footnote 67: Vol. i. p. 301.]

He has sometimes written very contemptibly; his lines on Hobbes, the carrier, for example, and his versions of Psalms. [68] Milton was never so great a regicide as when he smote King David.

[Footnote 68: Blackwood.]

North.—You like, at least, his hatred of kings?

Landor.—That is somewhat after my own heart, I own; but he does not go far enough in his hatred of them.

North.—You do?

Landor.—I despise and abominate them. How many of them, do you think, could name their real fathers? [69]

[Footnote 69: Vol. i. p. 61.]

North.—But, surely, Charles was a martyr?

Landor.—If so, what were those who sold [70] him?

[Footnote 70: Vol. iv. p. 283.]

Ha, ha, ha! You a Scotchman, too! However, Charles was not a martyr. He was justly punished. To a consistent republican, the diadem should designate the victim: all who wear it, all who offer it, all who bow to it, should perish. Rewards should be offered for the heads of those monsters, as for the wolves, the kites, and the vipers. A true republican can hold no milder doctrine of polity, than that all nations, all cities, all communities, should enter into one great hunt, like that of the ancient Scythians at the approach of winter, and should follow up the kingly power unrelentingly to its perdition. [71] True republicans can see no reason why they should not send an executioner to release a king from the prison-house of his crimes, [72] with his family to attend him.

[Footnote 71: Vol. iv. 507.]

[Footnote 72: Vol. i. p. 73.]

In my Dialogues, I have put such sentiments into the mouth of Diogenes, that cynic of sterling stamp, and of Aeschines, that incorruptible orator, as suitable to the maxims of their government. [73] To my readers, I leave the application of them to nearer interests.

[Footnote 73: Mr. Landor, with whom the Cynic is a singular favourite, says, p. 461, vol. iii., that Diogenes was not expelled from Sinope for having counterfeited money; that he only marked false men. Aeschines was accused of having been bribed by Philip of Macedon.]

North.—But you would not yourself, in your individual character, and in deliberate earnestness, apply them to modern times and monarchies?

Landor.—Why not? Look at my Dialogue with De Lille. [74] What have I said of Louis the Fourteenth, the great exemplar of kingship, and of the treatment that he ought to have received from the English? Deprived of all he had acquired by his treachery and violence, unless the nation that brought him upon his knees had permitted two traitors, Harley and St. John, to second the views of a weak woman, and to obstruct those of policy and of England, he had been carted to condign punishment in the Place de Greve or at Tyburn. Such examples are much wanted, and, as they can rarely be given, should never be omitted.[75]

[Footnote 74: Vol. i.]

[Footnote 75: Vol. i. p. 281.—Landor.]

North.—The Sans-culottes and Poissardes of the last French revolution but three, would have raised you by acclamation to the dignity of Decollator of the royal family of France for that brave sentiment. But you were not at Paris, I suppose, during the reign of the guillotine, Mr. Landor?

Landor.—I was not, Mr. North. But as to the king whose plethory was cured by that sharp remedy, he, Louis the Sixteenth, was only dragged to a fate which, if he had not experienced it, he would be acknowledged to have deserved. [76]

[Footnote 76: Vol. ii. p. 267. This truculent sentiment the Dialogist imputes to a Spanish liberal. He cannot fairly complain that it is here restored to its owner. It is exactly in accordance with the sentence quoted above in italics—a judgment pronounced by Mr. Landor in person. —Vol. i. p. 281. It also conforms to his philosophy of regicide, as expounded in various parts of his writings. In his preface to the first volume of his Imaginary Conversations, he claims exemption, though somewhat sarcastically, from responsibility for the notions expressed by his interlocutors. An author, in a style which has all the freedom of the dramatic form, without its restraints, should especially abstain from making his work the vehicle of crotchets, prejudices, and passions peculiar to himself, or unworthy of the characters speaking. "This form of composition," Mr. Landor says, "among other advantages, is recommended by the protection it gives from the hostility all novelty (unless it be vicious) excites." Prudent consideration, but indiscreet parenthesis.]

North.—I believe one Englishman, a martyr to liberty, has said something like that before.

Landor.—Who, pray?

North.—The butcher Ings.

Landor.—Ah, I was not aware of it! Ings was a fine fellow.

North.—Your republic will never do here, Mr. Landor.

Landor.—I shall believe that a king is better than a republic when I find that a single tooth in a head is better than a set. [77]

[Footnote 77: Vol. ii. p. 31.]

North.—It would be as good logic in a monarchy-man to say, "I shall believe that a republic is better than a king when I am convinced that six noses on a face would be better than one."

Landor.—In this age of the march of intellect, when a pillar of fire is guiding us out of the wilderness of error, you Tories lag behind, and are lost in darkness, Mr. North. Only the first person in the kingdom should be unenlightened and void, as only the first page in a book should be a blank one. It is when it is torn out that we come at once to the letters. [78]

[Footnote 78: Vol. iv. p. 405.]

North.—Well, now that you have torn out the first page of the Court Guide, we come to the Peers, I suppose.

Landor.—The peerage is the park-paling of despotism, arranged to keep in creatures tame and wild for luxury and diversion, and to keep out the people. Kings are to peerages what poles are to rope-dancers, enabling then to play their tricks with greater confidence and security above the heads of the people. The wisest and the most independent of the English Parliaments declared the thing useless. [79] Peers are usually persons of pride without dignity, of lofty pretensions with low propensities. They invariably bear towards one another a constrained familiarity or frigid courtesy, while to their huntsmen and their prickers, their chaplains and their cooks, (or indeed any other man's,) they display unequivocal signs of ingenuous cordiality.

[Footnote 79: Vol. iv. p. 400.]

How many do you imagine of our nobility are not bastards or sons of bastards? [80]

[Footnote 80: Vol. iv. p. 273.]

North.—You have now settled the Peers. The Baronets come next in order.

Landor.—Baronets are prouder than any thing we see on this side of the Dardanelles, excepting the proctors of universities, and the vergers of cathedrals; and their pride is kept in eternal agitation, both from what is above them and what is below. Gentlemen of any standing (like Walter Savage Landor, of Warwick Castle, and Lantony Abbey in Wales,) are apt to investigate their claims a little too minutely, and nobility has neither bench nor joint-stool for them in the vestibule. During the whole course of your life, have you ever seen one among this, our King James's breed of curs, that either did not curl himself up and lie snug and warm in the lowest company, [81] or slaver and whimper in fretful quest of the highest.

[Footnote 81: Vol. iv. p. 400.]

North.—But you allow the English people to be a great people.

Landor.—I allow them to be a nation of great fools. [82] In England, if you write dwarf on the back of a giant, he will go for a dwarf.

[Footnote 82: Vol. iii. p. 135.]

North.—I perceive; some wag has been chalking your back in that fashion. Why don't you label your breast with the word giant? Perhaps you would then pass for one.

Landor.—I have so labelled it, but in vain.

North.—Yet we have seen some great men, besides yourself, Mr. Landor, in our own day. Some great military commanders, for example; and, as a particular instance, Wellington.

Landor.—It cannot be dissembled that all the victories of the English, in the last fifty years, have been gained by the high courage and steady discipline of the soldier, [83] and the most remarkable where the prudence and skill of the commander were altogether wanting.

[Footnote 83: Vol. ii. p 214.]

North.—Ay, that was a terrible mistake at Waterloo. Yet you will allow Wellington to have been something of a general, if not in India, at least in Spain.

Landor.—Suppose him, or any distinguished general of the English, to have been placed where Murillo was placed in America, Mina in Spain; then inform me what would have been your hopes? [84] The illustrious Mina, [85] of all the generals who have appeared in our age, has displayed the greatest genius, and the greatest constancy. That exalted personage, the admiration of Europe, accomplished the most arduous and memorable work that any one mortal ever brought to its termination.

[Footnote 84: Vol. ii. p. 214.]

[Footnote 85: Vol. ii. p. 3. Ded. "to Mina."—Wilson.]

North.—We have had some distinguished statesmen at the helm in our time, Mr. Landor.

Landor.—Not one.

North.—Mr. Pitt.

Landor.—Your pilot that weathered the storm. Ha, ha! He was the most insidious republican that England ever produced.

North.—You should like him if he was a Republican.

Landor.—But he was a debaser of the people as well as of the peerage. By the most wasteful prodigality both in finance and war, he was enabled to distribute more wealth among his friends and partisans than has been squandered by the uncontrolled profusion of French monarchs from the first Louis to the last. [86] Yet he was more short-sighted than the meanest insect that can see an inch before it. You should have added those equally enlightened and prudent leaders of our Parliament, Lord Castlereagh and his successors. Pitt, indeed! whose requisites for a successful minister were three—to speak like an honest man, to act like a scoundrel, and to be indifferent which he is called. But you have forgotten my dialogue between him and that wretched fellow Canning. [87] I have there given Pitt his quietus. As to Castlereagh and Canning, I have crushed them to powder, spit upon them, kneaded them into dough again; and pulverized them once more. Canning is the man who deserted his party, supplanted his patrons, and abandoned every principle he protested he would uphold. [88] Castlereagh is the statesman who was found richer one day, by a million of zecchins, than he was the day before, and this from having signed a treaty! The only life he ever personally aimed at was the vilest in existence, and none complains that he succeeded in his attempt. [89] I forgot: he aimed at another so like it, (you remember his duel with Canning,) that it is a pity it did not form a part of it.

[Footnote 86: Vol. ii. p. 240, 241, 242.]

[Footnote 87: Vol. iii. p. 66.]

[Footnote 88: Vol. iii. p. 134.]

[Footnote 89: Vol. iii. p. 172, and that there should be no mistake as to the person indicated, Lord Castlereagh is again accused by name at p. 187. The same charge occurs also in the dialogue between Aristotle and Calisthenes! p 334, 335, 336; where Prince Metternich, (Metanyctius,) the briber, is himself represented as a traitor to his country. Aristotle is the teller of this cock-and-bull story!]

North.—Horrible! most horrible!

Landor.—Hear Epicurus and Leontion and Ternissa discuss the merits of Castlereagh and Canning.

North.—Epicurus! What, the philosopher who flourished some centuries before the Christian era?

Landor.—The same. He flourishes still for my purposes.

North.—And who are Leontion and Ternissa?

Landor.—Two of his female pupils.

North.—Oh, two of his misses! And how come they and their master, who lived above 2000 years before the birth of Canning and Castlereagh, to know any thing about them?

Landor.—I do not stand at trifles of congruity. Canning is the very man who has taken especial care that no strong box among us shall be without a chink at the bottom; the very man who asked and received a gratuity (you remember the Lisbon job) [90] from the colleague he had betrayed, belied, and thrown a stone at, for having proved him in the great market-place a betrayer and a liar. Epicurus describes Canning as a fugitive slave, a writer of epigrams on walls, and of songs on the grease of platters, who attempted to cut the throat of a fellow in the same household, [91] who was soon afterward more successful in doing it himself.

[Footnote 90: Vol. iv. p. 194.]

[Footnote 91: Vol. iv. p. 194.]

North.—Horrible, most horrible mockery! But even that is not new. It is but Byron's brutal scoff repeated—"Carotid-artery-cutting Castlereagh."

Landor.—You Tories affect to be so squeamish. Epicurus goes on to show Canning's ignorance of English.

North.—Epicurus! Why not William Cobbett?

Landor.—The Athenian philosopher introduces the trial of George the Fourth's wife, and describes her as a drunken old woman, the companion of soldiers and sailors, and lower and viler men. One whose eyes, as much as can be seen of them, are streaky fat floating in semi-liquid rheum.

North.—And this is the language of Epicurus to his female pupils! He was ever such a beast.

Landor.—You are delicate. He goes on to allude to Canning's having called her the pride, the life, the ornament of society, (you know he did so call her in the House of Commons, according to the newspaper reports; it is true he was speaking of what she had been many years previously; before her departure from England.) [92] Epicurus says triumphantly that the words, if used at all, should have been placed thus—the ornament, pride, and life; for hardly a Boeotian bullock-driver would have wedged in life between pride and ornament.

[Footnote 92: Vol. iv. p. 194, 195.—Pericles and Sophocles also prattle about Queen Caroline! vol. 2, p. 106, 107.—In another place the judgment and style of Johnson being under sentence, the Doctor's judgment is "alike in all things," that is, "unsound and incorrect;" and as to style, "a sentence of Johnson is like a pair of breeches, an article of dress, divided into two parts, equal in length, breadth, and substance, with a protuberance before and behind." The contour of Mr. Landor's figure can hardly be so graceful as that of the Pythian Apollo, if his dress-breeches are made in this fashion, and "his Florentine tailor never fails to fit him."—See vol. i. p. 296, and p. 185, note.]

North.—What dignified and important criticism! and how appropriate from the lips of Epicurus! But why were you, Mr. Landor, so rancorous against that miserable Queen Caroline? You have half choked Sir Robert Wilson, one of her champions, and the marshal of her coffin's royal progress through London, with a reeking panegyric in your dedication to him [93] of a volume of your Talks.

[Footnote 93: Vol. iii.]

Landor.—I mistook Wilson for an uncompromising Radical. As to his and Canning's nobled Queen, I confess I owed her a grudge for disrespect to me at Como long before.

North.—How? Were you personally acquainted with her?

Landor.—Not at all: She was not aware that there was such a man as Walter Savage Landor upon earth, or she would have taken care that I should not be stopt by her porter at the lodge-gate, when I took a fancy to pry into the beauties of her pleasure-ground.

North.—Then her disrespect to you was not only by deputy, but even without her cognisance?

Landor.—Just so.

North.—And that was the offence for which you assailed her with such a violent invective after her death?

Landor.—Oh no! it might possibly have sharpened it a little; but I felt it my duty, as a censor of morals, to mark my reprobation of her having grown fat and wrinkled in her old age. It was necessary for me to correct the flattering picture drawn of her by that caitiff Canning. You know the contempt of Demosthenes for Canning.

North.—Demosthenes, too!

Landor.—Yes, in my dialogue between him and Eubulides, he delineates Canning as a clumsy and vulgar man.

North.—Every one knows that he was a man of remarkably fine person and pleasing manners.

Landor.—Never mind that—A vulgar and clumsy man, a market-place demagogue, lifted on a honey-barrel by grocers and slave-merchants, with a dense crowd around him, who listen in rapture because his jargon is unintelligible. [94] Demosthenes, you know, was a Liverpool electioneering agent, so he knew all about Canning and his tricks, and his abstraction of L.14,000 sterling from the public treasury to defray the expenses of his shameful flight to Lesbos, that is Lisbon.[95]

[Footnote 94: Vol. i. p. 245.]

[Footnote 95: Vol. i. p. 247. This charge against Canning is repeated at Vol. iii. p. 186, 187, and again at Vol. iv. p. 193.]

North.—Has England produced no honest men of eminence, Mr. Landor?

Landor.—Very few; I can, however, name two—Archbishop Boulter and Philip Savage. [96] I am not certain that I should ever have thought of recording their merits, if their connexion with my own family had not often reminded me of them; we do not always bear in mind very retentively what is due to others, unless there is something at home to stimulate the recollection. Boulter, Primate of Ireland, saved that kingdom from pestilence and famine in 1729 by supplying the poor with bread, medicines, attendance, and every possible comfort and accommodation. Again, in 1740 and 1741, no fewer than 250,000 persons were fed, twice a-day, principally at his expense. Boulter was certainly the most disinterested, the most humane, the most beneficent, and after this it is little to say, the most enlightened and learned man that ever guided the counsels of a kingdom.[97] Mr. Philip Savage, Chancellor of the Exchequer, married his wife's sister, of his own name, but very distantly related. This minister was so irreproachable, that even Swift could find no fault with him. [97] He kept a groom in livery, and two saddle-horses.

[Footnote 96: Also Vol. iii. p. 92.]

[Footnote 97: Vol. iii. p. 91, 92, note.]

North.—Is it possible? And these great men were of your family, Mr. Landor!

Landor.—I have told you so, sir—Philip was one of my Savage ancestors, [98] and he and Boulter married sisters, who were also Savages.

[Footnote 98: Vol. iii. p. 92, note.]

North.—You have lived a good while in Italy? You like the Italians, I believe?

Landor.—I despise and abominate the Italians; and I have taken some pains to show it in various ways. During my long residence at Florence I was the only Englishman there, I believe, who never went to court, leaving it to my hatter, who was a very honest man, and my breeches-maker, who never failed to fit me. [99] The Italians were always—far exceeding all other nations—parsimonious and avaricious, the Tuscans beyond all other Italians, the Florentines beyond all other Tuscans. [100]

[Footnote 99: Vol. i. p. 185.]

[Footnote 100: Vol. i. p. 219.]

North.—But even Saul was softened by music: surely that of Italy must have sometimes soothed you?

Landor.—Opera was, among the Romans, labour, as operae pretium, &c. It now signifies the most contemptible of performances, the vilest office of the feet and tongue. [101]

[Footnote 101: Vol. i. p. 212.]

North.—But the sculptors, the painters, the architects of Italy? You smile disdainfully, Mr. Landor!

Landor.—I do; their sculpture and painting have been employed on most ignoble objects—on scourgers and hangmen, on beggarly enthusiasts and base impostors. Look at the two masterpieces of the pencil; the Transfiguration of Raphael, and the St. Jerome of Correggio; [102] can any thing be more incongruous, any thing more contrary to truth and history?

[Footnote 102: Vol. i. p. 109, note.]

North.—There have been able Italian writers both in verse and prose?

Landor.—In verse not many, in prose hardly any.

North.—Boccaccio?

Landor.—He is entertaining.

North.—Machiavelli?

Landor.—A coarse comedian. [103]

[Footnote 103: Vol. ii. p. 252.]

North.—You honour Ariosto?

Landor.—I do not. Ariosto is a plagiary, the most so of all poets. [104] Ariosto is negligent; his plan inartificial, defective, bad.

[Footnote 104: Vol. i. p. 290.]

North.—You protect Tasso?

Landor.—I do, especially against his French detractors.

North.—But you esteem the French?

Landor.—I despise and abominate the French.

North.—And their literature!

Landor.—And their literature. As to their poets, bad as Ariosto is, divide the Orlando into three parts, and take the worst of them, and although it may contain a large portion of extremely vile poetry, it will contain more of good than the whole French language. [105]

[Footnote 105: Vol. i. p. 290.]

North.—Is Boileau so very contemptible?

Landor.—Beneath contempt. He is a grub. [106]

[Footnote 106: See Mr. Landor's Polite Conversation with De Lille, Vol. i. and Note at the end, p. 309, 310.]

North.—Racine?

Landor.—Diffuse, feeble, and, like Boileau, meanly thievish. The most admired verse of Racine is stolen, [107] so is almost every other that is of any value.

[Footnote 107: Vol. i. p. 293, 294.]

North.—But Voltaire, Mr. Landor?

Landor.—Voltaire, sir, was a man of abilities, and author of many passable epigrams, besides those which are contained in his tragedies and heroics, [108] though, like Parisian lackeys, they are usually the smartest when out of place. I tell you I detest and abominate every thing French. [109]

[Footnote 108: Vol. i. p. 254.]

[Footnote 109: We, however, find Mr. Landor giving the French credit for their proceedings in one remarkable instance, and it is so seldom that we catch him in good-humour with any thing, that we will not miss an opportunity of exhibiting him in an amiable light. This champion of the liberties of the world, who has cracked his lungs in endeavouring, on the shores of Italy, to echo the lament of Byron over Greece, and who denounced the powers of Europe for suffering the Duke d'Angouleme to assist his cousin Ferdinand in retaking the Trocadero, yet approves of French proceedings in Spain on a previous occasion. Admiring reader! you shall hear Sir Oracle himself again:— "The laws and institutions introduced by the French into Spain were excellent, and the king" (Joseph Bonaparte!) "was liberal, affable, sensible, and humane." Poor Trelawney, the friend of Byron, is made to talk thus! Both Trelawney and Odysseus the noble Greek, to whom he addresses himself, were more likely to participate in the "indignation of a high-minded Spaniard," so vividly expressed by a high-minded Englishman in the following sonnet:—

"We can endure that he should waste our lands, Despoil our temples, and, by sword and flame, Return us to the dust from which we came; Such food a tyrant's appetite demands: And we can brook the thought, that by his hands Spain may be overpower'd, and he possess, For his delight, a solemn wilderness, Where all the brave lie dead. But, when of bands That he will break for us he dares to speak, Of benefits, and of a future day When our enlighten'd minds shall bless his sway— Then the strain'd heart of fortitude proves weak; Our groans, our blushes, our pale cheeks declare That he has power to inflict what we lack strength to bear."]

North.—Well, Mr. Landor, we have rambled over much ground; we have journeyed from Dan to Beersheba, and found all barren. Let us return home.

Landor.—Before we do so, let me observe, that among several noted Italians whom you have not glanced at, there is one whom I revere—Alfieri. He was the greatest man of his time in Europe, though not acknowleged or known to be so; [110] and he well knew his station as a writer and as a man. Had he found in the world five equal to himself, he would have walked out of it not to be jostled. [111]

[Footnote 110: Vol. ii. p. 241.]

[Footnote 111: Vol. ii. p. 258.]

North.—He would have been sillier, then, than the flatulent frog in the fable. Yet Alfieri's was, indeed, no ordinary mind, and he would have been a greater poet than he was, had he been a better man. I admire his Bruto Primo as much as you do, and I am glad to hear you give your suffrage so heartily in favour of any one.

Landor.—Sir, I admire the man as much as I do the poet. It is not every one who can measure his height; I can.

North.—Pop! there you go! you have got out of the bottle again, and are swelling and vapouring up to the clouds. Do lower yourself to my humble stature, (I am six feet four in my slippers.) Alfieri reminds me of Byron. What of him?

Landor.—A sweeper of the Haram. [112] A sweeper of the Haram is equally in false costume whether assuming the wreath of Musaeus or wearing the bonnet of a captain of Suliotes. I ought to have been chosen a leader of the Greeks. I would have led them against the turbaned Turk to victory, armed not with muskets or swords but with bows and arrows, and mailed not in steel cuirasses or chain armour but in cork caps and cork shirts. Nothing is so cool to the head as cork, and by the use of cork armour the soldier who cannot swim has all the advantage of him who can. At the head of my swimming archers I would have astonished the admirers of Leander and Byron in the Dardanelles, and I would have proved myself a Duck worth two of the gallant English admiral who tried in vain to force that passage. The Sultan should have beheld us in Stamboul, and we would have fluttered his dovecote within the Capi—-

[Footnote 112: Vol. i. p. 301.—Vol. ii. p. 222, 223.]

North.—I will not tempt you further. Let us proceed to business. To what am I indebted for the honour of this visit, Mr. Landor?

Landor.—I sent you the manuscript of a new Imaginary Conversation between Porsou and Southey.

North.—A sort of abnegation of your former one. For what purpose did you send it to me?

Landor.—For your perusal. Have you read it?

North.—I have, and I do not find it altogether new.

Landor.—How?

North.—I have seen some part of it in print before.

Landor.—Where?

North.—In a production of your own.

Landor.—Impossible!

North.—In a rhymed lampoon printed in London in 1836. It is called "A Satire on Satirists, and Admonition to Detractors." Do you know such a thing?

Landor.—(Aside. Unlucky! some good-natured friend has sent him that suppressed pamphlet.) Yes, Mr. North; a poetical manifesto of mine with that title was printed but not published.

North.—No, only privately distributed among friends. It contained some reflections on Wordsworth.

Landor.—It did.

North.—Why did you suppress it?

Landor.—Because I was ashamed of it. Byron and others had anticipated me. I had produced nothing either new or true to damage Wordsworth.

North.—Yet you have now, in this article that you offer me, reproduced the same stale gibes.

Landor.—But I have kept them in salt for six years: they will now have more flavour. I have added some spice, too.

North.—Which you found wrapt up in old leaves of the Edinburgh Review.

Landor.—Not the whole of it; a part was given to me by acquaintances of the poet.

North.—Eavesdroppers about Rydal Mount and Trinity Lodge. It was hardly worth your acceptance.

Landor.—Then you refuse my article.

North.—It is a rare article, Mr. Landor—a brave caricature of many persons and things; but, before I consent to frame it in ebony, we must come to some understanding about other parts of the suppressed pamphlet. Here it is. I find that in this atrabilarious effusion you have treated ourselves very scurvily. At page 9 I see,

"Sooner shall Tuscan Vallambrosa lack wood, Than Britain, Grub street, Billingsgate, and Blackwood."

Then there is a note at page 10: "Who can account for the eulogies of Blackwood on Sotheby's Homer as compared with Pope's and Cowper's? Eulogy is not reported to be the side he lies upon, in general." On the same page, and the next, you say of Us, high Churchmen and high Tories,

"Beneath the battlements of Holyrood There never squatted a more sordid brood Than that which now, across the clotted perch, Crookens the claw and screams for Court and Church."

Then again at page 12,

"Look behind you, look! There issues from the Treasury, dull and dry as The leaves in winter, Gifford and Matthias. Brighter and braver Peter Pindar started, And ranged around him all the lighter-hearted, When Peter Pindar sank into decline, Up from his hole sprang Peter Porcupine"

All which is nothing to Us, but what does it lead to?

"Him W ... son follow'd"—

Why those dots, Mr. Landor?

"Him W ... son follow'd, of congenial quill, As near the dirt and no less prone to ill. Walcot, of English heart, had English pen, Buffoon he might be, but for hire was none; Nor plumed and mounted in Professor's chair Offer'd to grin for wages at a fair."

The rest is too foul-mouthed for repetition. You are a man of nasty ideas, Mr. Landor. You append a note, in which, without any authority but common rumour, you exhibit the learned Professor as an important contributor to Blackwood, especially in those graces of delicate wit so attractive to his subcribers. You declare, too, that we fight under cover, and only for spite and pay; that honester and wiser satirists were brave, that—

"Their courteous soldiership, outshining ours, Mounted the engine and took aim from towers;"

But that

"From putrid ditches we more safely fight, And push our zig-zag parallels by night."

Again, at page 19—

"The Gentleman's, the Lady's we have seen, Now blusters forth the Blackguard's Magazine; And (Heaven from joint-stock companies protect us!) Dustman and nightman issue their prospectus."

Landor (who has sate listening, with a broad grin, while Mr. North was getting rather red in the face.)—Really, Mr. North, considering that you have followed the trade of a currier for the last thirty years, you are remarkably sensitive to any little experiment on your own skin. Put what has my unpublished satire to do with our present affair?

North.—The answer to that question I will borrow from the satire itself, as you choose to term your scurrilous lampoon. Our present affair, then, is to consider whether Walter Savage Landor, Imaginary Conversation writer, in rushlight emulation of the wax-candles that illumine our Noctes, shall be raised, as he aspires, to the dignity of Fellow of the Blackwood Society. In the note at page 13 of the said lampoon, you state that "Lord Byron declared that no gentleman could write in Blackwood;" and you ask, "Has this assertion been ever disproved by experiment?" Now, Mr. Landor, as you have thus adopted and often re-echoed Lord Byron's opinion, that no gentleman could write in Blackwood, and yet wish to enrol yourself among our writers, what is the inference?

Landor. That I confess myself no gentleman, you would infer. I make no such confession. I would disprove Byron's assertion, by making the experiment.

North. You do us too much honour. Yet reflect, Mr. Landor. After the character you have given us, would you verily seek to be of our fraternity? You who have denounced us so grandiloquently—you who claim credit for lofty and disinterested principles of action? Recollect that you have represented us as the worthy men who have turned into ridicule Lamb, Keats, Hazlitt, Coleridge—(diverse metals curiously graduated!)—all in short, who, recently dead, are now dividing among them the admiration of their country. Whatever could lessen their estimation; whatever could injure their fortune; whatever could make their poverty more bitter; whatever could tend to cast down their aspirations after fame; whatever had a tendency to drive them to the grave which now has opened to them, was incessantly brought into action against them by us zealots for religion and laws. A more deliberate, a more torturing murder, never was committed, than the murder of Keats. The chief perpetrator of his murder knew beforehand that he could not be hanged for it. These are your words, Mr. Landor.

Landor.—I do not deny them.

North.—And in regard to the taste of the common public for Blackwood's Cordials, you have said that, to those who are habituated to the gin-shop, the dram is sustenance, and they feel themselves both uncomfortable and empty without the hot excitement. Blackwood's is really a gin-palace. Landor.—All this I have both said and printed, and the last sentence you have just read from my satire is preceded by one that you have not read. An exposure of the impudence and falsehood of Blackwood's Magazine is not likely to injure its character, or diminish the number of its subscribers; and in this sentence you have the secret of my desire to become a contributor to Blackwood. I want a popular vehicle to convey my censures to the world, especially on Wordsworth. I do not pretend to have any love for you and your brotherhood, Mr. North. But I dislike you less than I do Wordsworth; and I frankly own to you, that the fame of that man is a perpetual blister to my self-love.

North.—Your habitual contemplation of his merits has confused you into a notion that they are your own, and you think him an usurper of the laurel crown that is yours by the divine right of genius. What an unhappy monomania! Still, your application for redress to us is unaccountable. You should know that we Black Foresters, lawless as you may suppose us, are Wordsworth's liegemen. He is our intellectual Chief. We call him the General! We are ever busy in promoting his fame.

Landor.—You are always blowing hot and cold on it, and have done so for years past. One month you place him among the stars, the next as low as the daisies.

North.—And rightly too; for both are the better for his presence.

Landor.—But you alternately worship and insult him, as some people do their wooden idols.

North.—If you must learn the truth, then, he has been to us, in one sense, nothing better than an unfeeling wooden idol. Some of us have been provoked by his indifference to our powers of annoyance, and his ingratitude in not repaying eulogy in kind. We have among ourselves a gander or two, (no offence, Mr. Landor,) that, forgetting they are webfooted, pretend to a perch on the tall bay-tree of Apollo, and, though heavy of wing, are angry with Wordsworth for not encouraging their awkward flights. They, like you, accuse him of jealousy, forsooth! That is the reason that they are now gabbling at his knees, now hissing at his heels. Moreover, our caprices are not unuseful to our interests. We alternately pique and soothe readers by them, and so keep our customers. As day is partitioned between light and darkness, so has the public taste as to Wordsworth been divided between his reverers and the followers of the Jeffrey heresy. After a lengthened winter, Wordsworth's glory is now in the long summer days; all good judgments that lay torpid have been awakened, and the light prevails against the darkness. But as bats and owls, the haters of light, are ever most restless in the season when nights are shortest, so are purblind egotists most uneasy when their dusky range is contracted by the near approach and sustained ascendancy of genius. We now put up a screen for the weak-sighted, now withdraw it from stronger eyes; thus we plague and please all parties.

Landor.—Except Wordsworth, whose eyelids are too tender to endure his own lustre reflected and doubled on the focus of your burnished brass. He dreads the fate of Milton, "blasted with excess of light."

North. Thank you, sir; that is an ingenious way of accounting for Wordsworth's neglect of our luminous pages. Yet it rather sounds like irony, coming from Mr. Walter Savage Landor to the editor of "The (Not Gentleman's) Magazine."

Landor.—Pshaw! still harping on my Satire.

North.—In that Satire you have charged Wordsworth with having talked of Southey's poetry as not worth five shillings a ream. So long as you refrained from publishing this invidious imputation, even those few among Wordsworth's friends who knew that you had printed it, (Southey himself among the number,) might think it discreet to leave the calumny unregarded. But I observe that you have renewed it, in a somewhat aggravated form, in the Article that you now wish me to publish. You here allege that Wordsworth represented Southey as an author, all whose poetry was not worth five shillings. You and I both know that Wordsworth would not deign to notice such an accusation. Through good and evil report, the brave man persevered in his ascent to the mountain-top, without ever even turning round to look upon the rabble that was hooting him from its base; and he is not likely now to heed such a charge as this. But his friends may now ask, on what authority it is published? Was it to you, Mr. Walter Landor, whom Southey (in his strange affection for the name of Wat) had honoured with so much kindness—to you whose "matin chirpings" he had so generously encouraged, (as he did John Jones's "mellower song,")—was it to you that Wordsworth delivered so injurious a judgment on the works of your patron? If so, what was your reply? [113]

[Footnote 113: "I lagg'd; he (Southey) call'd me; urgent to prolong My matin chirpings into mellower song."—LANDON. ]

Landor.—Whether it was expressed to myself or not, is of little consequence; it has been studiously repeated, and even printed by others as well as by me.

North.—By whom?

Landor.—That, too, is of no importance to the fact.

North.—I am thoroughly convinced that it is no fact, and that Wordsworth never uttered any thing like such an opinion in the sense that you report it. He and Southey have been constant neighbours and intimate friends for forty years; there has never been the slightest interruption to their friendship. Every one that knows Wordsworth is aware of his frank and fearless openness in conversation. He has been beset for the last half century, not only by genuine admirers, but by the curious and idle of all ranks and of many nations, and sometimes by envious and designing listeners, who have misrepresented and distorted his casual expressions. Instances of negligent and infelicitous composition are numerous in Southey, as in most voluminous authors. Suppose some particular passage of this kind to have been under discussion, and Mr. Wordsworth to have exclaimed, "I would not give five shillings a ream for such poetry as that." Southey himself would only smile, (he had probably heard Wordsworth express himself to the same effect a hundred times); but some insidious hearer catches at the phrase, and reports it as Wordsworth's sweeping denunciation of all the poetry that his friend has ever written, in defiance of all the evidence to the contrary to be met with, not only in Wordsworth's every-day conversation, but in his published works. There is no man for whose genius Mr. Wordsworth has more steadily or consistently testified his admiration than for Southey's; there is none for whom, and for whose character, he has evinced more affection and respect. You and I, who have both read his works, and walked and talked with the Old Man of the Mountain, know that perfectly well. You have perhaps been under his roof, at Rydal Mount? I have; and over his dining-room fireplace I observed, as hundreds of his visitors must have done, five portraits—Chaucer's, Bacon's, Spenser's, Shakspeare's, and Milton's, in one line. On the same line is a bust on the right of these, and a portrait on the left; and there are no other ornaments on that wall of the apartment. That bust and that portrait are both of Southey, the man whom you pretend he has so undervalued! By the bye, no one has been more ardent in praise of Wordsworth than yourself.

Landor.—You allude to the first dialogue between Southey and Porson, in Vol. i. of my Imaginary Conversations.

North.—Not to that only, though in that dialogue there are sentiments much at variance with those which you would now give out as Porson's. For example, remember what Porson there says of the Laodamia.