To the ad-
mirable biography in the 'English Men of Letters' the present essay-
ist confesses a heavy debt.
mirable biography in the 'English Men of Letters' the present essay-
ist confesses a heavy debt.
Warner - World's Best Literature - v15 - Kab to Les
Amen.
Translated for (A Library of the World's Best Literature,) by Grace King.
## p. 8860 (#485) ###########################################
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WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR
## p. 8861 (#489) ###########################################
8861
WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR
(1775-1864)
BY WILLIAM CRANSTON LAWTON
AR
ERHAPS there is no English author save Gray to whom the
epithet “classical” is oftener applied than to Landor. This
Suur is not merely a tribute to his mastery of Latin equally with
English verse. Even his unrivaled masterpiece, the imaginary corre-
spondence of Pericles and Aspasia, is no mere marvel of learning,
no mosaic of remembered details; but rather a great free-hand ideal
picture, conforming only to the larger frame of historic fact. Nearly
all his work is equally creative, and has a peculiarly detached effect,
independent of all else whether in reality or fiction, like the best of
Hawthorne's imaginings. This unlimited fountain of original though
not sustained creativeness is the greatest proof of Landor's genius.
Next to it is a style, in all his prose and the best of his verse, so
polished, graceful, indeed faultless, that we may at first fail to per-
ceive beneath it the pulse of life, the heat of conscious effort, which
is after all essential to the highest enjoyment. This very fact, how-
ever, marks the most striking contrast between Landor's art and his
outward life. That contrast will to some extent vanish on closer
scrutiny of both.
Count no life happy until its close, said Solon. Rarely indeed has
a man been born and bred with fairer prospects, lived in more con-
stant turmoil, known greater depths of self-inflicted unhappiness, or
spent his last earthly days more utterly forlorn, than Landor. "I
never did a single wise thing in the whole course of my existence,”
said he near the end of his long life. Too sweeping though this is,
are tempted to cry Amen! It is really incredible that a man
endowed with so many virtues, and of such wondrous intellect, should
have failed so utterly, and one may say so invariably, to adjust him-
self to the necessary relations with his fellow-mortals. Yet it is
equally certain that he “never did a single ” cowardly, cruel, or coldly
selfish thing. His life, however, long as it was, seems like the un-
broken activity of a volcano. Were his genius less rare and lofty, his
later years especially would tempt us to an ignobler comparison; for
we are reminded of a piece of firework, occasionally sending a bright
star heavenward, but never ceasing to sputter and flare until it burns
its own heart out at last!
we
## p. 8862 (#490) ###########################################
8862
WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR
C
»
Landor was the eldest son of a prosperous physician at Warwick.
By entail he was assured heir, through his mother, of estates in War-
wickshire worth nearly £80,000. Sent to Rugby at the age of ten,
he immediately distinguished himself by the quality of his Latin
verses. Indeed, his delightful biographer, Sidney Colvin, calls him
“the one known instance in which the traditional classical education
took full effect. ” This does not appear to be a slur on the quality
of Professor Jebb's Pindaric odes, or of the Latin hexameters with
which Munro supplies the gaps large or small in Lucretius's text.
But Landor by lifelong impulse poured forth creative verse quite
as rapidly and forcibly, though not quite so faultlessly, in Latin as
in English. For satire especially he seems to have preferred the
strength of the deathless Roman speech. Much of his English poetry
is a reluctant translation from his own classic originals.
When his master gave the school a half-holiday for Landor's
Latin verses,” the boy complained fiercely that his poorest perform-
ance was selected for the honor. This belief was expressed in an
abusive addition to the copy of verse itself! Similar outbreaks of his
Muse finally led to his enforced withdrawal from the school. There,
as afterward at college, he always refused to compete for prizes:
valuing his own performances too highly to let them be measured at
all against rivals' work.
He entered Oxford at eighteen, and was known during his one
year there as
“the mad Jacobin,” in a time when the French Revo-
lution had frightened even the students of England away from radi-
calism. His departure in disgrace from Oxford was brought about by
a lawless prank. Aggrieved that a Tory neighbor dared entertain
socially the same night as himself, he riddled his shutters with a
shotgun. His arrival home was signalized by a violent quarrel, at the
end of which he left his father's house forever. ”
Until his thirtieth year he had a small allowance, lived partly in
a remote corner of Wales and partly at Bath, read hard chiefly in
the classics and English poets, and tried his own wings. Love was
not one of his chief teachers, though the lady whose name, Jane, is
glorified as Ianthe,” had a lasting influence over him. Resenting
Byron's adoption of this beloved title, he declares he
« — planted in a fresh parterre
Ianthe; it was blooming when a youth
Leapt o'er the hedge, and snatching at the stem,
Broke off the label from my favorite flower,
And stuck it on a sorrier of his own. ”
Rose Aylmer, — the short-lived daughter of Lord Aylmer, — whose
beautiful name has been immortalized in a lyric brief as Catullus and
## p. 8863 (#491) ###########################################
WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR
8863
“sad as tear-drops of Simonides,” was Landor's neighbor and friend
in Wales. She lent him a book containing the sorry “Arabian” tale
which suggested his first important poem. (Gebir) is a romantic and
tragical epic. Into less than two thousand lines of blank verse is
packed action enough for an Iliad. It is very hard to follow the plot.
The close-knit blank verse is rather too regular also. Still it is a
great creative work; chaotic and aiinless ethically, but in detail often
masterly. It had no readers then save Southey, and few at any time
since. Landor said loftily that he would have been encouraged to
write more if even foolish men had read it, since “there is something
of summer even in the hum of insects. »
(Gebir) has influenced English poetry profoundly, nevertheless.
Southey loved it from the first. Shelley, like Charles Lamb, was
never weary of repeating certain passages. Of our own contempora-
ries, Swinburne pours out loyal praise, with his usual lavishness, in
the article on Landor in the Britannica. In the same year (1798)
appeared the famous Lyrical Ballads, beginning with Coleridge's
(Ancient Mariner) and ending with Wordsworth's “Tintern Abbey. )
Either of these has still a thousand readers to (Gebir's) one. Which
was really the weightiest portent of the new day may well be ques-
tioned. Landor never sought, and probably never seriously hoped for,
wide popularity, even in the future. «I shall dine late,” he says; but
the dining-room will be well lighted, the guests few and select. ”
This fantastic epic by a youth of twenty-three already justified those
haughty words; and all the brother poets just mentioned, with a
goodly number besides, have testified to its influence upon them.
Byron indeed - and others attempted to appropriate such gems as
the verses on the sea-shell:-
“Shake one and it awakens; then apply
Its polisht lips to your attentive ear,
And it remembers its august abodes,
And murmurs as the ocean murmurs there. )
The year 1808 was like an epitome of Landor's whole life. The
wealth recently inherited from his father (the estates being released
from entail by special act of Parliament) was all absorbed by a mag-
nificent estate some eight miles in extent, in Monmouthshire. His
plans — to build up the ruined abbey of Llanthony which gave the
place its name, to erect for himself a goodly mansion, to reclaim
the land and reform the peasantry were all broken in upon by a
sudden expedition to Spain, where Landor went campaigning against
Napoleon with a regiment equipped at his own expense. Presently
the volunteers had all melted away; and their generous patron, hav-
ing quarreled out with his hosts, his allies, and his superior officers,
## p. 8864 (#492) ###########################################
8864
WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR
recrossed the Channel, to resume his denunciation of all in political
office and his strife with every one within five leagues of his estate.
The chief fruit of his Spanish tour was the tragedy Count Julian. '
Like his other plays, it is quite unsuited to the stage. The hero,
who turns against his king to avenge his daughter, is a careful psy-
chological study. The drama, however, like all Landor's longer works,
is read and remembered, if at all, rather for details, for picked pass-
ages, than for its general effect. Mr. Lowell's remark is an acute
one,- that Landor is hardly a great thinker, though he has certainly
uttered adequately great thoughts. He lacks the longer, the lasting
inspiration, that merges all the exquisite detail of an Othello' or of a
Prometheus) in the resistless sweep of the master's design. When he
is for the moment indeed inspired, his perfect command of style,
of utterance, carries him with perfect ease to a height where he has
absolutely no masters.
As we are trying to indicate, Landor's life and his work help
to explain each other — and both need explanation. His marriage
was perhaps his gravest mistake. He fell in love with a stranger's
pretty face, and instantly avowed his choice. He married a few weeks
later, in 1811. The bride was sixteen years younger than he; and
not content with quarrels of his creating, seems to have started
them forever after, at will, by taunting him on his age! Whether
any woman could have guided this stormy nature through life may
be doubted.
By 1814 he had sunk £70,000 in his estate, and fled from England
to escape his creditors. Llanthony passed into his mother's wise con-
trol. She was able to meet all demands, make provision for the
support of Landor's family, and transmit the estate much improved
to his posterity. Even upon his southward flight he parted in anger
with his wife at Jersey, and hurried to France alone in an oyster-
boat! But the irrevocable » breach was closed within a year.
During the next two decades Landor lived almost wholly in Italy,
chiefly in Florence and Fiesole. This is the happiest period of his
career, and probably his warmest admirers wish it had been the last.
The works also on which his fame rests most secure are the fruit of
this epoch. The Imaginary Conversations cover an astonishingly
wide range in ancient and modern life. Though an untiring reader,
Landor had not by any means an encyclopædic memory in matters
historical or biographical. He owned at any one time few books;
for though he bought many, he gave them away no less eagerly.
His dramatic scenes are not in the least mosaics pieced together from
«authorities” or “sources. ” On the contrary, he chose by deliberate
preference events which might have occurred, but were quite un-
recorded; and he austerely refused to lay upon his interlocutors' lips
## p. 8865 (#493) ###########################################
WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR
8865
any single sentiment or thought save what he believed to be original
with himself!
The elemental impulses of Landor's nature were generous, and not
ignoble. He had thirteen pitched battles as a schoolboy, and won
eleven; but they were all against older boys, and probably waged to
put down bullying. He once threw his cook out of the kitchen win-
dow; but put his head out instantly thereafter, exclaiming ruefully,
“My God! I forgot the violets! ) Not only toward flowers but toward
all animals he was humane to the point of eccentricity. He would
not shoot any living creature, nor even hook a fish. Profuse as he
was in unwise giving, unable to resist playing the generous patron
whether himself penniless or prosperous, his own needs were of the
simplest. Even his fiercest quarrels were rarely in behalf of his own
rights; and many of the most threatening outbreaks vanished in
peals of uproarious and most infectious laughter, whenever his sense of
humor could be touched before his stubborn pride was too firmly set.
Of course, Landor's life in Italy was by no means a monotonously
peaceful one. He had to fee from more than one resting-place «for
speaking ill of authorities,” preferably in scurrilous Latin verse. The
current Italian remark quoted about him is perhaps too delicious to
be merely true: “Tutti gli Inglesi sono pazzi, ma questo poi! (All
the English are crazy, but oh — this one! ) Had he died at sixty,
in the bosom of his family, in his lovely Fiesolan villa, he would
have left not only the Conversations, but the Examination of
Shakespeare,' the Pentameron,' and even the greater part of his
perfect masterpiece, Pericles and Aspasia. ' These three may all be
regarded, indeed, as Imaginary Conversations which have burst the
lesser frame.
It is generally said that the heat and turmoil of Landor's outward
life are absent from his literary creations. In some degree this is
certainly true. His workmanship-above all, the finished detail in
word and phrase — gives a certain sculpturesque calm and coolness
to his work. Nevertheless, his fierce hatred of tyranny and of brutal
selfishness, his tender sympathy with helpless innocence, may be felt
throbbing beneath every word of such scenes as Henry VIII. 's last
interview with Anne Boleyn. There is no purer patriot than the
dying Marcellus, who gives his generous foeman Hannibal a new con-
ception of Roman character. Polybius, as he rides in sad triumph
through burning Carthage, receives from the vanquished an awful
lesson in retributive justice. The womanly tenderness of Godiva is
set in a dazzling light which makes the last laureate's graceful
verses seem tame. The sweetness of human destiny is wonderfully
touched in the words of Thetis, herself an immortal, when her husband
grieves that he grows old: There is a loveliness which youth may
XV-555
## p. 8866 (#494) ###########################################
8866
WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR
be without, and which the gods want. To the voice of compassion
not a shell in all the ocean is attuned; and no tear ever dropped
upon Olympus.
The happiest subject and the most perfect execution, however,
must be sought in “Pericles and Aspasia. While largely true to the
outlines as we know them from Thucydides and others, this is still
a creative romance, depicting adequately a noble attachment which
ended only with life.
It is with the greater reluctance, therefore, with pity, and even
with bewilderment, that we recall how, in the very days when this
supreme and happy masterpiece was approaching completion, the
sixty-year-old Landor deserted his wife and children in Fiesole, and
after a few months' leisurely sojourn in other parts of Italy, passed
on with little evidence of regret to England. The quarrel was in its
origin almost trivial. Mrs. Landor, we are told, had indulged once
too often in the lifelong habit of criticizing her husband in the child-
ren's presence! He indulged, we believe, in no abusive Latin verses
on this occasion. He promptly stripped himself of nearly his entire
income, leaving the deserted family in comparative affluence; but all
the well-meant intercession of friends proved vain. He established
a modest home in England. Some stanch friends remained to him.
His literary career was by no means ended; indeed, his fame grew
in the next decade.
Twenty-three years later, quite penniless, fleeing from the disastrous
results of an ignoble libel, the incorrigible octogenarian schoolboy
arrived, wild-eyed and combative as ever, at his own gate! After
repeated quarrels had made his longer stay there impossible, Mr.
Browning took the old lion under his protection. Prosperous brothers
in England provided a modest pension. In these days Swinburne
made a pilgrimage to Italy expressly to see his revered master;
and among the most faithful to the end, Kate Field has an honored
place.
Some of our judgments on Landor's character as inan and poet we
have already attempted to deliver. Yet the Titanic, the elemental
type of humanity is peculiarly difficult for ephemeral man to see
fairly or to describe rationally. The mistakes and sins of Landor's
career seem un pardonable. Yet a thousand incidents prove him the
tenderest, the most self-sacrificing — we had nearly said the most
heroic — of men. His life was not, we incline to believe, even
happy upon the whole. Certainly it was most fruitful. A sort of
dæmonic good fortune, indeed, seemed to attend him and his. Even
his great Welsh estate was not actually ruined, after all, by his early
extravagance. His family was not disgraced, nor plunged into pov-
erty, by his desertion twenty years later.
un-
## p. 8867 (#495) ###########################################
WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR
8867
As for his literary creations, his proudly modest prediction seems
already more than fulfilled. He himself saw the scattered children of
his genius gathered up in two tall octavos in 1846. The fuller library
edition, since his death, and the exhaustive biography, we owe to
Landor's faithful friend John Forster. We wish however to refer with
especial gratitude to two little books by Sidney Colvin.
To the ad-
mirable biography in the 'English Men of Letters' the present essay-
ist confesses a heavy debt. Moreover, the Golden Treasury' series
includes a capital anthology from Landor, culled by the same hand.
As we have indicated, our author lends himself better to this treat-
ment than almost any other. We know of no volume which contains
more helpful example and suggestion for the aspiring literary artist.
Landor is not one of those single-throated purely lyric natures,
like Heine or Burns, whose every utterance comes straight from the
singer's own heart. He could enjoy the full development of both
sides in an argument. He could realize vividly, and even tolerate
patiently, characters with which he was in very imperfect sympathy.
In this he reminds us of Browning, or that ancient author whom he
signally failed to appreciate, Plato. His sense of poetic limitation
would never have permitted so merciless a creation as “The Ring
and the Book. With a tithe of Browning's or Plato's ethical purpose
and staying power, he might have created a really great drama. He
has left us, perhaps, nothing which can be set among the indispensable
masterpieces of humanity. Yet he may always remain, as painters
say of Andrea del Sarto, an all-but faultless master of technique, and
so, indispensable among the models for his fellow craftsmen.
In spite of much graceful verse, and at least one perfect lyric,
Landor seems on the whole to have felt the fixed rhythmical form as
a fetter, not as an inspiration. As with Emerson, nearly all his most
poetic utterances are in polished prose. In the selections given
below, we have endeavored usually to choose passages where Landor
speaks in deepest earnest, and with the loftiest purpose.
Nizziam Cranston Lawton
.
## p. 8868 (#496) ###########################################
8868
WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR
IMAGINARY CORRESPONDENCE OF PERICLES AND ASPASIA
ASPASIA TO PERICLES
I
-
APPREHEND, O Pericles, not only that I may become an object
of jealousy and hatred to the Athenians by the notice you
have taken of me, but that you yourself — which affects me
greatly more - may cease to retain the whole of their respect
and veneration.
Whether, to acquire a great authority over the people, some
things are not necessary to be done on which Virtue and Wisdom
are at variance, it becomes not me to argue or consider; but
let me suggest the inquiry to you, whether he who is desirous of
supremacy should devote the larger portion of his time to one
person.
Three affections of the soul predominate: Love, Religion, and
Power. The first two are often united; the other stands widely
apart from them, and neither is admitted nor seeks admittance
to their society. I wonder then how you can love so truly and
tenderly. Ought I not rather to say I did wonder? Was Pisis-
tratus affectionate ?
Do not be angry. It is certainly the first
time a friend has ever ventured to discover a resemblance, al-
though you are habituated to it from your opponents. In these
you forgive it: do you in me?
PERICLES TO ASPASIA
PisistrATUS was affectionate; the rest of his character you
know as well as I do. You know that he was eloquent, that he
was humane, that he was contemplative, that he was learned; that
he not only was profuse to men of genius, but cordial, and that
it was only with such men he was familiar and intimate. You
know that he was the greatest, the wisest, the most virtuous,
excepting Solon and Lycurgus, that ever ruled any portion of
the human race. Is it not happy and glorious for mortals, when
instead of being led by the ears under the clumsy and violent
hand of vulgar and clamorous adventurers, a Pisistratus leaves
the volumes of Homer and the conversation of Solon for them ?
We may be introduced to Power by Humanity, and at first
may love her less for her own sake than for Humanity's; but by
degrees we become so accustomed to her as to be quite uneasy
without her.
## p. 8869 (#497) ###########################################
WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR
8869
Religion and Power, like the Caryatides in sculpture, never
face one another; they sometimes look the same way, but oftener
stand back to back.
We will argue about them one at a time, and about the other
in the triad too: let me have the choice.
ASPASIA TO PERICLES
WE MUST talk over again the subject of your letter; no, not
talk, but write about it.
I think, Pericles, you who are so sincere with me are never
quite sincere with others. You have contracted this bad habitude
from your custom of addressing the people. But among friends
and philosophers, would it not be better to speak exactly as we
think, whether ingeniously or not? Ingenious things, I am afraid,
are never perfectly true: however, I would not exclude them, the
difference being wide between perfect truth and violated truth;
I would not even leave them in a minority; I would hear and
say as many as may be, letting them pass current for what they
are worth. Anaxagoras rightly remarked that Love always makes
us better, Religion sometimes, Power never.
ASPASIA TO PERICLES
Never tell me, O my Pericles, that you are suddenly changed
in appearance. May every change of your figure and counte-
nance be gradual, so that I shall not perceive it; but if you really
are altered to such a degree as you describe, I must transfer my
affection from the first Pericles to the second. Are you jeal-
ous? If you are, it is I who am to be pitied, whose heart is
destined to fly from the one to the other incessantly. In the end
it will rest, it shall, it must, on the nearest. I would write a
longer letter; but it is a sad and wearisome thing to aim at play-
fulness where the hand is palsied by affliction. Be well; and all
is well: be happy; and Athens rises up again, alert and bloom-
ing and vigorous, from between war and pestilence.
for love cures all but love. How can we fear to die, how can
we die, while we cling or are clung to by the beloved ?
Love me;
## p. 8870 (#498) ###########################################
8870
WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR
PERICLES TO ASPASIA
The pestilence has taken from me both my sons. You, who
were ever so kind and affectionate to them, will receive a tardy
recompense in hearing that the least gentle and the least grate-
ful did acknowledge it.
I mourn for Paralos because he loved me; for Xanthippos
because he loved me not.
Preserve with all your maternal care our little Pericles. I
cannot be fonder of him than I have always been; I can only
fear more for him.
Is he not with my Aspasia ? What fears then are
so irra-
tional as mine? But oh! I am living in a widowed house, a
house of desolation; I am living in a city of tombs and torches,
and the last I saw before me were for my children.
PERICLES TO ASPASIA
It is right and orderly, that he who has partaken so largely
in the prosperity of the Athenians should close the procession of
their calamities. The fever that has depopulated our city returned
upon me last night, and Hippocrates and Acron tell me that my
end is near.
When we agreed, O Aspasia, in the beginning of our loves, to
cominunicate our thoughts by writing, even while we were both
in Athens, and when we had many reasons for it, we little fore-
saw the more powerful one that has rendered it necessary of late.
We never can meet again: the laws forbid it, and love itself
enforces them. Let wisdom be heard by you as imperturbably,
and affection as authoritatively, as ever; and remember that the
sorrow of Pericles can arise but from the bosom of Aspasia.
There is only one word of tenderness we could say, which we
have not said oftentimes before; and there is no consolation in it.
The happy never say, and never hear said, farewell.
Reviewing the course of my life, it appears to me at one
moment as if we met but yesterday; at another as if centuries
had passed within it,- for within it have existed the greater
part of those who, since the origin of the world, have been the
luminaries of the human race. Damon called me from my music
to look at Aristides on his way to exile; and my father pressed
the wrist by which he was leading me along, and whispered in
## p. 8871 (#499) ###########################################
WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR
8871
(
>
my ear: “Walk quickly by; glance cautiously; it is there Miltia-
des is in prison.
In my boyhood Pindar took me up in his arms, when he
brought to our house the dirge he had composed for the funeral
of my grandfather; in my adolescence I offered the rites of hos-
pitality to Empedocles; not long afterward I embraced the neck
of Æschylus, about to abandon his country. With Sophocles I
have argued on eloquence; with Euripides on polity and ethics;
I have discoursed, as became an inquirer, with Protagoras and
Democritus, with Anaxagoras and Meton. From Herodotus I have
listened to the most instructive history, conveyed in a language
the most copious and the most harmonious;-a man worthy
to carry away the collected suffrages of universal Greece; a man
worthy to throw open the temples of Egypt, and to celebrate the
exploits of Cyrus. And from Thucydides, who alone can succeed
to him, how recently did my Aspasia hear with me the energetic
praises of his just supremacy!
As if the festival of life were incomplete, and wanted one
great ornament to crown it, Phidias placed before us, in ivory
and gold, the tutelary Deity of this land, and the Zeus of Homer
and Olympus.
To have lived with such men, to have enjoyed their famil-
iarity and esteem, overpays all labors and anxieties. I were
unworthy of the friendships I have commemorated, were I for-
getful of the latest. Sacred it ought to be, formed as it was
under the portico of Death,— my friendship with the most
sagacious, the most scientific, the most beneficent of philosophers,
Acron and Hippocrates. If mortal could war against Pestilence
and Destiny, they had been victorious. I leave them in the
field: unfortunate he who finds them among the fallen!
And now, at the close of my day, when every light is dim
and every guest departed, let me own that these wane before me:
remembering as I do, in the pride and fullness of my heart, that
Athens confided her glory, and Aspasia her happiness, to me.
Have I been a faithful guardian ? do I resign them to the
custody of the gods undiminished and unimpaired ? Welcome
then, welcome, my last hour! After enjoying for so great a
number of years, in my public and my private life, what I
believe has never been the lot of any other, I now extend my
hand to the urn, and take without reluctance or hesitation what
is the lot of all.
## p. 8872 (#500) ###########################################
8872
WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR
THE SACK OF CARTHAGE
I
N A part of the city where the fire had subsided, we were ex-
cited by loud cries; rather of indignation, we thought, than of
such as fear or lament or threaten or exhort: and we pressed
forward to disperse the multitude. Our horses often plunged in
the soft dust, and in the holes whence the pavement had been
removed for missiles; and often reared up and snorted violently
at smells which we could not perceive, but which we discovered
to rise from bodies, mutilated and half burnt, of soldiers and
horses,-laid bare, some partly, some wholly, by the march of
the troop. Although the distance from the place whence we
parted to that where we heard the cries was very short, yet from
the incumbrances in that street, and from the dust and smoke
issuing out of others, we were some time before we reached it.
On our
near approach, two old men threw themselves on the
ground before us, and the elder spake thus: “Our age, O Romans,
neither will nor ought to be our protection: we are, or rather
we have been, judges of this land; and to the uttermost of our
power we have invited our countrymen to resist you. The laws
are now yours. ”
The expectation of the people was intense and silent: we had
heard some groans; and now the last words of the old man were
taken up by others,— by men in agony.
“Yes, O Romans! ” said the elder who accompanied him that
had addressed us, “the laws are yours; and none punish more
severely than you do treason and parricide. Let your horses
turn this corner, and you will see before you traitors and parri-
cides. "
We entered a small square: it had been a market-place; the
roofs of the stalls were demolished, and the stones of several
columns (thrown down to extract the cramps of iron and the lead
that fastened them) served for the spectators, male and female, to
mount on. Five men were nailed on crosses; two others were
nailed against a wall, from scarcity (as we were told) of wood.
«Can seven men have murdered their parents in the same
year? ” cried 1.
“No, nor has any of the seven,” replied the first who had
spoken. “But when heavy impositions were laid upon those who
were backward in voluntary contributions, these men, among the
»
»
## p. 8873 (#501) ###########################################
WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR
8873
>
richest in our city, protested by the gods that they had no gold
or silver left. They protested truly. ”
“ "And they die for this! inhuman, insatiable, inexorable
wretch ! »
« Their books,” added he, unmoved at my reproaches, were
seized by public authority and examined. It was discovered that
instead of employing their riches in external or internal com-
merce, or in manufactories, or in agriculture; instead of reserv-
ing it for the embellishment of the city or the utility of the
citizens; instead of lending it on interest to the industrious and
the needy,- they had lent it to foreign kings and tyrants, some
of whom were waging unjust wars by these very means, and oth-
ers were enslaving their own country. For so heinous a crime
the laws had appointed no specific punishment. On such occasions
the people and elders vote in what manner the delinquent shall
be prosecuted, lest any offender should escape with impunity,
from their humanity or improvidence. Some voted that these
wretches should be cast amid the panthers; the majority decreed
them (I think wisely) a more lingering and more ignominious
death. "
The men upon the crosses held down their heads, whether
from shame or pain or feebleness. The sunbeams were striking
them fiercely; sweat ran from them, liquefying the blood that
had blackened and hardened on their hands and feet. A soldier
stood by the side of each, lowering the point of his spear to the
ground; but no one of them gave it up to us. A centurion asked
the nearest of them how he dared to stand armed before him.
“Because the city is in ruins and the laws still live,” said he.
"At the first order of the conqueror or the elders, I surrender
my spear.
What is your pleasure, O commander ? ” said the elder.
« That an act of justice be the last public act performed by
the citizens of Carthage, and that the sufferings of these wretches
be not abridged. ”
GODIVA'S PLEA
G
ODIVA - Give them life, peace, comfort, contentment. There
are those among them who kissed me in my infancy, and
who blessed me at the baptismal font. Leofric, Leofric! the
first old man I meet I shall think is one of those; and I shall
## p. 8874 (#502) ###########################################
3874
WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR
think on the blessing he gave, and (ah me! ) on the blessing
I bring back to him. My heart will bleed, will burst — and he
,
will weep at it! he will weep, poor soul! for the wife of a cruel
lord who denounces vengeance on him, who carries death into
his family.
Leofric — We must hold solemn festivals.
Godiva — We must indeed.
Leofric— Well, then.
Godiva - Is the clamorousness that succeeds the death of
God's dumb creatures, are crowded halls, are slaughtered cattle,
festivals ? Are maddening songs and giddy dances, and hireling
praises from particolored coats ? Can the voice of a minstrel
tell us better things of ourselves than our own internal one
might tell us; or can his breath make our breath softer in sleep?
O my beloved! let everything be a joyance to us: it will if we
will. Sad is the day, and worse must follow, when we hear the
blackbird in the garden and do not throb with joy. But, Leofric,
the high estival is strown by ne servant of God upon the heart
of man.
It is gladness, it is thanksgiving; it is the orphan, the
starveling, pressed to the bosom, and bidden as its first com-
mandment to remember its benefactor. We will hold this festi-
val: the guests are ready; we may keep it up for weeks and
months and years together, and always be the happier and the
richer for it. The beverage of this feast, O Leofric, is sweeter
than bee or flower or vine can give us: it flows from heaven;
and in heaven will it abundantly be poured out again to him
who pours it out here unsparingly.
Leofric - Thou art wild.
Godiva --I have indeed lost myself. Some Power, some good
kind Power, melts me (body and soul and voice) into tenderness
and love. O my husband, we must obey it. Look upon me!
look upon me! lift your sweet eyes from the ground! I will not
cease to supplicate; I dare not.
Leofric - We may think upon it.
Godiva — Never say that! What! think upon goodness when
you can be good ? Let not the infants cry for sustenance! The
mother of our blessed Lord will hear them; us never, never
afterward.
## p. 8875 (#503) ###########################################
WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR
8875
A DREAM ALLEGORY
W*. FI
EARIED with the length of my walk over the mountains, and
finding a soft old molehill, covered with gray grass, by
the wayside, I laid my head upon it and slept. I can-
not tell how long it was before a species of dream or vision
came over me.
Two beautiful youths appeared beside me: each was winged;
but the wings were hanging down, and seemed ill adapted to
flight. One of them, whose voice was the softest I ever heard,
looking at me frequently, said to the other:-
“He is under my guardianship for the present: do not awaken
him with that feather. ”
Methought, hearing the whisper, I saw something like the
feather on an arrow, and then the arrow itself: the whole of it,
even to the point, although he carried it in such a manner that
it was difficult at first to discover more than a palm’s-length of
it; the rest of the shaft and the whole of the barb was behind
his ankles.
« This feather never awakens any one,” replied he rather petu-
lantly; “but it brings more of confident security, and more of
cherished dreams, than you without me are capable of impart-
ing. ”
>
“Be it so! ” answered the gentler: “none is less inclined to
quarrel or dispute than I am. Many whom you have wounded
grievously, call upon me for succor. But so little am I disposed
to thwart you, it is seldom I venture to do more for them than
to whisper a few words of comfort in passing. How many re-
proaches on these occasions have been cast upon me for indiffer-
ence and infidelity! Nearly as many, and nearly in the same
terms, as upon you! ”
“Odd enough that we, O Sleep! should be thought so alike! ”
said Love contemptuously. "Yonder is he who bears a nearer
resemblance to you: the dullest have observed it. ” I fancied I
turned my eyes to where he was pointing, and saw at a distance
the figure he designated. Meanwhile the contention went on
uninterruptedly. Sleep was slow in asserting his power or his
benefits. Love recapitulated them; but only that he might assert
his own above them. Suddenly he called on me to decide, and
to choose my patron. Under the influence first of the one, then
of the other, I sprang from repose to rapture, I alighted from
## p. 8876 (#504) ###########################################
8876
WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR
cross
me
near us.
coun-
(
rapture on repose
and knew not which was sweetest. Love
was very angry with me, and declared he would
throughout the whole of my existence. Whatever I might on
.
other occasions have thought of his veracity, I now felt too surely
the conviction that he would keep his word. At last, before the
close of the altercation, the third Genius had advanced, and stood
I cannot tell how I knew him, but I knew him to be
the Genius of Death. Breathless as I was at beholding him, I
soon became familiar with his features. First they seemed only
calm; presently they grew contemplative; and lastly beautiful:
those of the Graces themselves are less regular, less harmonious,
less composed. Love glanced at him unsteadily, with a
tenance in which there was somewhat of anxiety, somewhat of
disdain; and cried, "Go away! go away! nothing that thou
touchest lives. »
Say rather, child! ” replied the advancing form, and advancing
grew loftier and statelier, «say rather that nothing of beautiful
or of glorious lives its own true life until my wing hath passed
over it. »
Love pouted, and rumpled and bent down with his forefinger
the stiff short feathers on his arrow-head; but he replied not.
Although he frowned worse than ever, and at me, I dreaded him
less and less, and scarcely looked toward him. The milder and
calmer Genius, the third, in proportion as I took courage to con-
template him, regarded me with more and more complacency.
He had neither flower nor arrow, as the others had; but throwing
back the clusters of dark curls that overshadowed his counte-
nance, he presented to me his hand, openly and benignly. I shrank
on looking at him so near, and yet I sighed to love him. He
smiled, not with an expression of pity, at perceiving my diffi-
dence, my timidity: for I remembered how soft was the hand
of Sleep, how warm and entrancing was Love's. By degrees I
became ashamed of my ingratitude; and turning my face away
I held out my arms, and felt my neck within his. Composure
strewed and allayed all the throbbings of my bosom; the coolness
of freshest morning breathed around; the heavens seemed to open
above me; while the beautiful cheek of my deliverer rested on
my head. I would now have looked for those others; but know-
ing my intention by my gesture, he said consolatorily:-
“Sleep is on his way to the earth, where many are calling
him: but it is not to these he hastens; for every call only makes
## p.
Translated for (A Library of the World's Best Literature,) by Grace King.
## p. 8860 (#485) ###########################################
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## p. 8860 (#488) ###########################################
+
WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR
## p. 8861 (#489) ###########################################
8861
WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR
(1775-1864)
BY WILLIAM CRANSTON LAWTON
AR
ERHAPS there is no English author save Gray to whom the
epithet “classical” is oftener applied than to Landor. This
Suur is not merely a tribute to his mastery of Latin equally with
English verse. Even his unrivaled masterpiece, the imaginary corre-
spondence of Pericles and Aspasia, is no mere marvel of learning,
no mosaic of remembered details; but rather a great free-hand ideal
picture, conforming only to the larger frame of historic fact. Nearly
all his work is equally creative, and has a peculiarly detached effect,
independent of all else whether in reality or fiction, like the best of
Hawthorne's imaginings. This unlimited fountain of original though
not sustained creativeness is the greatest proof of Landor's genius.
Next to it is a style, in all his prose and the best of his verse, so
polished, graceful, indeed faultless, that we may at first fail to per-
ceive beneath it the pulse of life, the heat of conscious effort, which
is after all essential to the highest enjoyment. This very fact, how-
ever, marks the most striking contrast between Landor's art and his
outward life. That contrast will to some extent vanish on closer
scrutiny of both.
Count no life happy until its close, said Solon. Rarely indeed has
a man been born and bred with fairer prospects, lived in more con-
stant turmoil, known greater depths of self-inflicted unhappiness, or
spent his last earthly days more utterly forlorn, than Landor. "I
never did a single wise thing in the whole course of my existence,”
said he near the end of his long life. Too sweeping though this is,
are tempted to cry Amen! It is really incredible that a man
endowed with so many virtues, and of such wondrous intellect, should
have failed so utterly, and one may say so invariably, to adjust him-
self to the necessary relations with his fellow-mortals. Yet it is
equally certain that he “never did a single ” cowardly, cruel, or coldly
selfish thing. His life, however, long as it was, seems like the un-
broken activity of a volcano. Were his genius less rare and lofty, his
later years especially would tempt us to an ignobler comparison; for
we are reminded of a piece of firework, occasionally sending a bright
star heavenward, but never ceasing to sputter and flare until it burns
its own heart out at last!
we
## p. 8862 (#490) ###########################################
8862
WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR
C
»
Landor was the eldest son of a prosperous physician at Warwick.
By entail he was assured heir, through his mother, of estates in War-
wickshire worth nearly £80,000. Sent to Rugby at the age of ten,
he immediately distinguished himself by the quality of his Latin
verses. Indeed, his delightful biographer, Sidney Colvin, calls him
“the one known instance in which the traditional classical education
took full effect. ” This does not appear to be a slur on the quality
of Professor Jebb's Pindaric odes, or of the Latin hexameters with
which Munro supplies the gaps large or small in Lucretius's text.
But Landor by lifelong impulse poured forth creative verse quite
as rapidly and forcibly, though not quite so faultlessly, in Latin as
in English. For satire especially he seems to have preferred the
strength of the deathless Roman speech. Much of his English poetry
is a reluctant translation from his own classic originals.
When his master gave the school a half-holiday for Landor's
Latin verses,” the boy complained fiercely that his poorest perform-
ance was selected for the honor. This belief was expressed in an
abusive addition to the copy of verse itself! Similar outbreaks of his
Muse finally led to his enforced withdrawal from the school. There,
as afterward at college, he always refused to compete for prizes:
valuing his own performances too highly to let them be measured at
all against rivals' work.
He entered Oxford at eighteen, and was known during his one
year there as
“the mad Jacobin,” in a time when the French Revo-
lution had frightened even the students of England away from radi-
calism. His departure in disgrace from Oxford was brought about by
a lawless prank. Aggrieved that a Tory neighbor dared entertain
socially the same night as himself, he riddled his shutters with a
shotgun. His arrival home was signalized by a violent quarrel, at the
end of which he left his father's house forever. ”
Until his thirtieth year he had a small allowance, lived partly in
a remote corner of Wales and partly at Bath, read hard chiefly in
the classics and English poets, and tried his own wings. Love was
not one of his chief teachers, though the lady whose name, Jane, is
glorified as Ianthe,” had a lasting influence over him. Resenting
Byron's adoption of this beloved title, he declares he
« — planted in a fresh parterre
Ianthe; it was blooming when a youth
Leapt o'er the hedge, and snatching at the stem,
Broke off the label from my favorite flower,
And stuck it on a sorrier of his own. ”
Rose Aylmer, — the short-lived daughter of Lord Aylmer, — whose
beautiful name has been immortalized in a lyric brief as Catullus and
## p. 8863 (#491) ###########################################
WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR
8863
“sad as tear-drops of Simonides,” was Landor's neighbor and friend
in Wales. She lent him a book containing the sorry “Arabian” tale
which suggested his first important poem. (Gebir) is a romantic and
tragical epic. Into less than two thousand lines of blank verse is
packed action enough for an Iliad. It is very hard to follow the plot.
The close-knit blank verse is rather too regular also. Still it is a
great creative work; chaotic and aiinless ethically, but in detail often
masterly. It had no readers then save Southey, and few at any time
since. Landor said loftily that he would have been encouraged to
write more if even foolish men had read it, since “there is something
of summer even in the hum of insects. »
(Gebir) has influenced English poetry profoundly, nevertheless.
Southey loved it from the first. Shelley, like Charles Lamb, was
never weary of repeating certain passages. Of our own contempora-
ries, Swinburne pours out loyal praise, with his usual lavishness, in
the article on Landor in the Britannica. In the same year (1798)
appeared the famous Lyrical Ballads, beginning with Coleridge's
(Ancient Mariner) and ending with Wordsworth's “Tintern Abbey. )
Either of these has still a thousand readers to (Gebir's) one. Which
was really the weightiest portent of the new day may well be ques-
tioned. Landor never sought, and probably never seriously hoped for,
wide popularity, even in the future. «I shall dine late,” he says; but
the dining-room will be well lighted, the guests few and select. ”
This fantastic epic by a youth of twenty-three already justified those
haughty words; and all the brother poets just mentioned, with a
goodly number besides, have testified to its influence upon them.
Byron indeed - and others attempted to appropriate such gems as
the verses on the sea-shell:-
“Shake one and it awakens; then apply
Its polisht lips to your attentive ear,
And it remembers its august abodes,
And murmurs as the ocean murmurs there. )
The year 1808 was like an epitome of Landor's whole life. The
wealth recently inherited from his father (the estates being released
from entail by special act of Parliament) was all absorbed by a mag-
nificent estate some eight miles in extent, in Monmouthshire. His
plans — to build up the ruined abbey of Llanthony which gave the
place its name, to erect for himself a goodly mansion, to reclaim
the land and reform the peasantry were all broken in upon by a
sudden expedition to Spain, where Landor went campaigning against
Napoleon with a regiment equipped at his own expense. Presently
the volunteers had all melted away; and their generous patron, hav-
ing quarreled out with his hosts, his allies, and his superior officers,
## p. 8864 (#492) ###########################################
8864
WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR
recrossed the Channel, to resume his denunciation of all in political
office and his strife with every one within five leagues of his estate.
The chief fruit of his Spanish tour was the tragedy Count Julian. '
Like his other plays, it is quite unsuited to the stage. The hero,
who turns against his king to avenge his daughter, is a careful psy-
chological study. The drama, however, like all Landor's longer works,
is read and remembered, if at all, rather for details, for picked pass-
ages, than for its general effect. Mr. Lowell's remark is an acute
one,- that Landor is hardly a great thinker, though he has certainly
uttered adequately great thoughts. He lacks the longer, the lasting
inspiration, that merges all the exquisite detail of an Othello' or of a
Prometheus) in the resistless sweep of the master's design. When he
is for the moment indeed inspired, his perfect command of style,
of utterance, carries him with perfect ease to a height where he has
absolutely no masters.
As we are trying to indicate, Landor's life and his work help
to explain each other — and both need explanation. His marriage
was perhaps his gravest mistake. He fell in love with a stranger's
pretty face, and instantly avowed his choice. He married a few weeks
later, in 1811. The bride was sixteen years younger than he; and
not content with quarrels of his creating, seems to have started
them forever after, at will, by taunting him on his age! Whether
any woman could have guided this stormy nature through life may
be doubted.
By 1814 he had sunk £70,000 in his estate, and fled from England
to escape his creditors. Llanthony passed into his mother's wise con-
trol. She was able to meet all demands, make provision for the
support of Landor's family, and transmit the estate much improved
to his posterity. Even upon his southward flight he parted in anger
with his wife at Jersey, and hurried to France alone in an oyster-
boat! But the irrevocable » breach was closed within a year.
During the next two decades Landor lived almost wholly in Italy,
chiefly in Florence and Fiesole. This is the happiest period of his
career, and probably his warmest admirers wish it had been the last.
The works also on which his fame rests most secure are the fruit of
this epoch. The Imaginary Conversations cover an astonishingly
wide range in ancient and modern life. Though an untiring reader,
Landor had not by any means an encyclopædic memory in matters
historical or biographical. He owned at any one time few books;
for though he bought many, he gave them away no less eagerly.
His dramatic scenes are not in the least mosaics pieced together from
«authorities” or “sources. ” On the contrary, he chose by deliberate
preference events which might have occurred, but were quite un-
recorded; and he austerely refused to lay upon his interlocutors' lips
## p. 8865 (#493) ###########################################
WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR
8865
any single sentiment or thought save what he believed to be original
with himself!
The elemental impulses of Landor's nature were generous, and not
ignoble. He had thirteen pitched battles as a schoolboy, and won
eleven; but they were all against older boys, and probably waged to
put down bullying. He once threw his cook out of the kitchen win-
dow; but put his head out instantly thereafter, exclaiming ruefully,
“My God! I forgot the violets! ) Not only toward flowers but toward
all animals he was humane to the point of eccentricity. He would
not shoot any living creature, nor even hook a fish. Profuse as he
was in unwise giving, unable to resist playing the generous patron
whether himself penniless or prosperous, his own needs were of the
simplest. Even his fiercest quarrels were rarely in behalf of his own
rights; and many of the most threatening outbreaks vanished in
peals of uproarious and most infectious laughter, whenever his sense of
humor could be touched before his stubborn pride was too firmly set.
Of course, Landor's life in Italy was by no means a monotonously
peaceful one. He had to fee from more than one resting-place «for
speaking ill of authorities,” preferably in scurrilous Latin verse. The
current Italian remark quoted about him is perhaps too delicious to
be merely true: “Tutti gli Inglesi sono pazzi, ma questo poi! (All
the English are crazy, but oh — this one! ) Had he died at sixty,
in the bosom of his family, in his lovely Fiesolan villa, he would
have left not only the Conversations, but the Examination of
Shakespeare,' the Pentameron,' and even the greater part of his
perfect masterpiece, Pericles and Aspasia. ' These three may all be
regarded, indeed, as Imaginary Conversations which have burst the
lesser frame.
It is generally said that the heat and turmoil of Landor's outward
life are absent from his literary creations. In some degree this is
certainly true. His workmanship-above all, the finished detail in
word and phrase — gives a certain sculpturesque calm and coolness
to his work. Nevertheless, his fierce hatred of tyranny and of brutal
selfishness, his tender sympathy with helpless innocence, may be felt
throbbing beneath every word of such scenes as Henry VIII. 's last
interview with Anne Boleyn. There is no purer patriot than the
dying Marcellus, who gives his generous foeman Hannibal a new con-
ception of Roman character. Polybius, as he rides in sad triumph
through burning Carthage, receives from the vanquished an awful
lesson in retributive justice. The womanly tenderness of Godiva is
set in a dazzling light which makes the last laureate's graceful
verses seem tame. The sweetness of human destiny is wonderfully
touched in the words of Thetis, herself an immortal, when her husband
grieves that he grows old: There is a loveliness which youth may
XV-555
## p. 8866 (#494) ###########################################
8866
WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR
be without, and which the gods want. To the voice of compassion
not a shell in all the ocean is attuned; and no tear ever dropped
upon Olympus.
The happiest subject and the most perfect execution, however,
must be sought in “Pericles and Aspasia. While largely true to the
outlines as we know them from Thucydides and others, this is still
a creative romance, depicting adequately a noble attachment which
ended only with life.
It is with the greater reluctance, therefore, with pity, and even
with bewilderment, that we recall how, in the very days when this
supreme and happy masterpiece was approaching completion, the
sixty-year-old Landor deserted his wife and children in Fiesole, and
after a few months' leisurely sojourn in other parts of Italy, passed
on with little evidence of regret to England. The quarrel was in its
origin almost trivial. Mrs. Landor, we are told, had indulged once
too often in the lifelong habit of criticizing her husband in the child-
ren's presence! He indulged, we believe, in no abusive Latin verses
on this occasion. He promptly stripped himself of nearly his entire
income, leaving the deserted family in comparative affluence; but all
the well-meant intercession of friends proved vain. He established
a modest home in England. Some stanch friends remained to him.
His literary career was by no means ended; indeed, his fame grew
in the next decade.
Twenty-three years later, quite penniless, fleeing from the disastrous
results of an ignoble libel, the incorrigible octogenarian schoolboy
arrived, wild-eyed and combative as ever, at his own gate! After
repeated quarrels had made his longer stay there impossible, Mr.
Browning took the old lion under his protection. Prosperous brothers
in England provided a modest pension. In these days Swinburne
made a pilgrimage to Italy expressly to see his revered master;
and among the most faithful to the end, Kate Field has an honored
place.
Some of our judgments on Landor's character as inan and poet we
have already attempted to deliver. Yet the Titanic, the elemental
type of humanity is peculiarly difficult for ephemeral man to see
fairly or to describe rationally. The mistakes and sins of Landor's
career seem un pardonable. Yet a thousand incidents prove him the
tenderest, the most self-sacrificing — we had nearly said the most
heroic — of men. His life was not, we incline to believe, even
happy upon the whole. Certainly it was most fruitful. A sort of
dæmonic good fortune, indeed, seemed to attend him and his. Even
his great Welsh estate was not actually ruined, after all, by his early
extravagance. His family was not disgraced, nor plunged into pov-
erty, by his desertion twenty years later.
un-
## p. 8867 (#495) ###########################################
WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR
8867
As for his literary creations, his proudly modest prediction seems
already more than fulfilled. He himself saw the scattered children of
his genius gathered up in two tall octavos in 1846. The fuller library
edition, since his death, and the exhaustive biography, we owe to
Landor's faithful friend John Forster. We wish however to refer with
especial gratitude to two little books by Sidney Colvin.
To the ad-
mirable biography in the 'English Men of Letters' the present essay-
ist confesses a heavy debt. Moreover, the Golden Treasury' series
includes a capital anthology from Landor, culled by the same hand.
As we have indicated, our author lends himself better to this treat-
ment than almost any other. We know of no volume which contains
more helpful example and suggestion for the aspiring literary artist.
Landor is not one of those single-throated purely lyric natures,
like Heine or Burns, whose every utterance comes straight from the
singer's own heart. He could enjoy the full development of both
sides in an argument. He could realize vividly, and even tolerate
patiently, characters with which he was in very imperfect sympathy.
In this he reminds us of Browning, or that ancient author whom he
signally failed to appreciate, Plato. His sense of poetic limitation
would never have permitted so merciless a creation as “The Ring
and the Book. With a tithe of Browning's or Plato's ethical purpose
and staying power, he might have created a really great drama. He
has left us, perhaps, nothing which can be set among the indispensable
masterpieces of humanity. Yet he may always remain, as painters
say of Andrea del Sarto, an all-but faultless master of technique, and
so, indispensable among the models for his fellow craftsmen.
In spite of much graceful verse, and at least one perfect lyric,
Landor seems on the whole to have felt the fixed rhythmical form as
a fetter, not as an inspiration. As with Emerson, nearly all his most
poetic utterances are in polished prose. In the selections given
below, we have endeavored usually to choose passages where Landor
speaks in deepest earnest, and with the loftiest purpose.
Nizziam Cranston Lawton
.
## p. 8868 (#496) ###########################################
8868
WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR
IMAGINARY CORRESPONDENCE OF PERICLES AND ASPASIA
ASPASIA TO PERICLES
I
-
APPREHEND, O Pericles, not only that I may become an object
of jealousy and hatred to the Athenians by the notice you
have taken of me, but that you yourself — which affects me
greatly more - may cease to retain the whole of their respect
and veneration.
Whether, to acquire a great authority over the people, some
things are not necessary to be done on which Virtue and Wisdom
are at variance, it becomes not me to argue or consider; but
let me suggest the inquiry to you, whether he who is desirous of
supremacy should devote the larger portion of his time to one
person.
Three affections of the soul predominate: Love, Religion, and
Power. The first two are often united; the other stands widely
apart from them, and neither is admitted nor seeks admittance
to their society. I wonder then how you can love so truly and
tenderly. Ought I not rather to say I did wonder? Was Pisis-
tratus affectionate ?
Do not be angry. It is certainly the first
time a friend has ever ventured to discover a resemblance, al-
though you are habituated to it from your opponents. In these
you forgive it: do you in me?
PERICLES TO ASPASIA
PisistrATUS was affectionate; the rest of his character you
know as well as I do. You know that he was eloquent, that he
was humane, that he was contemplative, that he was learned; that
he not only was profuse to men of genius, but cordial, and that
it was only with such men he was familiar and intimate. You
know that he was the greatest, the wisest, the most virtuous,
excepting Solon and Lycurgus, that ever ruled any portion of
the human race. Is it not happy and glorious for mortals, when
instead of being led by the ears under the clumsy and violent
hand of vulgar and clamorous adventurers, a Pisistratus leaves
the volumes of Homer and the conversation of Solon for them ?
We may be introduced to Power by Humanity, and at first
may love her less for her own sake than for Humanity's; but by
degrees we become so accustomed to her as to be quite uneasy
without her.
## p. 8869 (#497) ###########################################
WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR
8869
Religion and Power, like the Caryatides in sculpture, never
face one another; they sometimes look the same way, but oftener
stand back to back.
We will argue about them one at a time, and about the other
in the triad too: let me have the choice.
ASPASIA TO PERICLES
WE MUST talk over again the subject of your letter; no, not
talk, but write about it.
I think, Pericles, you who are so sincere with me are never
quite sincere with others. You have contracted this bad habitude
from your custom of addressing the people. But among friends
and philosophers, would it not be better to speak exactly as we
think, whether ingeniously or not? Ingenious things, I am afraid,
are never perfectly true: however, I would not exclude them, the
difference being wide between perfect truth and violated truth;
I would not even leave them in a minority; I would hear and
say as many as may be, letting them pass current for what they
are worth. Anaxagoras rightly remarked that Love always makes
us better, Religion sometimes, Power never.
ASPASIA TO PERICLES
Never tell me, O my Pericles, that you are suddenly changed
in appearance. May every change of your figure and counte-
nance be gradual, so that I shall not perceive it; but if you really
are altered to such a degree as you describe, I must transfer my
affection from the first Pericles to the second. Are you jeal-
ous? If you are, it is I who am to be pitied, whose heart is
destined to fly from the one to the other incessantly. In the end
it will rest, it shall, it must, on the nearest. I would write a
longer letter; but it is a sad and wearisome thing to aim at play-
fulness where the hand is palsied by affliction. Be well; and all
is well: be happy; and Athens rises up again, alert and bloom-
ing and vigorous, from between war and pestilence.
for love cures all but love. How can we fear to die, how can
we die, while we cling or are clung to by the beloved ?
Love me;
## p. 8870 (#498) ###########################################
8870
WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR
PERICLES TO ASPASIA
The pestilence has taken from me both my sons. You, who
were ever so kind and affectionate to them, will receive a tardy
recompense in hearing that the least gentle and the least grate-
ful did acknowledge it.
I mourn for Paralos because he loved me; for Xanthippos
because he loved me not.
Preserve with all your maternal care our little Pericles. I
cannot be fonder of him than I have always been; I can only
fear more for him.
Is he not with my Aspasia ? What fears then are
so irra-
tional as mine? But oh! I am living in a widowed house, a
house of desolation; I am living in a city of tombs and torches,
and the last I saw before me were for my children.
PERICLES TO ASPASIA
It is right and orderly, that he who has partaken so largely
in the prosperity of the Athenians should close the procession of
their calamities. The fever that has depopulated our city returned
upon me last night, and Hippocrates and Acron tell me that my
end is near.
When we agreed, O Aspasia, in the beginning of our loves, to
cominunicate our thoughts by writing, even while we were both
in Athens, and when we had many reasons for it, we little fore-
saw the more powerful one that has rendered it necessary of late.
We never can meet again: the laws forbid it, and love itself
enforces them. Let wisdom be heard by you as imperturbably,
and affection as authoritatively, as ever; and remember that the
sorrow of Pericles can arise but from the bosom of Aspasia.
There is only one word of tenderness we could say, which we
have not said oftentimes before; and there is no consolation in it.
The happy never say, and never hear said, farewell.
Reviewing the course of my life, it appears to me at one
moment as if we met but yesterday; at another as if centuries
had passed within it,- for within it have existed the greater
part of those who, since the origin of the world, have been the
luminaries of the human race. Damon called me from my music
to look at Aristides on his way to exile; and my father pressed
the wrist by which he was leading me along, and whispered in
## p. 8871 (#499) ###########################################
WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR
8871
(
>
my ear: “Walk quickly by; glance cautiously; it is there Miltia-
des is in prison.
In my boyhood Pindar took me up in his arms, when he
brought to our house the dirge he had composed for the funeral
of my grandfather; in my adolescence I offered the rites of hos-
pitality to Empedocles; not long afterward I embraced the neck
of Æschylus, about to abandon his country. With Sophocles I
have argued on eloquence; with Euripides on polity and ethics;
I have discoursed, as became an inquirer, with Protagoras and
Democritus, with Anaxagoras and Meton. From Herodotus I have
listened to the most instructive history, conveyed in a language
the most copious and the most harmonious;-a man worthy
to carry away the collected suffrages of universal Greece; a man
worthy to throw open the temples of Egypt, and to celebrate the
exploits of Cyrus. And from Thucydides, who alone can succeed
to him, how recently did my Aspasia hear with me the energetic
praises of his just supremacy!
As if the festival of life were incomplete, and wanted one
great ornament to crown it, Phidias placed before us, in ivory
and gold, the tutelary Deity of this land, and the Zeus of Homer
and Olympus.
To have lived with such men, to have enjoyed their famil-
iarity and esteem, overpays all labors and anxieties. I were
unworthy of the friendships I have commemorated, were I for-
getful of the latest. Sacred it ought to be, formed as it was
under the portico of Death,— my friendship with the most
sagacious, the most scientific, the most beneficent of philosophers,
Acron and Hippocrates. If mortal could war against Pestilence
and Destiny, they had been victorious. I leave them in the
field: unfortunate he who finds them among the fallen!
And now, at the close of my day, when every light is dim
and every guest departed, let me own that these wane before me:
remembering as I do, in the pride and fullness of my heart, that
Athens confided her glory, and Aspasia her happiness, to me.
Have I been a faithful guardian ? do I resign them to the
custody of the gods undiminished and unimpaired ? Welcome
then, welcome, my last hour! After enjoying for so great a
number of years, in my public and my private life, what I
believe has never been the lot of any other, I now extend my
hand to the urn, and take without reluctance or hesitation what
is the lot of all.
## p. 8872 (#500) ###########################################
8872
WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR
THE SACK OF CARTHAGE
I
N A part of the city where the fire had subsided, we were ex-
cited by loud cries; rather of indignation, we thought, than of
such as fear or lament or threaten or exhort: and we pressed
forward to disperse the multitude. Our horses often plunged in
the soft dust, and in the holes whence the pavement had been
removed for missiles; and often reared up and snorted violently
at smells which we could not perceive, but which we discovered
to rise from bodies, mutilated and half burnt, of soldiers and
horses,-laid bare, some partly, some wholly, by the march of
the troop. Although the distance from the place whence we
parted to that where we heard the cries was very short, yet from
the incumbrances in that street, and from the dust and smoke
issuing out of others, we were some time before we reached it.
On our
near approach, two old men threw themselves on the
ground before us, and the elder spake thus: “Our age, O Romans,
neither will nor ought to be our protection: we are, or rather
we have been, judges of this land; and to the uttermost of our
power we have invited our countrymen to resist you. The laws
are now yours. ”
The expectation of the people was intense and silent: we had
heard some groans; and now the last words of the old man were
taken up by others,— by men in agony.
“Yes, O Romans! ” said the elder who accompanied him that
had addressed us, “the laws are yours; and none punish more
severely than you do treason and parricide. Let your horses
turn this corner, and you will see before you traitors and parri-
cides. "
We entered a small square: it had been a market-place; the
roofs of the stalls were demolished, and the stones of several
columns (thrown down to extract the cramps of iron and the lead
that fastened them) served for the spectators, male and female, to
mount on. Five men were nailed on crosses; two others were
nailed against a wall, from scarcity (as we were told) of wood.
«Can seven men have murdered their parents in the same
year? ” cried 1.
“No, nor has any of the seven,” replied the first who had
spoken. “But when heavy impositions were laid upon those who
were backward in voluntary contributions, these men, among the
»
»
## p. 8873 (#501) ###########################################
WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR
8873
>
richest in our city, protested by the gods that they had no gold
or silver left. They protested truly. ”
“ "And they die for this! inhuman, insatiable, inexorable
wretch ! »
« Their books,” added he, unmoved at my reproaches, were
seized by public authority and examined. It was discovered that
instead of employing their riches in external or internal com-
merce, or in manufactories, or in agriculture; instead of reserv-
ing it for the embellishment of the city or the utility of the
citizens; instead of lending it on interest to the industrious and
the needy,- they had lent it to foreign kings and tyrants, some
of whom were waging unjust wars by these very means, and oth-
ers were enslaving their own country. For so heinous a crime
the laws had appointed no specific punishment. On such occasions
the people and elders vote in what manner the delinquent shall
be prosecuted, lest any offender should escape with impunity,
from their humanity or improvidence. Some voted that these
wretches should be cast amid the panthers; the majority decreed
them (I think wisely) a more lingering and more ignominious
death. "
The men upon the crosses held down their heads, whether
from shame or pain or feebleness. The sunbeams were striking
them fiercely; sweat ran from them, liquefying the blood that
had blackened and hardened on their hands and feet. A soldier
stood by the side of each, lowering the point of his spear to the
ground; but no one of them gave it up to us. A centurion asked
the nearest of them how he dared to stand armed before him.
“Because the city is in ruins and the laws still live,” said he.
"At the first order of the conqueror or the elders, I surrender
my spear.
What is your pleasure, O commander ? ” said the elder.
« That an act of justice be the last public act performed by
the citizens of Carthage, and that the sufferings of these wretches
be not abridged. ”
GODIVA'S PLEA
G
ODIVA - Give them life, peace, comfort, contentment. There
are those among them who kissed me in my infancy, and
who blessed me at the baptismal font. Leofric, Leofric! the
first old man I meet I shall think is one of those; and I shall
## p. 8874 (#502) ###########################################
3874
WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR
think on the blessing he gave, and (ah me! ) on the blessing
I bring back to him. My heart will bleed, will burst — and he
,
will weep at it! he will weep, poor soul! for the wife of a cruel
lord who denounces vengeance on him, who carries death into
his family.
Leofric — We must hold solemn festivals.
Godiva — We must indeed.
Leofric— Well, then.
Godiva - Is the clamorousness that succeeds the death of
God's dumb creatures, are crowded halls, are slaughtered cattle,
festivals ? Are maddening songs and giddy dances, and hireling
praises from particolored coats ? Can the voice of a minstrel
tell us better things of ourselves than our own internal one
might tell us; or can his breath make our breath softer in sleep?
O my beloved! let everything be a joyance to us: it will if we
will. Sad is the day, and worse must follow, when we hear the
blackbird in the garden and do not throb with joy. But, Leofric,
the high estival is strown by ne servant of God upon the heart
of man.
It is gladness, it is thanksgiving; it is the orphan, the
starveling, pressed to the bosom, and bidden as its first com-
mandment to remember its benefactor. We will hold this festi-
val: the guests are ready; we may keep it up for weeks and
months and years together, and always be the happier and the
richer for it. The beverage of this feast, O Leofric, is sweeter
than bee or flower or vine can give us: it flows from heaven;
and in heaven will it abundantly be poured out again to him
who pours it out here unsparingly.
Leofric - Thou art wild.
Godiva --I have indeed lost myself. Some Power, some good
kind Power, melts me (body and soul and voice) into tenderness
and love. O my husband, we must obey it. Look upon me!
look upon me! lift your sweet eyes from the ground! I will not
cease to supplicate; I dare not.
Leofric - We may think upon it.
Godiva — Never say that! What! think upon goodness when
you can be good ? Let not the infants cry for sustenance! The
mother of our blessed Lord will hear them; us never, never
afterward.
## p. 8875 (#503) ###########################################
WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR
8875
A DREAM ALLEGORY
W*. FI
EARIED with the length of my walk over the mountains, and
finding a soft old molehill, covered with gray grass, by
the wayside, I laid my head upon it and slept. I can-
not tell how long it was before a species of dream or vision
came over me.
Two beautiful youths appeared beside me: each was winged;
but the wings were hanging down, and seemed ill adapted to
flight. One of them, whose voice was the softest I ever heard,
looking at me frequently, said to the other:-
“He is under my guardianship for the present: do not awaken
him with that feather. ”
Methought, hearing the whisper, I saw something like the
feather on an arrow, and then the arrow itself: the whole of it,
even to the point, although he carried it in such a manner that
it was difficult at first to discover more than a palm’s-length of
it; the rest of the shaft and the whole of the barb was behind
his ankles.
« This feather never awakens any one,” replied he rather petu-
lantly; “but it brings more of confident security, and more of
cherished dreams, than you without me are capable of impart-
ing. ”
>
“Be it so! ” answered the gentler: “none is less inclined to
quarrel or dispute than I am. Many whom you have wounded
grievously, call upon me for succor. But so little am I disposed
to thwart you, it is seldom I venture to do more for them than
to whisper a few words of comfort in passing. How many re-
proaches on these occasions have been cast upon me for indiffer-
ence and infidelity! Nearly as many, and nearly in the same
terms, as upon you! ”
“Odd enough that we, O Sleep! should be thought so alike! ”
said Love contemptuously. "Yonder is he who bears a nearer
resemblance to you: the dullest have observed it. ” I fancied I
turned my eyes to where he was pointing, and saw at a distance
the figure he designated. Meanwhile the contention went on
uninterruptedly. Sleep was slow in asserting his power or his
benefits. Love recapitulated them; but only that he might assert
his own above them. Suddenly he called on me to decide, and
to choose my patron. Under the influence first of the one, then
of the other, I sprang from repose to rapture, I alighted from
## p. 8876 (#504) ###########################################
8876
WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR
cross
me
near us.
coun-
(
rapture on repose
and knew not which was sweetest. Love
was very angry with me, and declared he would
throughout the whole of my existence. Whatever I might on
.
other occasions have thought of his veracity, I now felt too surely
the conviction that he would keep his word. At last, before the
close of the altercation, the third Genius had advanced, and stood
I cannot tell how I knew him, but I knew him to be
the Genius of Death. Breathless as I was at beholding him, I
soon became familiar with his features. First they seemed only
calm; presently they grew contemplative; and lastly beautiful:
those of the Graces themselves are less regular, less harmonious,
less composed. Love glanced at him unsteadily, with a
tenance in which there was somewhat of anxiety, somewhat of
disdain; and cried, "Go away! go away! nothing that thou
touchest lives. »
Say rather, child! ” replied the advancing form, and advancing
grew loftier and statelier, «say rather that nothing of beautiful
or of glorious lives its own true life until my wing hath passed
over it. »
Love pouted, and rumpled and bent down with his forefinger
the stiff short feathers on his arrow-head; but he replied not.
Although he frowned worse than ever, and at me, I dreaded him
less and less, and scarcely looked toward him. The milder and
calmer Genius, the third, in proportion as I took courage to con-
template him, regarded me with more and more complacency.
He had neither flower nor arrow, as the others had; but throwing
back the clusters of dark curls that overshadowed his counte-
nance, he presented to me his hand, openly and benignly. I shrank
on looking at him so near, and yet I sighed to love him. He
smiled, not with an expression of pity, at perceiving my diffi-
dence, my timidity: for I remembered how soft was the hand
of Sleep, how warm and entrancing was Love's. By degrees I
became ashamed of my ingratitude; and turning my face away
I held out my arms, and felt my neck within his. Composure
strewed and allayed all the throbbings of my bosom; the coolness
of freshest morning breathed around; the heavens seemed to open
above me; while the beautiful cheek of my deliverer rested on
my head. I would now have looked for those others; but know-
ing my intention by my gesture, he said consolatorily:-
“Sleep is on his way to the earth, where many are calling
him: but it is not to these he hastens; for every call only makes
## p.
