"You desire to be remembered to him who Eang of Thalaba, the wild and wondrous Tale. Alas! my friend, the dull cold ear of death is not more insensible than his, my dearest husband's, to all communications from the world without. Scarcely can I keep hold of the last poor comfort of believing that he still knows me. This almost complete unconsciousness has not been of more than six months' standing, though more than two years have elapsed since he has written even his name. After the death of his first wife, the Edith' of his first love, who was for several years insane, his health was terribly shaken. Yet for the greater part of a year, which he spent with me in Hampshire, my former home, it seemed perfectly reestablished; and he used to say 'It had surely pleased God that the last years of his life should be happy. But the Almighty willed otherwise. The little cloud soon appeared which was to overshadow all. In the blackness of its shadow we still live, and shall pass from it only through the portals of the grave. The last three years have done on me the work of twenty. The one sole business of my life is that which I verily believe keeps the life in me,-the guardianship of my dear, helpless, unconscious husband.” &c. It is these passages to which we have [my dearest father, should I be so unhappy referred, and now quote. as to survive him, will depart all that binds me to this world.'" Miss Mitford has sustained this misfortune, aggravated we deepy regret to learn, by other circumstances, painful to every one, but doubly so to fine and sensitive minds. Owing to the long and expensive illness of her father, and the consequent suspension of those literary labors which have communicated delight to the Old and to the New world, Miss Mitford, at the death of her father, found herself involved in debts to the amount of between £800 and £900. After having relinquished her mother's large fortune in behalf of her other parent, besides several legacies left exclusively to herself, she has had the additional misfortune of losing a sum equal to the half of her embarrassments, by the failure of a publisher; and is thus left without any available means, save the pension of £100 a-year, granted her some years since by the Queen. Miss Mitford was preparing best might,-at whatever sacrifice, and by to meet this heavy responsibility as she whatever exertion,-when some of her We imagine that no travelled American friends, to whom the circumstances became lady would be longer honored as "a poetess known, interfered, and proposed an appea! in her own country," who ventured home to the public, for the purpose of paying without being able to tell something of Miss debts incurred in supplying the wants of the Mitford. It does not appear that Mrs. Sig-aged and infirm father, who had long enourney actually made the customary pilgrim- grossed all her time, and all her care. We age to Three-Mile-Cross; but she must have think too well of the British, and, we may been in correspondence with the lady whose add, of the American public, to believe that filial devotion she eulogizes as adding lustre this appeal will be made in vain. Thouand grace to the rich imagery of her pages. sands, and tens of thousands, have felt and Of Miss Mitford she writes,-"An aged fa-known the charm of her writings, and they ther, of whom she is the only child, is the object of her constant cherishing care. Years have elapsed since she has left him, scarcely for an evening; and she receives calls only during those hours in the afternoon when he regularly takes rest upon his bed. She is ever in attendance upon him; cheering him by the recital of passing events, and pouring into his spirit the fresher life of her own. . . . I cannot withhold a sweet picture drawn by her pen, though sensible that she had no intention of its meeting the public eye. 'My father,' Miss Mitford writes, 'is a splendid old man, with a most noble head, a fine countenance full of benevolence and love, hair of silvery whiteness, and a complexion like winter berries. I suppose there never was a more beautiful embodiment of healthful and virtuous old age. . . How to promote his comfort in his advanced years and increasing infirmities, occupies most of my thoughts. It is my privilege to make many sacrifices to this blessed duty; for, with have now an opportunity of repaying some small part of their debt,-of shedding returning peace and sunshine over that once sunny and cheerful spirit, which has log diffused an affluence of refined enjoyment, and ministered to the sweetest affections of our common nature. SONNET. Sue took the veil,-'twas at the vesper hour, flower In a lone vase pines for the garden bright, Silently awile he stood. She took the veil! IMAGINARY CONVERSATION, try has disappeared from Mr. Hunt's poem, Between Mr. Walter Savage Landor and the though Mr. Landor has by no means left Editor of Blackwood's Magazine. From Blackwood's Magazine. TO CHRISTOPHER NORTH, ESQ. off gabbling. Mr. Hunt is a kindly-natured man as well as a wit, and no doubt perceived that he had been more prophetic SIR, Mr. Walter Savage Landor has than he intended-Mr. Landor, having in addition to verses uncounted, unless on his become a contributor to Blackwood's Magazine! I stared at the announcement, and thick octavo volumes of dialogues. From own fingers, favored the world with five it will presently be seen why. There is the four first I have culled a few speci nothing extraordinary in the apparition of another and another of this garrulous sex-mored that a sixth is in the press, with a mens; the fifth I have not read. It is ruagenarian's "Imaginary Conversations." They come like shadows, so depart. 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. dedication in the issimo style, to Lord John Russell, Mr. Landor's lantern having at "The thing, we know, is neither new nor rare, last enabled him to detect one honest man But wonder how the devil it got there." in the Imperial Parliament. Lord John, Many of your readers, ignorant or forget-it seems, in the House of Commons lately ful, may have asked, "Who is Mr. Landor? quoted something from him about a ChiWe have never heard of any remarkable nese mandarin's opinion of the English; person of that name, or bearing a similar and Mr. Landor is so delighted that he inone, except the two brothers Lander, the tends to take the Russells under his proexplorers of the Niger." Mr. Walter Sav-tection for ever, and not only them, but age would answer, "Not to know me, every thing within the range of their inargues yourself unknown." He was very terests. Not a cast horse, attached to a angry with Lord Byron for designating Woburn sand-cart, shall henceforth crawl 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 hieroglyph ics, then translated by him into Latin, and thence done into English blank verse by You may object that it is a feigned colthe same hand. It is a work of rare oc-loquy, in which an unauthorized use is currence 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 You and I must differ more widely in our but a sphinx, and that an Egyptian one, notions of fair play than I hope and believe could unriddle it. I would suggest that we do, if you refuse to one whose purpose some Maga of the gipsies should be called is neither unjust nor ungenerous, as much in to interpret. Our vagrant fortune-tell-license in your columns as you have accorers are reputed to be of Egyptian origin, ded to Mr. Landor, when it was his whim, and to hold converse among themselves in without the smallest provocation, to throw a very strange and curious oriental tongue obloquy on the venerated author of the called Gibberish, which word, no doubt, is Excursion. 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 North. I thank you, sir.-Be seated. about a shell, while in the text the author L. I have called to inquire whether you of Gebir was called a gander, and Mr. have considered my proposal, and are wilSouthey rallied by Apollo for his simplicity ling to accept my aid. 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. I am, Sir, your faithful servant, EDWARD QUILLMAN. Landor. GooD-morning, Mr. North, I hope you are well. in proposing that the company should N. I am almost afraid to trust you, sir. drink the gabbler's health. That pleasan-You treat the Muses like nine-pins. Nei ther gods nor men find favor in your sight. If Homer and Virgil crossed your path, you would throw stones at them. L. 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!* 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. Menzentius is the most heroical and pious of all the characters in the Eneid. The Eneid, I affirm, is the most misshapen of epics, an epic of episodes.† There are a few good passages in it. I must repeat one for the sake of proposing an amendment. "Quinetian 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 æquor !" If hybernum were substituted for undosum, how incomparably more beautiful would the sentence be for this energetic repetition? N. 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. no L. Pshaw! You Scotchmen are scholars. Let me proceed. Virgil has no nature. And, by the way, his translator Dryden, too, is greatly overrated. N. Glorious John? L. Glorious fiddlestick! It is insuffera ble that a rhymer should be called glorious, whose only claim to notice is a clever drinking song. N. A drinking song? L. Yes, the thing termed an Ode for St. Cecilia's Day. N. Heigh, 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, favor me with your opinion of Plato. L. Plato is disingenuous and malicious. I fancy I have detected him in more than * See Mr. Landor's "Imaginary Conversations," vol. i. p. 44, and ii. p. 322, note. + Vol. i. p. 269, 270. + Vol. i. p. 300. He one dark passage, a dagger in his hand and a bitter sneer on his countenance. stole (from the Egyptian priests and other sources) every idea his voluminous books convey. Plato was a thief. N. "Taffy was a Welshman, Taffy was a thief." L. Do you mean to insinuate that my dialogues are stolen from Plato's? N. Certainly not, Mr. Landor; there is not the remotest resemblance between them. Lucian and Christopher North are your models. What do you think of Aris totle ? L. In Plato we find only arbors and grottoes, with moss and shell-work all mis placed. Aristotle has built a solider edifice, but has built it across the road. We must throw it down again.‡ N. So much for philosophy. What have you to say to Xenophon as a historian? L. He is not inelegant, but he is unimpassioned and affected ;§ and he has not even preserved the coarse features of nations and of ages in his Cyropædia.|| N. The dunce! But what of the Anabasis? L. You may set Xenophon down as a writer of graceful mediocrity. N. Herodotus? L. If I blame Herodotus, whom can I the less like that of the Asiatics, and there commend? His view of history was nevercan be little to instruct and please us in the actions and speeches of barbarians.** N. Which of the Greek tragedians do you patronize? L. Eschylus is not altogether unworthy of his reputation; he is sometimes grand, but oftener flighty and obscure.†† N. What say you of Sophocles? L. He is not so good as his master, though the Athenians thought otherwise. He is, however, occasionally sublime. N. What of Euripides ‡‡ life than Sophocles, and he further down than Eschylus: one would have expected the reverse. Euripides has but little dramatic power. His dialogue is sometimes dull and heavy; the construction of his chorus he assumes another form, and befable infirm and inartificial, and if in the comes 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 politi L. He came further down into common cal and moral axioms. The dogmas, like | but, like all the pusillanimous, he was mavalets de place, serve any master, and run lignant.* to any quarter. Even when new, they are nevertheless miserably flat and idle. N. Aristophanes ridiculed him. N. Seneca ? L. He was, like our own Bacon, hardhearted and hypocritical. As to his literary L. Yes; Aristophanes had, however, but merits, Caligula, the excellent emperor and little true wit.* N. That was lucky for Euripides. L. A more skilful archer would have pierced him through bone and marrow, and saved him from the dogs of Archelaus. N. 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. L. As our Keats was in his youth, eh, Mr. North? A worse fate than that of Eschylus, who had his scull cracked by a tortoise dropt by an eagle that mistook his bald head for a stone. N. 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? L. We have not much of him, unless in Terence. The characters on which Menander raised his glory were trivial and contemptible.† N. Now that you have demolished the Greeks, let us go back to Rome, and have another touch at the Latins. From Me. rander to Terence is an easy jump. How do you esteem Terence? L. Every one knows that he is rather an expert translator from the Greek than an original writer. There is more pith in Plautus. N. You like Plautus, then, and endure Terence? L. 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. N. I see; farewell to the sock, then. Is Horace worth his salt? L. There must be some salt in Horace, or he would not have kept so well. He was a shrewd observer and an easy versifier; critic, (who made sundry efforts to extirpate the writings of Homer and Virgil,) spoke justly and admirably when he compared the sentences of Seneca to lime without sand.‡ N. Perhaps, after all, you prefer the moderns? L. I have not said that. N. You think well of Spenser ? bed.§ N. You concede the greatness of Milton? L. 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. He has sometimes written very contemptibly; his lines on Hobbes, the carrier, for example, and his versions of Psalms. Milton was never so great a regicide as when he smote King David.T N. You like, at least, his hatred of kings? L. That is somewhat after my own heart, own; but he does not go far enough in his hatred of them. I N. You do? L. I despise and abominate them. How many of them, do you think, could name their real fathers ?** N. But, surely, Charles was a martyr? L. If so, what were those who sold him ?tt 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 aucient Scythians at the approach of winter, and should follow up the kingly power un relentingly to its perdition. True republicans can see no reason why they should not send an executioner to release a king from the prison-house of his crimes, with his family to attend him.§§ In my Dialogues, + Vol. iv. p. 31. * Vol. ii. p. 249. + Vol. i. p. 274. § Thee, gentle Spenser fondly led, But me he mostly sent to bed.-LANDOR. Vol. i. p. 301. ¶ Blackwood. ** Vol. i. p. 61. #Vol. iv. p. 507. tt Vol. iv. p. 283. §§ Vol. i. p. 73. I have put such sentiments into the mouth N. I believe one Englishman, a martyr of Diogenes, that cynic of sterling stamp, to liberty, has said something like that beand of Eschines, that incorruptible orator, fore. as suitable to the maxims of their government. To my readers, I leave the application of them to nearer interests. * N. But you would not yourself, in your individual character, and in deliberate earnestness, apply them to modern times and monarchies? L. Who, pray? N. The butcher Ings. L. Ah, I was not aware of it! Ings was a fine fellow. N. Your republic, will never do here, Mr. Landor. L. 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.* N. 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." L. Why not? Look at my Dialogue with De Lille. 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, L. In this age of the march of intellect, Harley and St. John, to second the views of when a pillar of fire is guiding us out of the a weak woman, and to obstruct those of wilderness of error, you Tories lag behind, policy and of England, he had been carted and are lost in darkness, Mr. North. Only to condign punishment in the Place de the first person in the kingdom should be Grêve or at Tyburn. Such examples are unenlightened and void, as only the first much wanted, and, as they can rarely be given, page in a book should be a blank one. should never be omitted. is when it is torn out that we come at once It N. The Sans-culottes and Poissardes of to the letters.† the last French revolution but three, would N. Well, now you have torn out the first have raised you by acclamation to the dig-page of the Court Guide, we come to the nity of Decollator of the royal family of Peers, I suppose. France for that brave sentiment. But you were not at Paris, I suppose, during the reign of the guillotine, Mr. Landor? L. 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.§ * Mr. Landor, with whom the Cynic is a singular favorite, says, p. 461, vol. iii., that Diogenes was not expelled from Sinope for having counterfeited uroney; that he only marked false men. Eschines was accused of having been bribed by Philip of Mace don. + Vol. i. L. 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 them to play their tricks with greater confidence and secu ity above the heads of the people. The wisest and the most independent of the English Parliaments declared the thing useless. Peers are usually persons of pride without dignity, of lofty pretensions with low propensities. They invari ably 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. How many do you imagine of our nobility are not bastards or sons of bastards ?§ N. You have now settled the Peers. The Baronets come next in order. Vol. i. p. 281.-Landor. s 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 sent nce 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 L. Baronets are prouder than any thing claims exemption, though somewhat sarcastically, from responsibility for the notions expressed by his we see on this side of the Dardanelles, exinterlocutors. An author, in a style which has all cepting the proctors of universities, and the the freedom of the dramatic form, without its re- vergers of cathedrals; and their pride is straints, should especially abstain from making his kept in eternal agitation, both from what is work the vehicle of crotchets, prejudices, and pas- above them and what is below. Gentlemen sions peculiar to himself. or unworthy of the characters speaking. This form of composition," Mr. of any standing (like Walter Savage LanLandor says, "among other advantages, is recom, is recom- dor, of Warwick Castle, and Lantony Abmended by the protection it gives from the hostility all novelty (unless it be vicious) excites." Prudent consideration, but indiscreet parenthesis. * Vol. ii. p. 31. + Vol. iv. p. 405. § Vol. iv. p. 400. |