more than a fortnight, when, in the middle of December, he wrote to me from Florence that he had left Fiesole; that he was somewhat less unhappy; that twice in five weeks, for nearly a quarter of an hour, he had walked out in the sun; and that his principal misery, which indeed he now dwelt upon as the very worst that ever had befallen him, was the continued and inexplicable delay in the publication of his enlarged Hellenics. But while in consultation with his relatives in England as to what step for providing him a new home it might be advisable to take, we heard that he was again at Fiesole.

It will not be supposed, after all which has been said in this book of the defects of Landor's character, that my object now is to throw exclusively on others the blame of what occurred during the first ten months after his return to Italy. It is only fair to say that his letters continued to confirm the impression as to his mental state made upon me by the incidents described in the last section. That he was irritable, difficult to manage, intemperate of tongue, subject to all kinds of suspicions, fancies, mistakes; that, even when treated most considerately, he was often unjust, but, when met by any kind of violence, was apt to be driven wild with rage; that, in a word, choleric as he had always been, he was now become very old,—is not, I fear, to be doubted. Knowing all this only too well, I abstain from a mention of even the character of the complaints in his letters ; but there is nothing that should withhold me from a distinct expression of the opinion I was led very reluctantly to form, that the members of his family with whom he was now striving to live completely failed to discharge the duty they were under every natural and human obligation to render, and from which they could not be released by any amount of mad irritability on his part, or any number of irrational demands upon their patience. I knew from the first that the attempt to live at the villa could not succeed. In itself to the last degree unpromising, the time and the accompaniments of the unhappy trial made it hopeless and impossible. Not however by him, but by those who should have seen that there was at least nothing insane in his desire to have such other provision made as they might easily have arranged for him, was the miserable torture

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prolonged. Thrice during those ten months he left Fiesole to seek a lodging in Florence; thrice he was brought back; and it was on the fourth occasion, when, in the first week of July 1859, he had taken refuge in the hotel on the Arno with eighteenpence in his pocket,' that the gravity of the situation, and the absolute necessity at last of doing what should have been done at first, were put before me by my old friend Mr. Browning, at that time living in Florence.

Was it possible, he asked, that 'from Mr. Landor's relatives ' in England the means of existence could be afforded for him in a lodging at Florence? To which I had to reply, that, several times during the progress of these dreary months, the same question had been put from England to Mr. Landor's nearer relatives at Fiesole, on whom he had, quite apart from any natural duty, such claims for help by way of money as I have just described; and that the same answer had invariably come. The trouble had been got rid of by Landor's return to the villa. Now however he would not return; the question had resolved itself into his living upon means to be furnished from England, or the alternative of his not living at all; and what the old man's fate might have been, during even the brief interval required to determine this, it would be difficult to say, if the zealous aid of the good Mr. Kirkup had failed him, or if he had not found a friend so wise and kind as Mr. Browning.

'You will have heard,' he wrote to me on the 6th of August, that I am now in a cottage near Siena, which I owe to Browning, the kind friend who found it for me, whom I had seen only three or four times in my life, yet who made me the voluntary offer of what money I wanted, and who insists on managing my affairs here, and paying for my lodgings and sustenance. Never was such generosity and such solicitude as this incomparable man has shown in my behalf.'

Two days after the date of that letter Mr. Browning had heard from myself the result of the application to Landor's brothers. They asked only to know what sum was wanted, and they engaged at once to supply it as long as their brother might live. From this time up to the day of his death, I handed over on their behalf to Mr. Browning two hundred pounds every year by quarterly payments, to which an additional sum of fifty pounds. was held always in reserve for special wants arising; and the

money continued to be applieu Landor's use under Mr. Browning's immediate direction even after the event of Mrs. Browning's death, which plunged so many besides himself into mourning, and occasioned his departure from Italy in 1861. With a few extracts from the letter to myself (from Siena on the 13th of August 1859) which will explain these arrangements, and will describe the way in which, to the very last, they were strictly and successfully carried out, I quit this distasteful subject for

ever.

I agree absolutely with you in your appreciation of the character of Landor and its necessities now and for the future in this untoward position, so absolutely that I shall not go into minute justification of any opinion I may give you about what is to be done, but take for almost granted that you will understand it: subject to questioning from you, should that not be the case. Your plan is the only proper one for obtaining the end we aim at. Mr. Landor is wholly unfit to be anything but the recipient of the necessary money's worth, rather than the money itself. Fortunately he professes to have the same conviction, and prefers such an arrangement to any other. He requires a perpetual guardian in the shape of a servant; one to be ever at hand to explain away the irritations and hallucinations as they arise. They come and go, and leave no trace, treated so; otherwise the effect is disastrous. I propose to take an apartment as near my own residence in Florence as can be found, and establish him there as comfortably and as economically as possible. I will endeavour to induce my wife's old servant Wilson, who married Ferdinando (Romagnoli) still in our service, to devote herself to the care of our friend. I may say, after our fourteen years' experience of her probity, truthfulness, gentleness, and assiduity, that he can be placed in no better hands; and were he bestowed on a person one whit less trustworthy, I should expect some melancholy result the next day. I can depend on Wilson's acting for me in all respects, and not simply complying with his fancies or profiting by his mistaken generosities. I will receive the two hundred pounds in quarterly payments, as you propose; and will transmit to you, at the end of every quarter, a detailed account of Landor's expenses duly examined and certified by Kirkup.' This last condition was the only one to which I refused assent; and Landor's nieces, to whom it was then proposed to transmit such account, also as strongly objected. I believe that Mr. Browning did nevertheless, against renewed protest, continue to render it to the close.

II. AT SIENA.

While the arrangements for his future life in Florence were in progress, Landor remained quietly at Siena, occupying a plea

sant little cottage in a vineyard inhabited only by the contadino, or farming-gardener, and his wife. Subsequently he became the guest of an accomplished American then staying at Siena, Mr. W. W. Story, who for years has made Italy his home, and has connected his name with Italian art by works not unworthy of its happiest time.

Landor has to-day completed a three-weeks' stay with the Storys. They declare most emphatically that a more considerate, gentle, easilysatisfied guest never entered their house. They declare his visit has been an unalloyed delight to them; and this, quite as much from his gentlemanliness and simple habits, and evident readiness to be pleased with the least attention, as from his conversation, which would be attractive under any circumstances. An intelligent friend also, on a visit to them, bears witness to the same effect. They perceive indeed, though not affecting themselves, inequalities of temper in him; but they all agree that he may be managed with the greatest ease by "civility" alone.'

Such always was Landor, when he would consent to submit himself to friendly influences. That was at the close of August, and again Mr. Browning wrote to me from Siena on the 5th of September.

'At present Landor's conduct is faultless. His wants are so moderate, his evenness of temper so remarkable, his gentleness and readiness to be advised so exemplary, that it all seems too good; as if some rock must lurk under such smooth water. His thankfulness for the least attention, and anxiety to return it, are almost affecting under all circumstances. He leads a life of the utmost simplicity.'

From Florence also, to anticipate a very little the days imme-
diately after their return, Mr. Browning wrote to me in the
middle of October, being then himself on the eve of going to
winter in Rome, that he should be grieved indeed to lose sight
for a while of the wonderful old man, whose gentleness and
benignity had never been at fault for a moment in their three-
months' intercourse. They had walked together for more than
an hour and a half only two days before. His health had been
perfect, his mind apparently at ease. 'He writes Latin verses;
' few English, but a few; and just before we left Siena an ima-
'ginary conversation suggested by something one of us had said
' about the possible reappearance of the body after death. He
'looks better than ever by the amplitude of a capital beard,
'most becoming we all judge it.' 'If,' Mrs. Browning at the

same time wrote to me, 'if you could only see how well he looks in his curly white beard!'

From his own letters to myself during the stay at Siena I should hardly have dared to judge so favourably, though there were some allowances to be made. His great immediate trouble being removed, he had now again unhappily set his heart on obtaining, through me, some means of making public reply to what had been publicly said of him in England in connection with the trial at Bath; and I had no alternative but to tell him plainly that the thing was quite impossible. He did not take this so well as the condition of mind above described might have led me to anticipate; but the case as affecting him involved, in many particulars, so much real hardship, it was so impossible to speak of what had been to him the original provocation, and all that followed had given to his punishment a proportion so exceeding his offence judged even at its very worst, that any wrong arising arising out of it incident to myself seemed but a part of a wretched complication not avoidable by either of us. Landor was very shortly to apply to his friend what the reader has seen shrewdly applied by Mr. Bennet in Pride and Prejudice to a friend in similar circumstances; and I was not to have the benefit of the same magnanimity. It is however the more incumbent on me to say, on the eve of our only estrangement in a quarter of a century of friendship, that the impression left with me altogether was exactly what Mr. Browning and Mr. Story depict in the foregoing letters, for that reason here introduced. The drawbacks have been described already. There were always those occasional outbreaks, very unwarrantable because generally unjust to others, which in so many instances I have shown to be as little rational as reducible to reason. Indeed I should say, on the whole, that in Landor's affections at their best, just as more rarely in even the finest parts of his books, there was a certain incoherency. But, in several leading qualities, his character was also quite as fine as his books, and the letters quoted do only justice to it. He had a disposition largely generous; an anger easily placable; and an eagerness to return, in quite chivalrous excess, whatever courtesy or attention he received, which was at all times delightful to witness.