She made the more she wished them overcome;
But if her mother and her father Zeus
So will'd it, 'tis her duty she must yield.
She ran across the court wherein three steeds
Were standing loose; there Polydeukes trimm'd
His courser's mane, there Kastor drew his palm
Down the pink nostril of his dapple-gray,
And just beyond them the Thessalian steed
Stampt at neglect, for Menelaos lay

Sleepless past sunrise, which was not his wont.
Incontinent the brothers rais'd their heads
And shouted,

'Here, thou sluggard! here before

Our busy sister come to pat the necks

Or throw arm round them.'

Scarcely were these words

Spoken ere Menelaos was at hand.

Helena, who had watcht him thus advance,
Drew back as one surprised, and seem'd intent
To turn away, but Polydeukes sprang
And caught her arm and drew her, struggling ill,
To where his brother with their comrade stood.
At first she would have turn'd her face aside,
But could not: Menelaos gently toucht
Her shrinking arm; little it shrank, nor long.
Then he entreated her to hear the words

Of true and ardent love, for such was his

He swore; she shook her head, with brow abased.
'What ardent love can mean I never heard;
My brothers, if they knew it, never told me,'
Said she, and lookt amazed into his face.
'Simplicity and innocence!' exclaim'd
The wondering Argive. 'What a prudent wife
Will she be, when I win her, as I hope,
Diffident as she is nor prone to trust;
Yet hope I, daughter though she be of Zeus,
And I but younger brother of a king.'

Day after day he grew in confidence,
And gave her all he gain'd in it, and more.
Hymen was soon invok'd, nor was averse;
Eros had long been ready, the light-wing'd,
And laught at his slow step who marcht behind.
Chaunted were hymns to either Deity
By boys and maidens, tho' they understood
No word they sang serious was Hymen's face
When Eros laught up into it and twitcht
The saffron robe, and heeded no reproof.
'Tis said they sometimes since have disagreed
More seriously: but let not me report
The dissidence and discord of the Gods.

IV.

V.

'Thoughtful child art thou, And mightest have learnt from it some years hence What prouder wise ones never have attain'd.

The wisest know not yet how many suns

Have bleacht that stone, how many waves have roll'd
Above it when upon its mountain's breast;

How once it was no stone nor hard, but lapt

Amid the tender herbage of the field.'

The child stared up, frightened; then ran away.
Before she had run far she turn'd her face

To look at that strange man.

'He seem'd so calm,
He may not be quite mad nor mischievous.
I shall not mind him much another time;
But O what random stories old men tell!'

ANDREW MARVEL AND HENRY MARTEN.

Marvel. Glad to see thee once more, my good Harry, how art thou? Marten. You see how I am by seeing where I am. Prisons are but indifferent conservatories of health. Cold air penetrates the closest of them, and friendship is the only matter it shuts out. But here you are, Andrew, to disprove my saying. God knows how grateful I feel for this visit.

Marvel. The breezes from the Welsh mountains, and from the estuary under the castle, have kept the colour fresh on thy cheek.

Marten. When I mount upon the table I can catch them as they pass, yet I would willingly barter the best of them against the smoke of London and the fogs of the Thames. Oliver's pen across my muzzle would not mightily discompose me on a like occasion.

Marvel. Never sigh, my man!

Marten. Pleasure hath her sighs, though shorter than those of sorrow. and you bring them out with you.

Marvel. Even here there may be occasionally a glimpse of happiness. When we enjoy it we wish for more, never quite contented. If we kiss a fair maiden on one cheek, we press for the other. We change our mantles

when they have lost their gloss. Even in the solitude of this royal enclosure thou enjoyest a privilege granted to few outside.

Marten. What may it be?

Marvel. Memory, justly proud. Hast thou not sat convivially with Oliver Cromwell? Hast thou not conversed familiarly with the only man greater than he, John Milton? One was ambitious of perishable power, the other of imperishable glory; both have attained their aim. Believe me, it is somewhat to have lived in fellowship with the truly great, and to have eschewed the falsely.

Marten. A prodigiously great one, in a black apron and white lawn sleeves, puffy and fresh and fragrant from his milliner, came some time ago to instruct me in my duty and to convert me into righteousness. He was announced by the governor as my Lord. I recollected one only whom I ever called so. I bowed however, and sat down, after he had done the like.

Marvel. These gentry usually set their day-labourers at the work of edification. My Lord himself, I hope, got nothing out of you worth carrying to court.

Marten. He looked on the table and saw there a book I had received the day before, and was reading; it was Hudibras. That is all he saw, and all he got out of me.

Marvel. I perceive, by thy smile, that humour is not yet parched-up in thee, my pleasant Hal!

Marten. There are strokes of the wand that can open fresh springs in the barren rock. I can enjoy fun in a poet, although I am none myself, and the better perhaps for that reason. Are there any of our other poets yet living?

Marvel. Plenty, plenty; but they ride without girths to their nags, and often roll off the saddle. Waller, the smoothest and most graceful of them, is growing old at Beaconsfield. Even the courtiers jeer at his versatility. Dryden is living. He bears no hatred to Milton, though he would have rhymed Paradise Lost. Butler was less mischievous. Cowley has written one unaffected piece, an Anacreontic on his imaginary mistresses. Good fellow; he died suddenly; drunk after dinner with bishop Sprat of Rochester, he was found dead in a wet ditch.

Marten. Poor Abraham! He was my chokepear. They called him metaphysical: does metaphysical mean fantastical? What people feel, they surely can speak out, and not run into dark corners to be looked for.

Marvel. Ostriches hide their heads under their wings in the sands of the desert, and are followed for their plumage. But you are right, Harry. A poet loses nothing by being clear and bright, provided his readers are not dull or cloudy. There is a prodigious quantity of thought in Butler, and its brightness makes the inconsiderate doubt its depth.

Marten. Butler, I hear, is a great favourite with the king, who has paid four groats for the poem, but never one to the poet; poor as Job, they tell me, or as Milton. Yet Milton, at least, is free.

Marvel. He is free from all sores but an inconstant and incurable wife. Solitary in his city garden, if there be any flower he stoops for it in vain; he has no eyes to find it. I visit him now and then; but they who most want comfort most avoid society.

V. THE CLOSE.

Implored so long in vain, at last is come

The hour that leads me to a peaceful home.

These lines, with others that spoke of the burden of life, and its heaviness at last even when we have only years to carry, were in a letter from Landor brought to me by Mr. Twisleton at the close of 1863. During the decline of that year he is described by those living in Italy to have become but the wreck of himself; and visitors whose very names recalled to him the happiest associations of bygone years, had to report that 'his mind was clouding;'* yet the pieces which have just been given were its product. Exceptional indeed, and very wonderful, such a lot, -to be carrying the weight of ninety years with so little loss of intellectual power, after so much self-achieved greatness and self-inflicted misery. A friend in writing to him at this date very aptly compared him to one of the Jötuns' of his early poem of Gunlaug, in a note to which it is said that in the North at all times had existed men of enormous stature; that we ourselves had seen them, our fathers had seen them, and our children (perhaps) might see them; but that ordinary people were apt to fear these higher sort of men, would lie in ambush for them, and would persecute them; until at last mothers came again to produce children only or nearly of the common size; and yet, for all that, one of the old stock would occasionally reappear. 'Well I hope you take the due comfort out of your ' wonderful amount of achievement, and keep up the old heroic 'heart usque ad finem, post finem! And so, all happiness to you from God, and all honour from men.'

Without comment, and requesting only that the reader will

'As we passed through Florence, in the spring of 1864, we paid a last visit to Landor, then in extreme old age, looking most patriarchal in his white hair and beard. His mind was clouding, and he scarcely re'collected us at first, but he remembered the family, and repeated over ' and over again the familiar names, Francis, Julius, Augustus, I miei "tre Imperatori! I have never known any family I loved so much as yours. I loved Francis most, then Julius, then Augustus, but I loved "them all. Francis was the dearest friend I ever had." A few weeks 'after, his great spirit passed away.' Memorials of a Quiet Life, by Augustus J. C. Hare, ii. 423 (1872).

considerately forgive some expressions retained in them favourable to myself which I could not wholly erase, I now print, exactly as they came, Landor's last letters. They carry my narrative very nearly to its close, relating what it would be difficult otherwise to express, yet hardly desirable to omit altogether; and here, at the end of life, as invariably at its beginning, they were signed simply Walter' Landor.

14TH DECEMBER 1863.

'Well do I know the friendship you had for me, and have grieved over its interruption. I would not now write but for the promise you once held out to me that you might consent to be my biographer. Last week I received a most insolent letter from a Mr. —, containing a note from a person connected with him informing me that he was writing my life. He gave me a specimen, full of abuse and falsehood. This I communicated to my excellent friend Mr. Twisleton. If you still retain a thought of becoming my biographer, I hope you will protect me from this injustice. How often have I known you vindicate from unmerited aspersions honest literary men! Unhappily no friend has been found hitherto who takes any such interest in WALTER LANDOR.'

4TH JANUARY 1864 (with order for copies of the Heroic Idyls).

'MY DEAR FORSTER, I write instantly on receiving your generous and manly letter. Severe sciatica has deprived me both of locomotion and of sleep, but not of gratitude. I have been able to write what I am now writing with great difficulty. Were it possible, I would answer at the same time Browning's ever-kind letter. Will you send this to him, which says all I could say. Excessive pain at every movement withholds me from it. May both of you enjoy as many happy new-years as I have endured of unhappy ones! and may you ever believe that no man is more affectionately yours than WALTER LANDOR.'

2D FEBRUARY 1864.

'MY DEAR FORSTER, Your kind letter has almost made me well again. It will be with renewed pleasure that I receive your book. Browning will give you the address of his correspondent in Florence, through whom I may receive it. Many are the kind letters on my last birthday, for last it must be but yours the kindest. So, good-bye, with every blessing from your grateful WALTER LANDOR.'

18TH FEBRUARY 1864.

'MY DEAR FORSTER, It is to you I write the last letter that perhaps I may ever write to any one. Several days I have been confined to my bed by a sciatica, and could neither write not read. I hope I may live long enough to read your Life of Eliot. Our friend Browning has my address. He lives where you know in London. My head and eyes are confused so that I cannot find his letter, which I laid by. He has a banker here whose