BOOK EIGHTH. 1858-1864. T. 83-89. LAST SIX YEARS IN ITALY. I. In his Old Home.-II. At Siena.-III. In Florence. -IV. Five Unpub lished Scenes, being the last Imaginary Conversations.-V. The Close. I. IN HIS OLD HOME. LANDOR went first to Genoa, and there it was his intention to have stayed; but considerations urged by members of his family prevailed, and he decided to move on to his old home in Fiesole. Before he left Genoa the advice on which he quitted England had been embodied in legal forms, and he had assigned over to others the property reserved to his use under the trust-deeds of Llanthony. It was his own wish that the assignment should have been made to one of his nieces; but this was overruled, and everything over which any control had been retained to him passed to the ownership of Arnold Landor, his eldest son. There are matters as to which I have thus far imposed silence on myself, and intend as much as possible to continue to do so; but it is quite necessary, at this point of my narrative, that I should briefly state the position in which this deed of transfer left what had been Landor's worldly estate. When he separated from his family in 1835, Llanthony and Ipsley may be said, at a rough calculation, to have been yielding very certainly more than three thousand a year rental, the deductions for mortgages and insurances at that time being a little over fourteen hundred a year, and, of the balance, not more than from six to seven hundred a year being taken by Landor, who left the rest to accumulate for casual expenses, repairs, and as a surplus fund for younger children. Of this six hundred, upon quitting Italy, he left two thirds to Mrs. Landor, at the same time transferring absolutely to his eldest son the villa and farms where the family lived, and of which the farm produce went far towards their expenses of living; while he took, for his own maintenance in London, only the remaining third. This proved however to be too little, and after a year or two it was raised, out of the surplus at Llanthony, to four hundred a year; trenching by so much on the reserved fund for younger children. But they had meanwhile profited by legacies from other members of the family; and upon Arnold's visit to England in 1842, sufficient had been raised to pay the debt to Ablett for Fiesole, an insurance of equal amount indemnifying Arnold. The result was that when Landor, now on the eve of his return to his old home, executed a further deed of transfer to his son, whereby the latter became entitled to everything arising from Llanthony, the property which had once been entirely his (not a shilling of it having been derived from other sources than those which his mother* had so vigilantly protected and improved for his use) was wholly and exclusively at the disposal of others. His son Arnold, standing next in the entails of Llanthony and of Ipsley, which he was sure very soon to inherit free from all encumbrance, was meanwhile invested, by the just-executed deed of transfer, with the rights over them up to this time possessed by his father. He had also, by his father's free gift, the absolute ownership of the villa and farms at Fiesole; and, by a legacy from the Landor family, the interest of a thousand pounds. By similar legacies his sister had a hundred a year to her exclusive use, and each of his two younger brothers eighty pounds a year; while his mother, whose four hundred a year, secured in 1835, had been raised to five hundred upon the resettlement in 1842, had this larger annuity secured to her for life on her husband's death by charge on the Llanthony estate. Landor himself was now travelling to Florence with a few pictures, a few books, a small quantity of silver plate, and something short of a hundred and fifty pounds, as the sum of all his earthly possessions. This had been the amount realized in Manchester by the sale of the pictures that did not accompany him. Before he reached Fiesole a thousand pounds' damages had been awarded against him, and proceedings begun to compel the payment. The deed of transfer, as I well knew, was little likely to stand against resolute and determined efforts to overthrow it. The court of chancery, on application, granted an injunction against receiving the rents until the case should be argued; practically the deed of transfer was defeated; and before Landor died the entire amount of damages and costs had been paid under order of the court. Of course this affected only the sum reserved to Landor's use, and everything else remained as I have stated. On his way to Italy, and after his arrival, he wrote to me continually; but one subject mainly occupied his letters, and I could give to it but one reply. As to other matters, it became very soon obvious that the only result that was reasonably to have been expected was not far distant, and that his old home could be a home to him no more. "Red mullets compensated Milo for Rome. We have them daily, with ortolans of late, and beccaficos. But these do not indemnify me for Bath, the only city I could ever live in comfortably. I have been in Florence twice only since I came here eleven weeks ago." This, in October, 1858, was the most favorable aspect of things. But before the end of that month he announced to me that *Ante, pp. 256 and 314. his health was such as to admit of no chance of his surviving, and that, by means of the small remnant of the pittance he had taken with him, he had so arranged that he should sleep his last sleep in the graveyard of the little church near Bath, where already he had chosen his place of rest. "WIDCOMBE! few seek with thee their resting-place; But I, when I have run my weary race, Will throw my bones upon thy churchyard turf; I was nevertheless not unprepared for what followed in little 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 themselves, as may be seen even in the foregoing favorable specimens of them, 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, and 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 even a mention of the character of the complaints in his letters; and from all formal expression of opinion, decided as is that which I hold, on the way in which those with whom he was now attempting to live should have discharged 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. The attempt to live at the villa I knew from the first must fail. 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 prolonged. Thrice during those ten months he left Fiesole to seek a 66 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 eighteen-pence 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 havę 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 applied to Landor's use under Mr. Browning's immediate direction, even after the event 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 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 forever. "I agree absolutely with you," Mr. Browning wrote from Siena on the 13th of August, 1859, "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 endeavor 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 niece, 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 pleasant 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, 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," Mr. Browning wrote to me at the close of August, "completed a three weeks' stay with the Storys. They de clare most emphatically that a more considerate, gentle, easily satisfied 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 |