Of thy indwellers run more fleet.
But while (as now) before my eyes
The steams of thy sweet herb arise,
Amid bright vestures, faces fair,
Long eyes and closely braided hair,
I cannot wish thee wrongs or woes.
And when thy lovely single rose,
Which every morn I run to see,
Smiles with fresh-opened flower on me,
And when I think what hand* it was
Cradled the nursling in its vase,
By all the Gods, O, ancient land!
I wish thee, and thy laws, to stand.

Altissimo Poeta, non è vero?

Are you acquainted with the Eltons at Southampton? The girls are most delightful; the father an excellent man and good poet. I have a great regard for all the family.

II.

BATH, June 28 [1841]. DEAR MISS BOYLE: Your letter has followed me from Bath to Paris, and from Paris back again to Bath, not without a short delay in you and your fair sister were at Hampton Court, I should certainly have paid you my respects there. I was in town only 5 days as I went and only 3 as I returned. No lady on earth will believe that any person can dislike Paris. I hate and abominate it: yet never in any place have I received so much civility and attention. There was no opera, and the gallery of the Louvre was open only for the exhibition of modern works. The

London. Had I been aware that

French have no Landseer, no Stanfield, no Eastlake. I hope you have enjoyed the sight of their wonderful productions. This year, I am sorry to say, ill-health has prevented Landseer from displaying his wonderful powers, but Stanfield has a picture which I hear is sold for seven hundred guineas, representing the Island of Ischia in the beginning of a storm, to which neither Claude nor Gaspar nor Nicotas Poussin ever painted anything equal. Eastlake's Christ weeping over the fate of Jerusalem is worthy of Domenichino, to say the least. Between the time of Hogarth and Eastlake we never had an artist who could draw. Reynolds and Lawrence are on a level in this particular.

You perhaps will wonder what could have induced me to revisit Bath at such a season. The fact is, I abhor all popular bustle, and had I made the visits I intended to make, I should have been in the midst of contested elections, and what is worse, where some of my personal friends are opposed. This very day an election is going on here; but I neither hear, nor will go where I can hear, anything of the matter. To-morrow I will write to our friend James- as great a conservative as I am,

DEAR MISS BOYLE: It is incredible to me that I should have permitted your letter to remain unanswered. So, at last, you can be enthusiastic about our artists. Take especial care to avoid the expression of your enthusiasm in good society. You know it is forbidden on all subjects, particularly on works of art or literature, by those we may see and serve. Stannobler work, in my opinion, than the best of field, in his view of Ischia, has produced a Claude or Poussin. I rejoice to hear that Boxall has been painting your family. He is an excellent artist and a modest man. Do not think me too obstinate in persisting to call myself a conservative. My "Letters of a Conservative" were written to bring the apostate Bishops back to Christianity; to make them useful as teachers; that the indignation of the people might not rise up against the only unreformed Church in Christendom. It would grieve me to see religion and education turned altogether, as it is in part, into those of taken out of the hands of gentlemen, and the uneducated and vulgar. I would rather dral. But if Bishops are to sit in the House see my own house pulled down than a catheof Lords as Barons, voting against no corruption, against no cruelty, not even the slavetrade, the people ere long will knock them on the head. Conservative I am, but no less am

an aristocratic radical like yourself. I would eradicate all that vitiates our constitution in church and state, making room for the gradual growth of what altered times require, but preserving the due ranks and orders of society, and even to a much greater degree than most of the violent tories are doing.

You have here my profession of political faith, explicit, and without mystery.

Remember me to your brother, and present me with your usual grace to Lady Boyle and your sister. Above all, believe me very sincerely

Yours,

Melcha colpisce fortemente — Mora più ancora

s'innamora.

I have broken my word to myself, all thro' you.

Tell the Maid of Honour I wd rather the Queen* gave her a thousand pounds than any one else gave her qualsi voglia somma.

You see I have learnt to write from you only I can sometimes get three or four words into a line-which you can never do for the life of you. But there are several in which I find two entire ones. I do not like to spoil the context, otherwise I would order them to be glazed, and framed in gold.

The Grand-duke of Tuscany has completed his collection of hieroglyphics, so I need give you no assurance that I will not make money of those I expect.

I was at a pic-nic on Saturday. The dancing did not tire me. I can only account for it from having used my eyes only. I like the Polka amazingly, and many years shall not elapse before I take a lesson or two. I do not promise to dance at your wedding, but I will promise to dance at your eldest daughter's if I receive an invitation. Addio, Carina.

VII.

I HOPE you have enough of appellatives. For my part, I have no notion of giving any to young ladies, unless it be such as they, by acceptance at the altar, have fairly taken. Godfathers and godmothers are small authority for me. Many a man has admired the pitch of his courage, and the charms of his handwriting, at that pretty word Dear, preceding a name that always has a long and sweet quaver in it, be its constituent vowels and consonants what they may. I myself, in times past, have looked at the two together so long that it required an effort to make the pen follow the flutterings of the heart. For be it known, hearts were worn then. So, you are resolved to have a name, are you? I suspected as much at the very first page of yours I ever read. But how can you expect an author to call you dear, or any such thing? or even to say, what all men of sound judgment agree in, and many whose judgment is thrown a trifle off the balance that "Mary" has the sweetest sound of any? Before I am driven into a letter, I usually think I have been in the presence of, if not still conversing with the person I write to. Otherwise I doubt whether I could overcome my disposition to idleness—in the fingers at least. When I have called you dear, pray tell me how I must go on and whether when I have written the next word, I am to put a

Alluding to the marriage portion of maids of

honor.

comma or a mark of admiration. If you leave it to me - indeed whether you do or not — I am for the! Three generations, you tell me, were present at your triumphal entry to Marston. This is not enough for me. When you can muster four, I shall take it unkind of the hospitable rector if he does not invite me again. Should he forget it, I will sit upon the parkgate and write a squib on every soul that enters. I wonder by what right or reason they presented you with anything like freedom.† You who have made so many wish to lose it, ought to forfeit it forthwith. And now which of your lords is to take you to the concert? Lord Cork, Lord Dungarvon, or that lord who will be prouder than either, seeing that certain rights and privileges are conferred on him under your sign manual. I leave this place, Torquay, after the Regatta, the end of next week, and shall be then at Llanbedr Hall, Ruthin. It isrich in orange-flowers-so you need not provide any for me if you summon me to Marston. Furthermore, the waistcoat I had ordered for the Regatta ball shall be kept unopened. I will descend no farther to particulars, but assure you that you shall have a name, and that I am very sincerely and affectionately yours,

W. S. LANDOR.

and, this being duly performed, lay your face Say some tender thing for me to your sister, (as far as it will go) along Grison's, with my (as far as it will go) along Grison's, with my blessing.

VIII.

IN speaking of two sisters, the two- how dare you talk of the older and the younger? Do you not know that all the angels were created at once — ad un fiato?

Now you little thought that the old Torment (for "Tormentor" is a weak expression) would take you at your word. He will, however, and without so much as a finger at nose-side or earside, by way of taking counsel with himself.

Expect your Imaginary Conversation to make its appearance in front of my last vol

ume.

Some critic in another century may, by way of paradox, start a doubt whether it is genuine, that is, mine; but all the rest will cry out against his temerity. Addio, Madcap.

IX.

IT is only this evening that I received the Bridal of Melcha. I do not like to be an Echo, but I am certain I must be one in expressing my admiration of it.

To-night is our Fancy Ball. You should be at it, crowned with myrtle and bay. If I had A birthday jest,-" freedom of the city." A dramatic poem by Miss Mary Boyle.

To meet with a failure is one thing, and to commit one is another. Now even you are liable to the former. It was vexation, it was grief to me when I found the little card of the little lady. I was ready to strike my forehead, but I feared from its vacuity it might make a loud report in the square, and I should be bundled off to Dr. Foxe's. And so your sister permitted the noblest of the animal creation (his serene Highness) to travel without her! For shame! for shame!

I saw him the very day of my arrival in Bath. He recognized me, but was rather ashamed of acknowledging me. He stood with one foot upon the carriage-wheel remonstrating against delay. I put my face to his, and my hand on his hard loins, hard as if he had been mesmerized. I wanted to whisper a few words in his ear, but he thought it too great a liberty, and shook me off; just as if he had been one fresh from court -as he probably was. O that I were acquainted with the Satirist or John Bull! He should be down for it. And what have you been doing, that you sh inflict on yourself the voluntary penance of reading my poems? Before you get them (which will not be until we meet at Millard's Hill), I must admonish you that the amatory

pray

are all ideal. Some have fancied that Ianthe (stolen by Byron) is only Jane, with the Greek (th) put in. What noodles are commentators!

If ever you read the " Foreign Quarterly," you will find in the two last numbers two Articles, as they are called, by me on Catullus *Mr. G. P. R. James.

+ Grison, a large Sardinian greyhound.

and Theocritus. A friend made me break my resolution of declining all entreaties to review, because he had an interest in this publication. Addio.

XI.

IF you quarrel with yourself I will quarrel with you, for I am the sworn enemy of all yours. You have been happy, and have made others so-now what would you have or do? At this moment I return from a cricket club, where indeed I did not play at cricket, but I did at quoits, and won two games in three, after a disuse of nearly half a century. Hereupon I think myself no inconsiderable personage. Nevertheless I suspect there are certain proud Boyles here and there, who fancy they have done as great things merely because they have been men of state, or men of war, with a philosopher or so, and now and then a beauty at the buttonhole. I can clearly prove the contrary, and will.

You will grant that Apollo was among the first to move in what is called a high sphere. He composed well on various subjects. In fact he did everything well but play at quoits.

There he mistook a boy's head for a feather; why! it would have almost been a mistake if it had been a girl's! Now I made the feather shake, and the turf about it, at every cast of my quoits.

Apropos of hitting and missing—at least at one of them, I will not say whichdo you meditate as much mischief to the grouse this month as you did to the pheasants in Hampshire? What a clear conscience! what unbroken slumbers are yours! On second thought, I will not swear to that. But you appear to have adopted the notion,

That a brave pheasantry, a manor's pride, When once destroyed can never be supplied. Never did so vile a verse make so deep an impression.

I am worth only one pen in the world, and were it no bull, I would say it is a borrowed one. I can make nothing of it, else I would speedily show you how much better my handwriting is than yours. I must now leave off — for here are come from the hotel sundry porters for sundry shillings to be disbursed-one of them indeed has very much of a half-crown face, for he sports a speck of black hair under his nether lip. So, adieu.

XII.

Sept. 12 [1842]. Più che Dottissima! I should be very much delighted to see you as you describe yourself with one cheek crimson, and the other a livid white, and yellow eyes. Surely some extraor

dinarily scientific painter must have arranged. these colours for you.

Whatever lady presumes to wear them henceforth, I shall cry out against her audacious plagiarism. But as you, like all your sex, are fond of change, I am ready to lay any wager that when I see you, it will be the fashion for you to wear both cheeks slightly tinged with pink, and both eyes more the colour of the heavens than of the sun. This latter change may perhaps be less glorious: never mind! be moderate and submit.

What a glorious day is this for the pictures and the gardens and the waters and the Nymphs of Hampton Court! Do not let Campbell's Life of Petrarch darken it. I have not read the book and never shall read it but I hear it is wretched. I am sorry for this. However, his fame is fairly established, by the admirable poem "Hohenlinden," and some others. Do not start if I tell you that in my poor opinion Campbell is a much better poet than Petrarch. "I do not say a better; I say a much better. But the world ought to venerate the friend of Boccaccio of Boccaccio, the most creative genius that the continent has produced since the creation: for Homer and Dante were not preeminent as creators. I love the lover of Laura, the recluse of Arquà, the defender of resuscitated Liberty, and the recoverer of ancient learning. But among all the departed men of genius Boccaccio is the one most after my own heart; a friend of freedom, a despiser of faction and of popularity, and too great to enter as a dependent or suitor the courts of princes. Literary men in general are the vilest of the human race: happy we, who enjoy the friendship of one* incomparably good and great in all his works, words, and thoughts.

Another is Southey, to whose wife, I may almost say widow, I will write to-day if I can- for I often sit, when I am thinking of her and him, with my pen in my hand and with ink in it until it dries up. I am now at Warwick, on a visit to my sister. Toward the end of next week I propose setting out for Staffordshire, to see my brother the rector of Birlingham, whom I have not seen these five years; and about the end of October I hope to be at Bath. Now, unless you tell me that you are writing in good earnest, I will never say again that I am, affectionately,

"Time has not thinned my flowing locks." Now do not suspect me of fibbery, or rub your memory till it smarts again. The thing is sure enough- and the "perché" is — they never flowed at all, but were equally stagnant and shallow at all seasons of my life— pretty nearly. At last, however, they have acquired that fine silvery tone which great painters have attained after long practice: something of the Guido, and something of the Vandyck.

Now for news. I sent your brother a ticket (I had six at my disposal) for Lady John Somerset's ball, at Clifton. But he would not go, because he had a cold, and his nose was red. His nose must be turned into a salamander, and his cold into an iceberg, before the ladies will find another so acceptable to them. But if ever he intends to marry, he should not throw away seven years more. It is rarely that pure blood and plentiful gold roll together in the same channel. If he wishes to raise a full cup to his lips, he must stoop a little. As to you and your sister, I will give my consent to nothing below the dignity of Earl. Somehow I like the sound of that title better than marquis or duke — it sounds more English - it looks nearer Alfred. There was a duke of Shrewsbury · and he was nothing at all - but one can hardly form an idea of any title so glorious as Earl of Shrewsbury. Shakespeare was the sovereign who conferred it; but not without merit.

And so it was to you I promised my teapot,- was it? Never mind. I have a "cosa stupenda" for flowers and butterflies-a Japan pattern, large enough to hold an apronful of primroses. You must come for it, and remind me— for you see how apt we young people are to forget our promises. I knew I had something to present to you; and there are flowers and butterflies on both as there is a river as well at Macedon as at Monmouth. Addio, Graziosissima and mi creda sempre divotissimo.

XIV.

MARIUCCIA MIA.

[March, 1856.]

It is not always that I know one of the places, out of the two, where you are- but one I do know to a certainty. Alas! I have lost my poor dear Pomero. He died, after a long illness, apparently from a kick he received in the stomach in my absence. The whole house grieved for him. I buried him in a coffin in the garden. I would rather have lost everything else I possess in the world. Seven years we lived together in more than amity. He loved me to his heart- and what a heart + The writer's pet white Pomeranian dog.