He was born four years after Sydney Smith and Walter Scott—both of whom he survived many years; indeed he lacked only eleven years of completing a century when he died in Florence, where most of his active—or rather inactive—life was passed. I allude to the poet and essayist, Walter Savage Landor.[45] He is not what is called a favorite author; he never was; he never will be. In fact, he had such scorn of popular applause, that if it had ever happened to him in moments of dalliance with the Muses, and of frolic with rhythmic language, to set such music afloat as the world would have repeated and loved to repeat, I think he would have torn the music out in disdain for the approval of a multitude. Hear what he says, in one of his later poetic utterances:—
“Never was I impatient to receive
What any man could give me. When a friend
Gave me my due, I took it, and no more,
Serenely glad, because that friend was pleased.
I seek not many; many seek not me.
If there are few now seated at my board,
I pull no children’s hair because they munch
Gilt gingerbread, the figured and the sweet,
Or wallow in the innocence of whey;