Walter Savage Landor, writer, scholar, poet, and, it might almost be said, quarreller, said of his own fame, "I shall dine late, but the dining-room will be well lighted, the guests few and select." A powerful, turbulent spirit, he attracted great men. Emerson, Browning, Dickens, and Swinburne travelled to sit at his feet, and he knew Byron, Shelley, Wordsworth, Lamb, and Southey. Born at Warwick, on January 30, 1775, he was dismissed from Rugby School at the age of fifteen, and from Oxford at the age of nineteen; was estranged from his father; several times left the wife whom he had married for her golden hair, and spent the last years of his life, lonely but lionised, at Florence. To the last—which came on September 17, 1864—he wrote both prose and verse. Landor appears, to the average appreciator of English literature, an interesting personality rather than a great writer, though his epic, "Gebir" (1798), and his tragedy, "Count Julian" (1812), like some of his minor verse, contain passages of great beauty. But it was in the "Imaginary Conversations," written between 1821 and 1829, and first sampled by the public in review form in 1823, that he endowed the English language with his most permanent achievement. Nearly 150 of these "Conversations" were written in all, and we epitomise here five of the best-known.
I.—Peter the Great and Alexis
Peter: And so, after flying from thy father's house, thou hast returned again from Vienna. After this affront in the face of Europe, thou darest to appear before me?
Alexis: My emperor and father! I am brought before your majesty not at my own desire.
Peter: I believe it well. What hope hast thou, rebel, in thy flight to Vienna?
Alexis: The hope of peace and privacy; the hope of security, and, above all things, of never more offending you.
Peter: Didst thou take money?
Alexis: A few gold pieces. Hitherto your liberality, my father, hath supplied my wants of every kind.
Peter: Not of wisdom, not of duty, not of spirit, not of courage, not of ambition. I have educated thee among my guards and horses, among my drums and trumpets, among my flags and masts. I have rolled cannon balls before thee over iron plates; I have shown thee bright new arms, bayonets, and sabres. I have myself led thee forth to the window when fellows were hanged and shot; and I have made thee, in spite of thee, look steadfastly upon them, incorrigible coward! Thy intention, I know, is to subvert the institutions it has been the labour of my lifetime to establish. Thou hast never rejoiced at my victories.
Alexis: I have rejoiced at your happiness and your safety.