Many of your readers, ignorant or forgetful, may have asked, "Who is Mr. Landor? We have never heard of any remarkable person of that name, or bearing a similar one, except the two brothers Lander, the explorers of the Niger." Mr. Walter Savage would answer, "Not to know me argues yourself unknown." He was very angry with Lord Byron for designating him as a Mr. Landor. He thought it should have been the. You ought to have forewarned such readers that the Mr. Landor, now your Walter Savage, is the learned author of an epic poem called Gebir, composed originally in Egyptian hieroglyphics, then translated by him into Latin, and thence done into English blank verse by the same hand. It is a work of rare occurrence even in the English character, and is said to be deeply abstruse. Some extracts from it have been buried in, or have helped to bury, critical reviews. A copy of the Anglo-Gebir is, however, extant in the British Museum, and is said to have so puzzled the few philologists who have examined it, that they have declared none but a sphinx, and that an Egyptian one, could unriddle it. I would suggest that some Maga of the gypsies should be called in to interpret. Our vagrant fortune-tellers are reputed to be of Egyptian origin, and to hold converse among themselves in a very strange and curious oriental tongue called Gibberish, which word, no doubt, is a derivative from Gebir. Of the existence of the mysterious epic, the public were made aware many years ago by the first publication of Mr. Leigh Hunt's Feast of the Poets, where it was mentioned in a note as a thing containing one good passage about a shell, while in the text the author of Gebir was called a gander, and Mr. Southey rallied by Apollo for his simplicity in proposing that the company should drink the gabbler's health. That pleasantry has disappeared from Mr. Hunt's poem, though Mr. Landor has by no means left off gabbling. Mr. Hunt is a kindly-natured man as well as a wit, and no doubt perceived that he had been more prophetic than he intended—Mr. Landor having, in addition to verses uncounted unless on his own fingers, favoured the world with five thick octavo volumes of dialogues. From the four first I have culled a few specimens; the fifth I have not read. It is rumoured that a sixth is in the press, with a dedication in the issimo style, to Lord John Russell, Mr. Landor's lantern having at last enabled him to detect one honest man in the Imperial Parliament. Lord John, it seems, in the House of Commons lately quoted something from him about a Chinese mandarin's opinion of the English; and Mr. Landor is so delighted that he intends to take the Russells under his protection for ever, and not only them, but every thing within the range of their interests. Not a cast horse, attached to a Woburn sand-cart, shall henceforth crawl towards Bedford and Tavistock Squares, but the grateful Walter shall swear he is a Bucephalus. You, Mr. North, have placed the cart before the horse, in allowing Mr. Landor's dialogue between Porson and Southey precedence of the following between Mr. Landor and yourself.
You may object that it is a feigned colloquy, in which an unauthorized use is made of your name. True; but all Mr. Landor's colloquies are likewise feigned; and none is more fictitious than one that has appeared in your pages, wherein Southey's name is used in a manner not only unauthorized, but at which he would have sickened.
You and I must differ more widely in our notions of fair play than I hope and believe we do, if you refuse to one whose purpose is neither unjust nor ungenerous, as much license in your columns as you have accorded to Mr. Landor, when it was his whim, without the smallest provocation, to throw obloquy on the venerated author of the Excursion.
I am, Sir, your faithful servant,
EDWARD QUILLINAN.
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Landor.—Good-morning, Mr. North, I hope you are well.
North.—I thank you, sir.—Be seated.
Landor.—I have called to enquire whether you have considered my proposal, and are willing to accept my aid.
North.—I am almost afraid to trust you, sir. You treat the Muses like nine-pins. Neither gods nor men find favour in your sight. If Homer and Virgil crossed your path, you would throw stones at them.
Landor.—The poems attributed to Homer, were probably, in part at least, translations. He is a better poet than Hesiod, who has, indeed, but little merit![49] Virgil has no originality. His epic poem is a mere echo of the Iliad, softened down in tone for the polite ears of Augustus and his courtiers. Virgil is inferior to Tasso. Tasso's characters are more vivid and distinct than Virgil's, and greatly more interesting. Virgil wants genius. Mezentius is the most heroical and pious of all the characters in the Aeneid. The Aeneid, I affirm, is the most misshapen of epics, an epic of episodes.[50] There are a few good passages in it. I must repeat one for the sake of proposing an improvement.