North.—He would have been sillier, then, than the flatulent frog in the fable. Yet Alfieri's was, indeed, no ordinary mind, and he would have been a greater poet than he was, had he been a better man. I admire his Bruto Primo as much as you do, and I am glad to hear you give your suffrage so heartily in favour of any one.
Landor.—Sir, I admire the man as much as I do the poet. It is not every one who can measure his height; I can.
North.—Pop! there you go! you have got out of the bottle again, and are swelling and vapouring up to the clouds. Do lower yourself to my humble stature, (I am six feet four in my slippers.) Alfieri reminds me of Byron. What of him?
Landor.—A sweeper of the Haram. [112] A sweeper of the Haram is equally in false costume whether assuming the wreath of Musaeus or wearing the bonnet of a captain of Suliotes. I ought to have been chosen a leader of the Greeks. I would have led them against the turbaned Turk to victory, armed not with muskets or swords but with bows and arrows, and mailed not in steel cuirasses or chain armour but in cork caps and cork shirts. Nothing is so cool to the head as cork, and by the use of cork armour the soldier who cannot swim has all the advantage of him who can. At the head of my swimming archers I would have astonished the admirers of Leander and Byron in the Dardanelles, and I would have proved myself a Duck worth two of the gallant English admiral who tried in vain to force that passage. The Sultan should have beheld us in Stamboul, and we would have fluttered his dovecote within the Capi—-
[Footnote 112: Vol. i. p. 301.—Vol. ii. p. 222, 223.]
North.—I will not tempt you further. Let us proceed to business. To what am I indebted for the honour of this visit, Mr. Landor?
Landor.—I sent you the manuscript of a new Imaginary Conversation between Porsou and Southey.
North.—A sort of abnegation of your former one. For what purpose did you send it to me?
Landor.—For your perusal. Have you read it?
North.—I have, and I do not find it altogether new.