I wish to supplement the "Recollections of Landor," published in a former number of the Magazine, by an anecdote and two or three characteristic letters which by accident escaped me when I was writing on the subject before. Here is the story: Schlegel and Niebuhr had been for some time on unpleasant terms. The historical skepticism of the latter was altogether distasteful to Schlegel; and he was wont to deny Niebuhr's claim to the title of historian. Well, Landor was dining at Bonn, and among the company immediately opposite to him at table was Schlegel. Hardly had the soup been despatched before Landor, with that stentorian voice of his which always filled every corner of every room he spoke in, began: "Are not you the man, Mr. Schlegel, who has recently discovered, at the end of two hundred and fifty years, that Shakespeare is a poet? Well, perhaps if you live two hundred and fifty years longer, you may discover that Niebuhr is an historian." "Schlegel did not like it," added Landor when telling the story himself—very much as who should say, "I knocked him down with an unexpected blow of my fist, and he did not like it!"
And now for my letters. Here is one dated "Florence, June, 1861," written to my wife when he was past eighty and within a year or two of his death. The latter portion of the letter is especially interesting, and will be none the less so to those who may be disposed to dispute the correctness of the judgments expressed in it.
"Do not be alarmed," he writes, "at a letter which 'like a wounded snake drags its slow length along.' Such, I suspect, mine will be, though it ought to contain only thanks for the admirable ones you have sent to me on the late affairs of Tuscany. Yesterday Mr. Trollope gave them to me as your present. I then exprest a hope that he or you would undertake a history of Italian affairs from the Treaty of Campo Formio down to the present day. Indeed, I hope and trust that it may be continued a year or two farther, until the recovery of Rome from the most perfidious enemy she and Italy were ever opprest by. And this under the title of deliverer! Lay your two heads together, and let me have to boast that the best and truest of our historians were my personal friends. Southey and Napier were most intimately so. Hallam is a dull proser—no discovery or illustration, no profound thought, no vivid description, not even a harmonious period. Macaulay is a smart reviewer, indifferent to truth, a hanger-on of party. Lingard is more honest, and writes better. He does not tag together loose epigrams with a crooked pin. Now put the empty chairs of these people against the wall, and sit down to your table with a long piece of work before you. And now you must be tired, as I foretold you would be. So hail the farewell of your affectionate old friend,
"W. LANDOR."
Here is another, undated, but shown by the Bath postmark to have been written in 1857. The whole letter is strongly characteristic of the writer, as indeed was everything that Landor wrote, said or did, so thoroughly and in every sense of the word was he original; but, as in the preceding letter, the most interesting portion is that toward the end, where he gives some amusing indications of his peculiar political opinions and feelings. This letter also was written to the same correspondent:
"My dear friend: It is now three years since I have been in London, except in passing through it to the Crystal Palace, without dismounting." [How curiously the phrase indicates the habits of the writer's youth, when gentlemen's journeys were for the most part performed on horseback!] "At Sydenham I remained three weeks, almost; but the air of London always disagreed with me, added to which, the necessity of visiting was always intolerable to me, and I have lost many friends by refusing to undergo it. If Mr. Trollope should find a few days' leisure for Bath, I can promise him a hearty reception and a comfortable bedroom. Is it not singular that on your letter being brought to me I laid down for it Town and Country Scenes from the Shades, and Alfieri and Metastasio, and Codrus and Polio. These last three are in Fraser. If they bring a few pounds or shillings, the money will be given to Capera, a laboring man who has written some noble poetry." [The writer in question produced some very tolerable verses, remarkable as coming from a man in his position, but in our friend's enthusiastic language they become "noble poetry" directly he makes the man his protegé—a truly Landorian touch!] "I could have collected three hundred pounds for Kossuth from friends who wrote to me about it, and probably ten or a dozen times as much from others, for no man ever had so few friends or acquaintances as I have. Nearly all are dead, and I have no leisure or inclination for new ones. It gave me much pleasure to hear that the fine and pleasant Lord Normanby is in part recovered from his paralysis. I parted from him at Bath with few hopes. Never have I spent a winter in England so free from every kind of malady as this last. A disastrous war ends with a disgraceful peace. We are to have an illumination and ringing of bells. Sir Claude Scott and myself will not illuminate, but I have promised the ringers twenty shillings if they will muffle the bells. Rejoice! The best generals and best soldiers in the Crymea [sic] were Italians.
"W.S.L."