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On the brink of the summer the pigeons The snow was deep, the way was hard to

I fell before thy gate against me barr'd.

Three things am I leaving behind me, the let me in! it is thy weary wife,

Hitherward following with wounded feet,
To find thee here, and lose the pain of life.

Tir-Ludach I'm leaving, and Durrow, and Excepting this my bitter had no sweet,

Yet my visit and feasting with Comgall And now for me, for me, the dawn at last!

From Temple Bar.
WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR.

that openly advocated tyrannicide, and could scarcely be restrained from chalHOWEVER we may account for the lenging Lord John Russell for some unpopularity of Landor's writings, and fancied slight to a remote, aud perhaps it is no very difficult matter to do this, doubtful, ancestor. No man ever exit has always seemed to us strange that pressed greater confidence in himself, the public have shown so little interest or had a profounder belief in the power in Landor, the man. There is a com- and durability of his own work, yet, mon complaint against the biographies because a publisher refused to print of men of letters that they are, with" Count Julian," he burned the manufew exceptions, insufferably dull read- script of another tragedy he had iu ing. And the cause of this is not far hand, and declared his intention to to seck. If an author has put the best abandon poetry forever. of himself into his books, he has, as a follower of Epicurus, his whole life A professed rule, left his biographer little to tell. was destructive All his adventures have probably been, peace. His temperament was too strong of happiness and like the Vicar of Wakefield's by the for his philosophy. He was removed fireside, all his migrations from the from Rugby to save expulsion, was blue bed to the brown. No such com- rusticated at Oxford, had quarrelled plaint, however, can be made against with his father, and turned his back on the biography of Walter Savage Lan- the paternal home "forever," before dor. The most exacting reader must he had reached the age of twenty. Yet admit that Mr. Forster had a very good he was capable of great tenderness of story to tell-although he may with feeling and of firm friendship. The justice complain of the lumbering way two years that elapsed between the in which that pompous gentleman told Rugby episode and his residence at it. Mr. Sidney Colvin has told the Trinity College, Oxford, were passed story more briefly, but more brightly, in the house of Dr. Langley, of Ashand with a tighter critical grasp, in his bourne, between whom and his hotlittle volume of the "English Men of headed pupil there sprang up a devoted Letters" series. Few men- few men attachment. Landor referred to this of letters, certainly have been so in after years in the most affectionate happily circumstanced as Landor; few spirit. In the conversation of Izaak have done more to make shipwreck of Walton, Cotton, and Oldways, Walton their lives, and to bring disaster on all says of "the good parson of Ashwith whom they were connected. bourne," whom Landor informs the reader, in a note, is the Dr. Langley of his school-days: yet he keeps the grammar-school, and "He wants nothing, is ready to receive, as private tutor, On the surface, Landor's character for Oxford or Cambridge; but only any young gentleman in preparation appears an odd mixture of opposing, one. They live like princes, converse and even mutually destructive, cle-like friends, and part like lovers." ments. A man of strong aristocratic Some good friends attempted a recsympathies, he had. an unbounded onciliation with his family, and arhatred of tyranny and oppression in rangements were ultimately made by any form; a lover of peace and quiet which he received an allowance of meditation, his entire career was a £150 a year, with freedom to do as he series of contests; to a nature of such pleased. rare gentleness that he never plucked a flower, nor took a bird's nest, nor, after once finding a wounded bird, ever used his gun for sport, was joined an impetuosity and uncurbed vehemence

"I never did a single wise thing," are his own words, "in the whole course of my existence, although I have written many which have been thought such."

passed in reading, writing poetry, and The next three years were making love, among the Welsh hills. Some experiments in journalism were made in London, chiefly at the instigation of the celebrated Dr. Parr, with

The wife was many years younger

For

a little while, however, all went well. The young couple entertained guests at Llanthony, the first to come being Southey and his wife. Landor wrote a great deal of Latin verse, and published a volume of English poetry. Meantime, trouble was brewing among his tenants and neighbors. "The earth contains no race of human beings so totally vile and worthless as the Welsh," he writes, with characteristic vehemence.

His chief trouble was

whom acquaintance had been made; generations. Health, genius, honor, are but Landor never had any serious the words inscribed on some; on others are thought of entering any of the profes- disease, fatuity, and infamy. sions, and this, more than any other, would have been peculiarly distasteful than her husband, and the marriage to him. On his father's death he suc- proved anything but a happy one. ceeded to a good property. His next experiment was of a military character. Roused to enthusiasm by the Spanish resistance to Napoleon, Landor started off to Spain, and proclaimed that he would equip at his own cost, and accompany to the field, a thousand volunteers. He did so, and while on the march with men to join Blake's army, took occasion to quarrel with the English envoy, Stuart. He saw no fighting, and after the Convention of Cintra was signed, came home as filled with caused by an English tenant, who had disgust as he had previously been with made use of Southey's name as an inenthusiasm. In 1809 he bought the troduction; a man who knew absoruined priory and estate of Llanthony, lutely nothing of farming, and who having disposed of other property to leagued himself with the Welshmen to assist him in the purchase. Here he annoy and defraud their eccentric landproposed to live the life of a country lord. His rents were not paid, his gentleman. The building of a new game was poached, his cedar plantamansion was commenced; the old tions were damaged, and, in a little ruins were to be reverently restored. while, he found himself involved in Gangs of men were soon at work mak- innumerable lawsuits. A local attoring roads and bridle paths through the ney who had made himself peculiarly valley. Agriculture was to be raised to obnoxious he publicly thrashed, and the a high standard, sheep were imported man brought a criminal action against from Segovia, and the surrounding him. In the course of a few years he country was to be made lovelier with had sunk a fortune in his Llanthony plantations of Landor's favorite tree, property, and, when at last his suit for the cedar of Lebanon. That he ought the recovery of two thousand pounds to live within the limits of his income was a notion that never occurred to Landor. While all this was going on, it chanced that he met a young lady at a ball in Bath, and as soon as he set eyes on her, exclaimed: "By heaven! that's the prettiest girl in the room; I'll marry her." And marry her he did. Such was the precipitate action of the man who could philosophize on marriage thus :

from the defaulting Englishman was decided in his favor, he was, financially, a ruined man. He determined to go abroad. His personal property was realized, and the Llanthony estate vested in trustees. His mother's lifecharge entitled her to the position of chief creditor, and under her management the estate became more prosperous, and was made to yield Landor an income of something like sixteen hundred pounds a year. He desired to go to France; his wife disliked the plan, and objected. A quarrel ensued, durto flourish : a few tears drop into the loosing the process of which she taunted ened soil, and buds and blossoms spring him, in the presence of her sister, with over it. Death is not even a blow, is not the disparity of their years, with the even a pulsation; it is a pause. But mar- result that next morning Landor set riage unrolls the awful lot of numberless sail for France in an oyster boat, alone.

Death itself to the reflecting mind is less serious than marriage. The elder plant is cut down that the younger may have room

Landor's title to notice, up to this date, was that he had been one of the leaders in the new movement of English poetry - the movement identified with the names of Wordsworth and

He believed they were parted forever, matic scenes; one or two volumes of and proposed to reserve for himself minor poems; some Latin verses, of 1607. a year, and make over all the rest interest to none but scholars; and a of his income to his wife. In a little" Commentary on the Memoirs of Mr. while, hearing that she had been very Fox," a book described by those who ill since their parting, and had suffered have seen it as a masterly performmuch on account of it, we find him ance, but withdrawn from circulation writing her an affectionate letter; a almost as soon as published. reconciliation was effected, and she shortly joined her husband at Tours. In September, 1815, they set out for Italy, and settled down for three years at Como. Here he passed a quiet time, making but few acquaintances, Coleridge. "Gebir" appeared in the and seeing no friends, except Southey, same year as the "Lyrical Ballads," who came for a short visit in the sum- and to any one able to read the signs mer of 1817. In 1818 his stay was of the times, bore as unmistakable evibrought to an abrupt close. An Italian dence as they did that a new era of poet, named Monti, had published English poetry was at hand. Landor some verses on England, which roused had gone back to the old masters of Landor's ire, and he printed some scur- harmony, and had imbibed much of rilous Latin verses on Monti. Monti their music. Few people, nowadays, summoned him for libel. Landor have read a line of the verse which thereupon wrote to threaten the magistrate with a thrashing, and for this was ordered to quit the country. He retired at his leisure, and established himself at Pisa, which became his home for the next three years. We cannot wonder that the Italians failed to understand this imperious and eccentric Englishman. Strange stories about him were current among the people. He was believed to have challenged the secretary of legation for whistling in the street when Mrs. Landor passed; to have walked up to the judges in a court of justice, with a bag of dollars in his hand, asking how much was necessary to obtain him a favorable verdict; to have thrown his cook out of window, for neglect of a dinner, and while the man lay moaning on the ground with a broken limb, thrust his head out with the exclamation, "Good God, I forgot the violets!"

was in fashion at the end of the last century, and the beginning of this, so we need make no apology for quoting a passage from Hayley's "Triumphs of Temper," by way of specimen — and no unfavorable specimen of the kind of thing that did duty for poetry in those days. A young lady, named Serena, has completed her toilet, and

Now in full charms descends the finished fair,

For now the morning banquet claims her

care;

child.

Already at the board with viands piled,
Her sire impatient sits and chides his tardy
On his imperial lips rude hunger reigns,
And keener politics usurp his brains:
But when her love-inspiring voice he hears,
When the soft magic of her smile appears,
In that glad moment he at once forgets
His empty stomach, and the nation's
debts:

He bends to nature's more divine controul,
And only feels the father in his soul.
Quick to his hand behold her now present
The Indian liquor of celestial scent!
Not with more grace the nectar'd cup is
given

By rose-lipp'd Hebe to the Lord of heaven.
While her fair hands a fresh libation pour,
Fashion's loud thunder shakes the sound-

ing door,