los the tokens of royal approbation in no very measured terms.* In 1811 he married Julia, daughter of J. Thuillier de Malaperte, descendant and representative of J. Thuillier de Malaperte, Baron de Nieuveville, first gentleman of the bed-chamber to Charles the Eighth. He was residing at Tours, when, after the battle of Waterloo, many other Englishmen, to the number of four thousand, went away. He wrote to Carnot that he had no confidence in the moderation or honor of the emperor, but resolved to stay, because he considered the danger to be greater in the midst of a broken army. A week afterward, when this wretch occupied Tours, his house was the only one without a billet. In the autumn of that year he retired to Italy. For seven or eight years he occupied the Palazzo Medici in Florence, and then bought the celebrated villa of Count Gherardesea, at Fiesole, with its gardens, and two farms, immediately under the ancient villa of Lorenzo de Medici. His visits to England have been few and short."

For several years past Mr. Landor has resided in Bath; he has been married, and has three children; his lady is still living, though not in the vicinity of Bath. Possessing a good fortune, Mr. Landor has retained a small portion of it, just sufficient to live on, for his own wants. The remainder has been allotted to his family.

The property inherited by Landor was very considerable, but so early as 1806 he had sold a very large portion of it in Staffordshire and Warwickshire, which his ancestors had possessed for nearly seven hundred years. He then bought two estates in Monmouthshire, on which he expended several thousand pounds; on the building of a house alone, £8000. Some tenants of his, named Betham, having abandoned their farms and fled to the Crimea, being in his debt to the amount of £3000, he ceased to feel any interest in the place he had intended to

* He not only received the thanks of the Supreme Junta, but, soon after his return to England, the rank of colonel. He sent back the documents with his commission to Don Pedro Cavallos on the subversion of the Constitution by Ferdinand. He was "willing," he said, "to aid a people in the assertion of its liberties against the antagonist of Europe, but could have nothing to do with a perjurer and traitor."-See "Men of the Time."

have permanently settled in, and, on the authority I have already referred to," he ordered his house to be demolished."

When a large portion of the prose literature of our times that has acquired celebrity shall have lost its renown, or be remembered merely on account of an ephemeral celebrity, the "Imaginary Conversations" of Walter Savage Landor will live in honor, and flourish far and wide. There are intellectual gifts and graces of no ordinary kind exhibited in his prose productions: wonderful acquirements, scholarship of a genuine kind-massiveness of mind-keenness and subtilty of perception-earnestness and enthusiasm-geniality of disposition-tenderness of heart, and a noble love of every thing in nature good and beautiful. The poetry of Mr. Landor, in all probability, is not destined to the same immortality, and possibly few critics will imagine that any considerable portion of it is deserving even of passing commendation at the hands of his contemporaries.

In Landor's disposition there is a singular combination of opposite qualities, and in his mental powers and abilities a mixture no less strange of force and energy, with a childish simplicity, deep erudition, an intimate acquaintance with ancient and modern history and literature, with strong prejudices, partialities, and dislikes, by which his opinions are considerably affected, often even on the gravest subjects; great tenderness of heart is found allied with heat and excitability of temper, while critical acumen of no ordinary kind is found associated with credulity, and a disposition to believe things that to many appear marvelous, and to hesitate to give credence to those things which others think it important to receive with implicit trust.

The marked feature in the principal prose writings of Landor is that of originality of mind and a daring recklessness of all consequence in the expression of opinions he believes to be just and true. Take up any one of the "Imaginary Conversations," and you feel yourself in communion with the mind of an author of powerful intellect-in the presence of a great original thinker-a fervent lover of truth and goodness-a fierce hater of every thing mean and base-of all shams, and of all kinds of scoundrelism, however grandly disguised or dignified with great

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names-a man of vast and varied erudition, endowed with that peculiar power of high dramatic genius which can transport the imagination to distant climes and ages, create an ideal presence of celebrities of antiquity, whom he brings before his readers in a life-like manner, looking, speaking, acting, and playing their great parts in life's drama over again, as they looked, and spoke. and acted, or pretended to be, a thousand or two thousand years ago.

Lady Blessington thus speaks in one of her letters of her first meeting with Walter Savage Landor in May, 1825, at Florence: "I had learned from his works to form a high opinion of the man as well as the author. But I was not prepared to find in him the courtly, polished gentleman of high breeding, of manners, deportment, and demeanor that one might expect to meet with in one who had passed the greater portion of his life in courts. There is no affectation of politeness, no finikin affability in his urbanity, no far-fetched complimentary hyperbolical strain of eulogy in the agrèmens of his conversation with women, and the pleasing things he says to them whom he cares to please."

Of all the literary men with whom Lady Blessington came in contact and they certainly were not few or undistinguishedat home and abroad, the person whom she looked on with most respect, honor, and affectionate regard, was Walter Savage Landor.

LETTERS FROM LADY BLESSINGTON TO W. S. LANDOR, ESQ.

"74 Rue Bourbon, Quartier St. Germain, Paris, February, 1829. "MY DEAR MR. LANDOR,-I can no longer allow you to think that I am ungrateful for your letter of last month, which my silence might imply; but when I tell you that for the last two months I have only twice attempted to use my pen, and both times was compelled to abandon it, you will acquit me of neglect or negligence, neither of which, toward those whom I esteem and value as highly as I do you, are among the catalogue of my faults. The change of climate, operating on a constitution none of the strongest, and an unusually severe winter to me, who for some years have only seen Italian ones, has brought on a severe attack of rheumatism in the head, that has not only precluded the possibility of writing, but nearly of reading also, so that my winter has been indeed cheerless. Among the partial gleams of sunshine

which have illumed it, your kind recollection so obligingly expressed, and a fortnight's sojourn which Francis Hare and his excellent wife made here, are remembered with most pleasure. She is, indeed, a treasure-well-informed, clever, sensible, well-mannered, kind, lady-like, and, above all, truly feminine: the having chosen such a woman reflects credit and distinction on our friend, and the communion with her has had a visible effect on him, as, without losing any of his gayety, it has become softened down to a more mellow tone, and he appears not only a more happy man, but more deserving of happiness than before. The amiable and, I think, admirable Augustus Hare is to be married next autumn. He is a very great favorite of mine, and he possesses a peculiar delicacy of sentiment and nobleness of nature that make one regard him as something superior to the ordinary class of mankind, while his enthusiasm and honesty, both so seldom met with in our days of commonplace mediocrity, give a raciness to his character and manner that is peculiarly pleasing to me. I look with impatience for the two volumes that have been announced from Mr. Julius Hare, and shall read them with the same attention, pleasure, and profit with which I have perused all the other productions of the same author. Should you write to him, pray urge him not to forget that you promised those two volumes, and that I have in this matter even more than my sex's share of impatience. I shall not be unmindful of the interest of Mr. Godwin Swift,* you may be sure, as I never can be to any recommendation of yours. Thanks for your congratulation on the marriage of my sister; it is, and will be, I am sure, a very happy one, for the speaker is an excellent man, and she is truly a good woman, so that this union can not but be fortunate.

"My dear Mr. Landor, your sincerely attached friend,

"MARGUERITE BLESSINGTON."

"London, Seamore Place, July 10th, 1834. "What shall I say to you for all your kindness? I feel it more than I can express, and only wish I could in any way prove my sense of the obligations I owe you. I sent for Mr. Ottley the day (yesterday) I got your letter, and communicated your wishes with regard to 'The Trial.'t He seemed sensibly touched, and so expressed himself, at the generosity of your proposal, and spoke in terms of the highest admiration of the production, which he considers most admirable. He requests me to assure you that the work shall go to press forthwith, and that in the course of a month from this date it will be ready for publication. How admirable is the conversation between Essex and Spenser, as also that of Colonel Walker! So inimitably do you identify yourself with the characters you make converse, that you make me forget the lapse of ages, and create new sympathies with those who have for years been Of the Mr. Godwin Swift mentioned in this letter, an account will be found in the Appendix.-R. R. M.

Mr. Landor's "Examination of W. Shakspeare," &c.-R. R. M.

numbered with the dead. How soothing is it, my dear friend, to retire within one's own heart from the turmoil and petty cares of life, to dwell and think with the wise and good of other days, and, still more, to make known their feelings to thousands who must esteem you for the delight you offer them! I have often wished that you would note down for me your reminiscences of your friendship, and the conversations it led to with my dear and ever-to-belamented husband-he who so valued and loved you, and who was so little understood by the common herd of mankind. We, who knew the nobleness, the generosity, and the refined delicacy of his nature, can render justice to his memory, and I wish that posterity, through your means, should know him as he was. * All that I could say would be viewed as the partiality of a wife, but a friend, and such a friend as you, might convey a true sketch of him. Pray think of this, and give me a conversation (suppose your voyage to Naples the scene of it) between you. Pray tell me something of poor Augustus Hare— another friend gone before us!! I knew not that he was ill, and death snatches him while I believed him in health and happiness. He was good and amiable, and therefore fit to die, though his death is more painful to his friends. Do you remember our calm nights on the Terrace of the Casa Pelosi, now seven years ago? When you recall them, remember also that you have a sincere friend in her who shared them. M. BLESSINGTON."

"London, Seamore Place, June 9th, 1834. "I have to thank you for your admirable contributions to my Book of Beauty,' with both of which I am delighted. The Search after Honor' is as original as it is excellent, and the 'Conversation between Steele and Addison' is one of the most interesting productions I ever read. What a singular power you have of identifying yourself with the minds of others! It seems like an intuitive knowledge, which enables you to continue their train of thought, without ever losing your own powerful originality.

"Sir Egerton Brydges has lately taken a hint from you, and published two volumes of 'Imaginary Biography,' which, though very clever and interest*The intelligence of the death of Lord Blessington had been communicated to Mr. Landor in a letter, dated Paris, May 29th, 1829.

"It is with feelings of the deepest regret that I have to announce to you that poor dear Lord Blessington was seized with an apoplectic fit at half past six o'clock on Saturday last, and though medical aid was at hand almost immediately, and nothing left undone that could be done to save him, all efforts were used in vain. He remained speechless from the first moment, and lingered until half past four o'clock on Monday morning, when he breathed his last. Nothing can equal the grief of poor dear Lady Blessington; in fact, she is so ill that we are quite uneasy about her, as is also poor Lady Harriet. But not only ourselves, but all our friends, are in the greatest affliction since this melancholy event. Fancy what a dreadful blow it is to us all to lose him; he who was so kind, so generous, and so truly good a man. As he has always expressed a desire to be interred at Mountjoy, his body is to leave this in a few days for Ireland."