as well as
horses,--even for human Cruisers,--and the Rarey who reduces it to a
science will deserve the world's everlasting gratitude. Powerful natures
are likely to be as strong in their weaknesses as in their virtues;
this, however, is a reckoning entirely too rational to be largely
indulged in by the packed jury that holds inquest over the bodies,
rather than the souls, of men. In his old age at least, Landor's
irascibility amounted to temporary madness, for which he was no more
responsible than is the sick man for the feverish ravings of delirium.
That miserable law-suit at Bath, which has done so much to drag the name
of Landor into the mire, would never have been prosecuted had its
instigators had any respect for themselves or any decent appreciation of
their victim.

But Landor in his best moods was chivalry incarnate. His courtly manners
toward ladies were particularly noticeable from the rarity of so much
external polish in the new school of Anglo-Saxon gallantry. It was a
pleasure to receive compliments from him; for they generally lay
imbedded in the _sauce piquante_ of a _bon mot_. Having one day dropped
his spectacles, which were picked up and presented to him by an American
girl, Landor quickly exclaimed, with a grace not to be translated into
words, "Ah, this is not the first time you have caught my eyes!" It was
to the same young lady that he addressed this heretofore unpublished
poem:--

"TO K. F.

"Kisses in former times I've seen,
Which, I confess it, raised my spleen;
They were contrived by Love to mock
The battledoor and shuttlecock.
Given, returned,--how strange a play,
Where neither loses all the day,
And both are, even when night sets in,
Again as ready to begin!
I am not sure I have not played
This very game with some fair maid.
Perhaps it was a dream; but this
I _know_ was not; I _know_ a kiss
Was given me in the sight of more
Than ever saw me kissed before.
Modest as winged angels are,
And no less brave and no less fair,
She came across, nor greatly feared,
The horrid brake of wintry beard.

"WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR.

"Sienna, July, 1860."

The following papers, in so far as they relate to Landor personally, are
not reminiscences of him in the zenith of fame. They contain glimpses of
the old man of Florence in the years 1859, 1860, and 1861, just before
the intellectual light began to flicker and