ornly met by the
youthful culprit. When rustication was pronounced it was hoped that
Landor would return to the college to honor it and himself by an
earnest devotion to his studies. But he never returned.

When Landor was living in Florence the Italians thought him the
ideally mad Englishman. He lived for a time in the Medici palace, but
his friendly relations with the landlord, a nobleman bearing the
distinguished name of the palace, had an abrupt termination. Landor
imagined that the marquis had unfairly coaxed away his coachman, and
he wrote a letter of complaint. The next day in comes the strutting
marquis with his hat on in the presence of Mrs. Landor and some
visitors. One of the visitors describes the scene: "He had scarcely
advanced three steps from the door, when Landor walked up to him
quickly and knocked his hat off, then took him by the arm and turned
him out. You should have heard Landor's shout of laughter at his own
anger when it was all over; inextinguishable laughter, which none of
us could resist." This reminds one of the story Milnes told to
Emerson, that Landor once became so enraged at his Italian cook that
he picked him up and threw him out of the window, and then exclaimed,
"Good God, I never thought of those violets!"

Quite in strong contrast to the irascible side of his nature was his
tender love for his children, of which he had four, the last born in
1825. In them he took constant delight. In their games _Babbo_, as he
was affectionately termed, was the most gleeful and frolicsome of them
all. When he was separated from them he was in continual anxiety. On
one of his trips he received the first childish letter from his son
Arnold. In his reply the concluding lines reveal the intense affection
of the father:

I shall never be quite happy until I see you again and put my
cheek upon your head. Tell my sweet Julia that if I see twenty
little girls I will not romp with any of them before I romp
with her, and kiss your two dear brothers for me. You must
always love them as much as I love you, and you must teach
them how to be good boys, which I cannot do so well as you
can. God preserve and bless you, my own Arnold. My heart beats
as if it would fly to you, my own fierce creature. We shall
very soon meet.

Love your,
BABBO.

In literature Landor will be remembered as