as given so much public approbation
to literary men. The form of his writings enabled him to show himself
more fully than is possible to most authors, and in all his many
literary discussions he gave expression to honest criticism, awarding
full praise in the numerous cases where it was due. Even at an age when
prejudice and petulancy are apt to get the better of a man's judgment,
Landor was most generous in his estimate of many young writers. I
remember to have once remarked, that on one page he had praised (and not
passingly) Cowper, Byron, Southey, Wordsworth, Burns, Campbell, Hemans,
and Scott. In the conversation between Archdeacon Hare and Landor, the
latter says: "I believe there are few, if any, who enjoy more heartily
than I do the best poetry of my contemporaries, or who have commended
them both in private and in public with less parsimony and reserve."

_Hare._ "Are you quite satisfied that you never have sought a pleasure
in detecting and exposing the faults of authors, even good ones?"

_Landor._ "I have here and there sought that pleasure, and found it. To
discover a truth and separate it from a falsehood is surely an
occupation of the best intellect, and not at all unworthy of the best
heart. Consider how few of our countrymen have done it, or attempted it,
on works of criticism; how few of them have analyzed and compared.
Without these two processes there can be no sound judgment on any
production of genius."

_Hare._ "How much better would it be if our reviewers and magazine men
would analyze, in this manner, to the extent of their abilities, and
would weigh evidence before they pass sentence!"

And if this analyzing is needed in England, the land of reviews and
reviewing, how much more necessary is it in America, where veritable
criticism is not even old enough to be young; its germ, however
grovelling it may be, not yet having taken the primary form of the
caterpillar.

Great as was Landor's personal animosity towards Byron, he considered
him a "great poet,"--"the keenest and most imaginative of poets"; nor
should we attribute this dislike to the bitter attacks made by Byron
upon the "deep-mouthed Boeotian," though surely such would be
sufficient to excite indignation in more amiable breasts. It was Byron's
furious assaults upon Landor's beloved friend, Southey, that roused the
ire of the lion poet; later knowledge of the man, derived from private
sources, helped to keep alive the fire of indigna