him, because of his extreme care in the
preparation of his manuscript. Few celebrated authors have written so
clear and clean a hand; none ever sent his work to the press in a more
highly finished state. Fastidious beyond expression, the labor of
correction was unending. Even "Gebir" was subjected to revision, and at
one time I was intrusted with quite a long introduction, which, the day
after, Landor altered and sent to me the following note.

"Again the old creature comes to bother you. The enclosed is to take the
place of what I wrote yesterday, and to cancel, as you will see, what a
tolerably good critic" (Southey) "thought _too good to be thrown away_,
&c., &c. I do not think so, but certainly the beginning of 'Gebir' is
better with

'Kings! ye athirst for conquest,' etc.

_You_ are not _athirst_ for it but _take it coolly_."

Later, this introduction passed out of my hands. Previously Landor had
written on a slip of paper now before me:--

"'Gebir' should begin thus:--

'Hear ye the fate of Gebir!'

_Not_

'I sing the _fates_ of Gebir,'"--

which is a correction suggested to future publishers of this poem.

It would be a hopeful sign were our young American writers inoculated
with somewhat of Landor's reverence for literature, as it was no less
than reverence that made him treat ideas with respect, and array them in
the most dignified language, thus making of every sentence a study. And
it is well that these writers should know what intense labor is required
to produce anything great or lasting. "Execution is the chariot of
genius," William Blake, the great poet-artist, has said; and it is just
this execution which is unattainable without immense application and
fastidiousness. If patience be genius,--"La patience cherche et le genie
trouve,"--and if execution be its chariot, what possible fame can there
be for the slipshod writers of to-day, who spawn columns and volumes at
so much a minute, regardless of the good name of their mother tongue,
devoid of ideas, which are the product only of brains that have been
ploughed up and sown with fruitful seed? An author's severest critic
should be himself. To be carried away by the popular current is easy and
pleasant, but some fine morning the popular man wakes up to find himself
stranded and deserted,--Nature playing queer pranks with currents
changing their beds as best suits her fancy;--for even popular taste
follows laws of progression, and gr