ere it
was mentioned in a note as a thing containing one good passage about
a shell, while in the text the author of _Gebir_ was called a gander,
and Mr. Southey rallied by Apollo for his simplicity in proposing
that the company should drink the gabbler's health. That pleasantry
has disappeared from Mr. Hunt's poem, though Mr. Landor has by no
means left off gabbling. Mr. Hunt is a kindly-natured man as well as
a wit, and no doubt perceived that he had been more prophetic than
he intended--Mr. Landor having, in addition to verses uncounted
unless on his own fingers, favoured the world with five thick octavo
volumes of dialogues. From the four first I have culled a few
specimens; the fifth I have not read. It is rumoured that a sixth is
in the press, with a dedication in the _issimo_ style, to Lord John
Russell, Mr. Landor's lantern having at last enabled him to detect
one honest man in the Imperial Parliament. Lord John, it seems, in
the House of Commons lately quoted something from him about a
Chinese mandarin's opinion of the English; and Mr. Landor is so
delighted that he intends to take the Russells under his protection
for ever, and not only them, but every thing within the range of
their interests. Not a cast horse, attached to a Woburn sand-cart,
shall henceforth crawl towards Bedford and Tavistock Squares, but
the grateful Walter shall swear he is a Bucephalus. You, Mr. North,
have placed the cart before the horse, in allowing Mr. Landor's
dialogue between Porson and Southey precedence of the following
between Mr. Landor and yourself.

You may object that it is a feigned colloquy, in which an
unauthorized use is made of your name. True; but all Mr. Landor's
colloquies are likewise feigned; and none is more fictitious than
one that has appeared in your pages, wherein Southey's name is used
in a manner not only unauthorized, but at which he would have
sickened.

You and I must differ more widely in our notions of fair play than I
hope and believe we do, if you refuse to one whose purpose is
neither unjust nor ungenerous, as much license in your columns as
you have accorded to Mr. Landor, when it was his whim, without the
smallest provocation, to throw obloquy on the venerated author of
the _Excursion_.

I am, Sir, your faithful servant,
EDWARD QUILLINAN.

* * * * *

_Landor_.--Good-morning, Mr. Nor