And we can brook the thought, that by his hands
Spain may be overpower'd, and he possess,
For his delight, a solemn wilderness,
Where all the brave lie dead. But, when of bands
That he will break for us he dares to speak,
Of benefits, and of a future day
When our enlighten'd minds shall bless his sway--
Then the strain'd heart of fortitude proves weak;
Our groans, our blushes, our pale cheeks declare
That he has power to inflict what we lack strength to bear."]

_North_.--Well, Mr. Landor, we have rambled over much ground; we
have journeyed from Dan to Beersheba, and found all barren. Let us
return home.

_Landor_.--Before we do so, let me observe, that among several
noted Italians whom you have not glanced at, there is one whom I
revere--Alfieri. He was the greatest man of his time in Europe,
though not acknowleged or known to be so; [110] and he well knew his
station as a writer and as a man. Had he found in the world five equal
to himself, he would have walked out of it not to be jostled. [111]

[Footnote 110: Vol. ii. p. 241.]

[Footnote 111: Vol. ii. p. 258.]

_North_.--He would have been sillier, then, than the flatulent
frog in the fable. Yet Alfieri's was, indeed, no ordinary mind, and
he would have been a greater poet than he was, had he been a better
man. I admire his Bruto Primo as much as you do, and I am glad to
hear you give your suffrage so heartily in favour of any one.

_Landor_.--Sir, I admire the man as much as I do the poet. It is
not every one who can measure his height; I can.

_North_.--Pop! there you go! you have got out of the bottle again,
and are swelling and vapouring up to the clouds. Do lower yourself
to my humble stature, (I am six feet four in my slippers.) Alfieri
reminds me of Byron. What of him?

_Landor_.--A sweeper of the Haram. [112] A sweeper of the Haram is
equally in false costume whether assuming the wreath of Musaeus or
wearing the bonnet of a captain of Suliotes. _I_ ought to have been
chosen a leader of the Greeks. I would have led them against the
turbaned Turk to victory, armed not with muskets or swords but with
bows and arrows, and mailed not in steel cuirasses or chain armour
but in cork caps and cork shirts. Nothing is so cool to the head as
cork, and by the use of cork armour the soldier who cannot swim has
all the advantage of him who can. At the head of my swimming archers
I would have astonished the admirers of Leander and Byron in