the
Dardanelles, and I would have proved myself a Duck worth two of the
gallant English admiral who tried in vain to force that passage. The
Sultan should have beheld us in Stamboul, and we would have
fluttered his dovecote within the Capi---

[Footnote 112: Vol. i. p. 301.--Vol. ii. p. 222, 223.]

_North_.--I will not tempt you further. Let us proceed to business.
To what am I indebted for the honour of this visit, Mr. Landor?

_Landor_.--I sent you the manuscript of a new Imaginary
Conversation between Porsou and Southey.

_North_.--A sort of abnegation of your former one. For what
purpose did you send it to me?

_Landor_.--For your perusal. Have you read it?

_North_.--I have, and I do not find it altogether new.

_Landor_.--How?

_North_.--I have seen some part of it in print before.

_Landor_.--Where?

_North_.--In a production of your own.

_Landor_.--Impossible!

_North_.--In a rhymed lampoon printed in London in 1836. It is
called "A Satire on Satirists, and Admonition to Detractors." Do you
know such a thing?

_Landor_.--(_Aside_. Unlucky! some good-natured friend has sent
him that suppressed pamphlet.) Yes, Mr. North; a poetical manifesto
of mine with that title was printed but not published.

_North_.--No, only privately distributed among friends. It
contained some reflections on Wordsworth.

_Landor_.--It did.

_North_.--Why did you suppress it?

_Landor_.--Because I was ashamed of it. Byron and others had
anticipated me. I had produced nothing either new or true to damage
Wordsworth.

_North_.--Yet you have now, in this article that you offer me,
reproduced the same stale gibes.

_Landor_.--But I have kept them in salt for six years: they will
now have more flavour. I have added some spice, too.

_North_.--Which you found wrapt up in old leaves of the _Edinburgh
Review_.

_Landor_.--Not the whole of it; a part was given to me by
acquaintances of the poet.

_North_.--Eavesdroppers about Rydal Mount and Trinity Lodge. It was
hardly worth your acceptance.

_Landor_.--Then you refuse my article.

_North_.--It is a rare article, Mr. Landor--a brave caricature of
many persons and things; but, before I consent to frame it in ebony,
we must come to some understanding about other parts of the
suppressed pamphlet. Here it is. I find that in this atrabilarious
effusion you have treated ourselves very scurvily. At page 9 I see,

"Sooner shall Tuscan Vallambrosa lack wood,
Than B