orth, I repeat that that sentence should have been
printed as Southey's, not Porson's.

_North_.--Yet it is quite consistent with a preceding sentence
which you can by no ingenuity of after-thought withdraw from Porson;
for the whole context forbids the possibility of its transition.
What does Porson there testify of the _Laodamia_? That it is
"_a composition such as Sophocles might have exulted to own_!"--and
a part of one of its stanzas "_might have been heard with shouts of
rapture in the Elysium the poet describes_." [115]

[Footnote 115: Vol. i. p. 51. Few persons will think that Mr. Landor's
drift, which is obvious enough, could be favoured if these passages
could be _all_ shuffled over to Mr. Southey. It would be unwise and
inconsistent in Mr. Landor of all men to intimate that Southey's
judgment in poetry was inferior to Porson's; for Southey has been so
singular as to laud some of Mr. Landor's, and Mr. Landor has been so
grateful as to proclaim Southey the sole critic of modern times who
has shown "a delicate perception in poetry." It is rash, too, in him
to insinuate that Southey's opinion could be influenced by his
friendship; for he, the most amiable of men, was nevertheless a
friend of Mr. Lander also. But the only object of this argument is
to show how mal-adroitly Mr. Landor plays at thimblerig. He lets us
see him shift the pea. As for the praise and censure contained in
his dialogues, we have no doubt that any one concerned willingly
makes him a present of both. It is but returning bad money to
Diogenes. It is all Mr. Landor's; and, lest there should be any
doubt about the matter, he has taken care to tell us that he has not
inserted in his dialogues a single sentence written by, or recorded
of, the persons who are supposed to hold them.--See Vol. i. p. 96,
end of note.]

These expressions are at least as fervid as those which you would
reclaim from Porson, now that, like a pettifogging practitioner, you
want to retain him as counsel against the most illustrious of
Southey's friends--the individual of whom in this same dialogue you
cause Southey to ask, "What man ever existed who spent a more retired,
a more inoffensive, a more virtuous life, than Wordsworth, or who
has adorned it with nobler studies?"--and what does Porson answer?
"I believe so; I have always heard it; and _those who attack
him with virulence or with levity are men of no morality and no
reflection_." [116] Thus you print Wordsworth'