Selections from the writings of Walter Savage Landor. Edited with introduction and notes by W. B. Shubrick Clymer

Front matter

THE ATHENÆUM PRESS SERIES G. L. KITTREDGE and C. T. WINCHESTER GENERAL EDITORS Œbe Htbenæum press Series. This series is intended to furnish a library of the best English literature from Chaucer to the present time in a form adapted to the needs of both the student and the general reader. The works selected are carefully edited, with biographical and critical introductions, full explanatory notes, and other necessary apparatus. W. S. LANDOR Htbenæum press Series SELECTIONS FROM THE WRITINGS OF WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR Edited with Introduction and Notes BY W. B. SHUBR1CK CLYMER BOSTON, U.S.A. GINN & COMPANY, PUBLISHERS ca be athenæum }]rrsG Copyright, 1S98, by W. B. SHUERICK CLYMER ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Preface

. The first edition of John Forster's Life of Landor was published by Chapman and Hall, in two volumes, in 1869; in 1876, abridged, it formed the first volume of Forster's eight-volume edition of The Works and Life of Walter Sav age Landor ; in 1895 the second edition was reprinted. In this biography is stored almost all the information of any consequence relating to Landor; and Forster's is the stand ard text of the collected writings. The ample material in the biography is not especially well put together, nor is the appraisal always closely accurate. To a special student of the subject, however, the book is invaluable. Mr. Sidney Colvin's Landor (English Men of Letters) gives as full an account as any one but a special student cares for. In his volume of Selections (Golden Treasury Series) he attains, by rare skill in choice and arrangement, and by means of a really luminous preface and notes, that high point of critical merit which entitles him to the commendation bestowed by Landor on one who praises an author "becomingly."

Mr. Charles G. Crump's comparatively recent variorum edition of the writings, with instructive critical notes, is based on Forster. In 1897 appeared Letters and Other Unpublished Writings of Walter Savage Landor, edited by Mr. Stephen Wheeler. The new material is not particularly important ; but the edi tor's work is done with such good taste and judgment that the book cannot fail to interest an admirer of Landor. It has a well-made bibliography. The Scott Library contains,

PREFACE.

. VI in convenient form, a good assortment of Lmaginary Conver sations, the Pentameron, and Pericles and Aspasia. The fullest American reprint of the prose is that published by Roberts Brothers. Mr. Swinburne's article on Landor in the Encyclopædia Britannica, so strangely stimulating a blend of dithyramb and discernment as no other mortal could ever have pro duced, is to be read with mental reservations and qualifica tions. His Song for the Centenary of Walter Savage Landor is an encomium, in detail, of pretty much everything Landor wrote. In sharp contrast to Mr. Swinburne's apotheosis is Mr. Leslie Stephen's searching, and in some degree destruc tive, analysis (Hours in a Library). Irritating though the sarcastically depreciatory manner of the essay may be to youthful enthusiasm, yet the estimate is in the main so sound that mature and dispassionate reflection overlooks the lack of sympathy.

It is by odds the cleverest thing in print on Landor. The article in the Dictionary of National Biography, also by Mr. Leslie Stephen, states the facts con cisely, and concludes with an admirably just summing up of Landor as man and writer. Among occasional contributions to the subject are Mrs. Browning's (then Miss Barrett) essay in Home's New Spirit of the Age (1844); Miss Kate Field's three articles in the Atlantic Monthly (1866) ; Mrs. Linton's article in Eraser's Magazine (July, 1870); Lord Houghton's Monograph (1873); Mr. Horace E. Scudder's characterisation (A/en and Letters); Professor Dowden's essay (Studies in Literature) ; Professor G. E. Woodberry's (Studies in Letters and Life) ; Mr. Aubrey de Vere's (Essays, chiefly on Poetry) ; M. Gabriel Sarra zin's (Poetes modernes de P Angleterre) ; and two articles by J. R. Lowell (Massachusetts Quarterly, 1848 ; Century Maga zine, 1888). Mr. E. W. Evans's academic Study of Landor is systematic and thorough. Landor is treated at some

PREFACE.

. VII length in Mrs. Oliphant's Victorian Age of English Litera ture and in Mr. Stedman's Victorian Poets ; and a few pages are given to him in Professor Saintsbury's book on the English literature of this century. This small volume of selections, differing in plan both from Mr. Hillard's and from Mr. Colvin's, contains some of the dramatic and some of the discursive Conversations, a considerable part of the last Day of the Pentameron, a small number of letters from Pericles and Aspasia, and a few of the best short poems. It has been difficult to find among the dramatic Conversations good ones not already included by Mr. Colvin ; among the non-dramatic it has been easy, for he usually makes but short extracts from them. Only one of these last is here given entire ; from others are made excerpts long enough to serve as samples of the trend and manner of the discussion.

The letters taken from Pericles and Aspasia, as well as the poems which follow them, though totally inadequate to give an idea of the full value of the classes of work they represent, are, at all events, characteristic. The order in which the selections are placed is determined by considerations of congruity and contrast, not chronology. The slight biographical outline follows Mr. C0iv'n> my indebtedness to whom at every turn in the preparation of this book is obvious. The omission to mention in it Lan dor's idiosyncrasies of spelling is because they are matter rather of curiosity than of serious literary interest. They are discussed in full, along with various linguistic matters, in Conversations between Johnson and Home Tooke and between Landor and Archdeacon Hare. The notes, furnishing little of the information supplied by dictionaries of biography and mythology, not minutely analysing, touching only incidentally on technical details of style, chiefly strive, by cursory suggestion of matters more

PREFACE.

. VIII or less pertinent, to invite the reader to meet in a friendly spirit this somewhat uncompromising writer, whose acquaint ance is so well worth making. I take pleasure in thanking several friends for valuable aid, and the editor of Scribncrs ALagazine for his courtesy in consenting to the repetition, in the Introduction, of a few paragraphs from a previous article of my own. W. B. S. C. May, 1S9S. CONTENTS. PAGE Introduction xiii Dates xxxix fMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS. I. Achilles and Helena 3 II. Æsop and Rhodope 9 III. Tmserius and Vipsania 19 IV. Metellus and Marius 23 V. Marcellus and Hannibal 28 VI. Henry VIII. and Anne Boleyn .... 33 VII. Roger Ascham and Lady Jane Grey ... 41 VIII. Princess Mary and Princess Elizabeth . . 44 IX. Essex and Spenser 54 X. Leofric and Godiva 59 XI. The Lady Lisle and Elizabeth Gaunt . 65 XII.

The Empress Catharine and Princess Dashkue . 69 XIII. John of Gaunt and Joanna of Kent ... 77 XIV. Tancredi and Constantia 82 XV. The Maid of Orleans and Agnes Sorel . . 87 XVI. Bossuet and the Duchess de Fontanges . . 96 XVII. Dante and Beatrice 104 XVIII. Beniowski and Aphanasia 113 XIX. Leonora di Este and Father Panigarola . .118 X CONTENTS. PAGH XX. Admiral Blake and Humphrey Blake . .120 XXI. Rhadamistus and Zenobia .... 124 XXII. Epicurus, Leontion, and Ternissa . .129 XXIII. Walton, Cotton, and Oldways . . . 13S XXIV. William Penn and Lord Peterborough . . 155 XXV. Epictetus and Seneca 167 XXVI. Lucullus and Cæsar 172 XXVII. The Apologue of Critobulus .... 180 THE PENTAMERON. XXVIII. Fifth Day's Interview 183 PERICLES AND ASPASIA. XXIX. Selected Letters 200 POEMS. Hellenics. XXX. The Hamadryad 215 XXXI.

Acon and Rhodope; or, Inconstancy . 224 XXXII. The Death of Artemidora 228 Miscellaneous. XXXIII. The Wrestling Match (from Gebir) . . . 229 XXXIV. To Ianthe 1. " It often comes into my head" . . 232 2. "Ianthe! you are call'd". . . 232 3. "Vour pleasures spring" . . 233 4. "Well I remember" .... 233 XXXV. Rose Aylmer 233 XXXVI. A Fiesolan Idyl 234 XXXVII. Upon a Sweet-Briar CONTENTS. XI PAGE XXXVIII. The Maid's Lament 237 XXXIX. To Robert Browning 238 XL. To the Sister of Elia 238 XLI. On Dirce 239 XLII. "I will not love!" 239 Old Age and Death. XLIII. "How many voices" 239 XLIV. "The place where soon" .... 240 XLV. To Age 240 XLVI. On his Seventy-fifth Birthday . 241 XLVII. On his Eightieth Birthday .... 241 XLVIII. "Death stands above me" . . . . 241 Notes