were pleased with an autograph letter of Landor's that I read to you some time ago. Here are two notes which I may as well show you because they are autobiographical. The first was addressed, I think, to Mr. Horne, (a writer of fine genius,) but I have mislaid the envelope and cannot speak with certainty MY DEAR SIR, When I wrote to you last, I thought it would be hardly worth your notice to say more of myself than my old schoolfellows, &c. had related. But I forget whether it is mentioned or known that the first verses I ever wrote in English, were on my cousin Mrs. Shuckburgh's marriage. I was then about fourteen. Two years afterward, I translated into English the Jepthah of Buchanan, which I found I could not improve, even when I had written Gebir. I have kept neither. When I left Rugby and went under a Jesuit tutor, I translated into Latin Sapphics and Alcaics, many of Cowley's odes and other light poetry, correcting his fooleries and conceits -for I had just then been reading Sophocles and Pindar. At Oxford, we had Justin to construe. I was indignant at the choice of the author, but Anding the story of the Phocæans, I began to turn it into poetry. This was my first attempt at blank verse. I was in my eighteenth year, and the French gad-fly had bitten me. Alfieri's wise question had not reached my ear-" Do you ever expect any good from France ?" Believe me, my dear Sir, Ever sincerely yours, W. S. LANDOR. MY DEAR SIR, Some time ago I wrote to Moxon, the publisher, for a copy of my poems. He had not one. To lose no time, I send you (directed to Thomas of Catherine-street) all my writings I happen to possess. The best of them, I mean of the poetical, Giovanna of Naples, and the sequel tragedy are wanting. These never were offered to the stage. Mr. Horne requested me to supply him with some materials for his New Spirit of the Age-I sent them to him, and, at his request, permitted him to retain them after his work had appeared. I will enclose you a note, on reading which he will transmit them to you. I was born on the 30th of January, 1775. The rest is reported by Burke in his Commoners. There will be edited a and knowledge, which can only result from imagination, and a generous love of truth—and also a fine scholarship in the spirit as well as in the letter of classical attainments.-New Spirit of the Age. But this, for nothing about new and complete edition of my works about November. the present, my friend the Editor would keep secret: so say it. I directed my thanks to you on receiving your admirable book, which I shall read again, and perhaps with increased pleasure. Believe me, my dear Sir, W. S. LANdor. To D. L. Richardson, Greenfield House, Jersey, L.-These notes are interesting. What a strange, rough, dashing hand-writing! I am afraid I must rather abruptly take my departure, and bring our discussion to an end. I am obliged to hurry away to an engagement. H.-Before you say good night, let me just read you two anecdotes about Landor from Horne's biographical notices of him, and then we will have done with the subject for the present— Walter Landor, when a Rugby boy, was famous, among other feats of strength and skill, for the wonderful precision with which he used a cast net; and he was not often disposed to ask permission of the owners of those ponds or streams that suited his morning's fancy. One day a farmer suddenly came down upon him, and ordered him to desist, and give up his net. Whereupon Landor instantly cast his net over the farmer's head; caught him; entangled him; overthrew him; and when he was exhausted, addressed the enraged and discomfited face beneath the meshes, till the farmer promised to behave discreetly. Mr. Landor went to Paris in the beginning of this century, where he witnessed the ceremony of Napoleon being made consul for life amidst the acclamations of multitudes. He subsequently saw the dethroned emperor pass through Tours, on his way to embark, as he intended, for America. Napoleon was attended only by a single servant, and descended at the Prefecture, unrecognized by any body, excepting Landor. The people of Tours were most hostile to Napoleon; Landor had always felt a hatred towards him, and now he had but to point one finger at him, and it would have done what all the Artillery of 20 years of war had failed to do. The people would have torn him to pieces. Need it be said that Landor was too "good a hater" and too noble a man, to avail himself of such an opportunity. He held his breath and let the hero pass. • Moxon's beautiful edition, in two volumes, royal octavo. No. XXI. POPE-DRYDEN-ADDISON-JOHNSON-CHURCHILL F.-Pope opens his second book of the Dunciad with a passage in which there is considerable variety in the cæsural pauses. Though his first line is from Milton, he seems, in the remaining lines, to have had the music of Dryden in his ear— High on a gorgeous seat,-that far outshone Mix in his look :-all eyes direct their rays On him, and crowds turn coxcombs as they gaze. Joseph Warton, in his edition of Pope, expresses a wish that his author had more frequently indulged in this sort of freedom of versification. I have a great partiality and respect for both the Wartons, but particularly for Thomas, who is much the best poet of the two. They were both of them, as critics on poetry, considerably in advance of their age. Thomas Warton's Essay on Pope, though much opposed on its first appearance, was not long after very generally acknowledged to present a correct view of the superiority of the natural over the artificial in poetry. And now this work, which was once unjustly censured as presumptious and paradoxical, is as unjustly neglected, as tame and common-place. I am so much pleased with an affectionate tribute to Thomas Warton, in the autobiography of Sir Egerton Brydges, that I am unable to resist the temptation to read it to you There are few characters on which I look with so much complacent in terest as Warton's. His temper was so sunshiny and benevolent; his manners were so simple; his erudition was so classical and various, his learning was so illuminated by fancy, his love of the country was so unaffected, his images are so picturesque; his knowledge of feudal and chivalrous manners was so minute, curious and lively, his absence of all worldly ambition and show was so attractive, his humour was so good-natured and innocent; his unaffected love of literature was so encouraging and exemplary, that I gaze upon his memory with untired satisfaction. Spence, I think, records D. This is a very true and beautiful summary of Warton's character. One of these days I should like to go over Warton's poetry again, for it is spirited and picturesque ;—but for the present let us return to the little Nightingale of Twickenham. One of Pope's letters (to Walsh) on the subject of versification, exhibits a maturity of judgment quite extraordinary, considering that when he wrote it he was not out of his teens. But Pope, as was said of Gray, was never a boy. that he was never known to laugh. Pope's after practice so little in accordance with his early theory. In the letter just mentioned, he observes, that, to preserve exact harmony and variety, the pause at the fourth and sixth syllable should never be continued above three lines together, as it would be apt to weary the ear with one continued tone-"at least it does mine," he adds. Who would have expected, after a criticism that might have graced the lips of Dryden, such see-saw verses as these? All are but parts-of one stupendous whole, That changed through all—and yet in all the same, Great in the earth-as in the etherial frame; Warms in the sun-refreshes in the breeze, Glows in the stars-and blossoms in the trees: Lives through all life-extends through all extent, Spreads undivided-operates unspent. It is easy to multiply illustrations of this defect. The fourth syllable is his favorite cæsural pause. He is partial also to the practise of commencing his iambic lines with a trochee, as in the four last lines just read, and it certainly gives spirit, variety and animation to the music, if not too frequently repeated -but Pope was apt to fall into the error of those writers so pleasantly ridiculed in Sheridan's Critic, who never think they can give enough of a good thing-" What! three morning guns!" Here are some very noble and energetic lines, but if the modulation had been a little more varied, they would have been more agreeable to the ear, What! arm'd for virtue-when I point the pen, It is said that the couplet which pleased Pope's ear most was Lo, where Mæotis sleeps, and hardly flows The freezing Tanais through a waste of snows. It is varied and flowing, but has nothing peculiarly delightful in it to my ear. Warton notices a couplet in Pope's Sappho to Phaon, which he says has been quoted as the most mellifluous in our language Ye gentle gales, beneath my body blow, And softly lay me on the waves below. Beneath my body blow is awkward and inelegant, nor are the alliterative bs at all agreeable. Indeed the lines are altogether very school-boyish. Compare them with some lines of Milton. He must not float upon his watery bier Here the alliterations are not unpleasing. Or, take another specimen Fountains, and ye that warble, as ye flow, Melodious murmurs, warbling tune his praise. F.-Though Pope in practise overlooked the charm of variety of modulation, notwithstanding his respect for the example of |