BOOKS.

WALTER SAVAGE LAND OR.* Tins book is a boon to, the lovers of classical English literature. We already owe to Mr. Colvin a work on Landor, the careful and appreciative criticism in which could. not have been. more fully vindicated than by the volume of selections he has now edited. The value of the work is enhanced by an admirable preface and copious notes. The chronological table appended to it indicates the dates of Landor's chief works, as well as of the prin.

* Selections from the Writings of Wolter Savage Landon Arranged and Edited by Sidney Colvin. London : gaeznillan, cipal chances of his life, and the corresponding dates of such con- temporary events as illustrate the literary history of our century. Within five years of his birth, Chatterton, Gray, and Goldsmith had died; during his middle-age, many great men of a later genera- tion passed away, including Byron, Shelley, and Keats. About twenty years before him, Southey and Coleridge, Campbell and Hood, left us; and fourteen years before him, Wordsworth followed them. Lander expired in 1864, at the age of eighty-nine. A volume published but the preceding year includes poems hardly inferior in energy to " Gebir," which was written when he was twenty- three. Everything had changed except Lander himself. Till within a few weeks of his death, he remained heart and head much what he had been when, then a youth of twenty, he wandered on the sea-coasts of Wales, a Republican, reserved and proud. The character of the man is well represented in his portrait. It is full of thought, but fuller yet of energy,—a militant face, in the strength and massiveness of which a portion of its refinement is merged, but not lost.

Mr. Colvin has arranged his Selections on an elaborate plan,

one that does not give the reader the largest possible number either of Landor'a "Imaginary Conversations," or of his best poems, but which supplements those included by shorter extracts illustrative of his opinions and his life. They are arranged in three classes. The first contains the specimens of Landor's imaginative and creative work, whether in prose or metre ; and in his writings, many of which are prose poems (a very different thing from "poetical prose "), this union is not a forced one. To many extracts, brief "arguments " are use- fully prefixed. The occasional obscurity of Landoes poems may be attributed in part to his neglect of those prefatory aids and connecting " hooks and eyes with which modern authors commonly make their meaning plain, but which the ancients declined to use. Such obscurity might be called acci- dental, and ia more than compensated by the diamond clearness of that air through which, except where the accident occurs,

the full meaning flashes on the reader. In the Latin version of " G-ebir," Lawlor prefixed " arguments " to the different books, and in future editions of that poem they ought to have their place in English.

The first of these selections is " Peleus and Thetis." It is in prose, but few metrical poems can surpass the harmony of its cadences:--

Thetis. 'How few ! alas, bow few ! I see him in the dust, in agony, in death : I see his blood on the flints, his yellow hair flap- ping in its current, his hand unable to remove it from his eyes. I hear his voice ; and it calls not upon me ! Mothers are soon for- gotten ! It is weakness to love the weak ! I could not save him ! He would have left the caverns of Ocean, and the groves and meadows of Elysium, though resounding with the songs of love and heroism, for a field of battle.'—Peleue. 'He my yet live many years. Troy bath been taken once already.'—Thelis. must perish ; and at Troy ; and now.'—Peleus. The now of the gods is more than life's duration : other gods and other worlds are formed within it. If, indeed, he must perish at Troy, his ashes will lie softly on hers.

Thus fall our beauteous son ! thus rest Achilles Thetis. Twice nine years have scarcely yet passed over his head ; twice nine have not yet rolled away since "0 the youth of zErnathia! 0 the swift, the golden-haired Pelona!" were the only words sounded in the halls of -Tethys. How many. shells were broken for their hoarseness! how many reproofs were heard by the Tritons for interrupting the slum- bers—of those who never slept I But they feigned sound sleep : and joy and kindness left the hearts of sisters. We loved too well for others to love us. Why do I remember the day ? Why do I remind thee of it ?—my Achilles dies! it was the day that gave me my Achilles! Dearer he was to me than the light of heaven, before he ever saw it : and bow much dearer now, when, bursting forth on earth like its first day-spring, all the loveliness of Nature stands back, and grows pale and faint before his.'—'Peleus. 0 thou art fallen ! thou art fallen through my embrace, when I thought on him more than on thee. Look up again ; look, and forgive me. No : thy for- giveness I deserve not—but did I deserve thy love ? Thy solitude, thy abasement, thy parental tears, and thy fall to the earth, are from me I Why doth aught of youth linger with me ? Why not come age and death ? The monster of Cs3ydon made (as thou knowest) his first and most violent rush against this arm • no longer fit for war, no longer a defence to the people. And is the day, too, come when it no longer can sustain my Thetis P'—Thetis. Pretend it not to the skies, invoke net, name not any Deity! I fear them all. Nay, lift me not thus above thy head, 0 Talents! reproaching the gods with such an awful look ; with a look of beauty which they will not pity, with a look of defiance which they may not brook.'—Peleus. Doth not my hand enclasp that slender foot, at which the waves of Ocean cease to be tumultuous, and the children of lEolus to disturb their peace ? 0, if in the celestial coolness of thy cheek, now resting on my head, there be not the breath and gift of immortality; 0, if Zeus hatlx any thunderbolt in reserve for me ; let this, my beloved Thetis, be the hour.'" Very -remarkable is the contrast between the tender pathos of this scene and the terrible passion, long subdued in part, at last

bursting fully forth, in the " Tiberius and Vipsania." Lander wrote several tragedies, but not in them, and in but few modern dramas, is such sustained passion to be found so harmonised by poetic power. Among the best of the remaining " Conversa- tions " are " Leofric and Godiva," " Essex and Spenser," " Roger Ascham and Lady Jane Grey." We give a fragment of the last :—

" Aechant. ' I see perils on perils which thou float not see, albeit thou art wiser than thy poor old master. And it is not because Love hath blinded thee, for that surpusseth his supposed omnipotence ; but it is because thy tender heart, having always leant affectionately upon good, bath felt and known nothing of evil. I once persuaded thee to reflect much : let me now persuade thee to avoid the habitude of re- flection, to lay aside books, and to gaze carefully and steadfastly on what is under and before thee.'—Jane. I have well bethought me of my duties : 0 bow extensive they are I what a goodly and fair in- heritance! But tell me, would you command me never more to read Cicero and Epiotetus, and Plutarch and Polybius ? The others I do resign : they are good for the arbour and for the gravel-walk : yet leave unto me, I do beseech you, my friend and father, leave unto me for my fireside and for my pillow, truth, eloquence, courage, con- stancy.'—Aseham. Read them on thy marriage-bed, on thy child- bed, on thy death-bed. Thou spotless, undrooping lily, they have fenced thee right well. These are the men for men : these are to. fashion the bright and blessed creatures whom God one day shall smile upon in thy chaste bosom. Mind thou thy husband.'—June. 'I sincerely love the youth who bath espoused rue; I love him with the fondest, the most solicitous affection ; I pray to the Almighty for his goodness and happiness, and do forget at times, unworthy snpplicant I the prayers I should have offered for myself. Never fear that I will disparage my kind religious teacher, by disobedience. to my husband in the most trying duties."—Aschon. Gentle is he, gentle and virtuoue : but time will harden him : time must harden even thee, sweet Jane ! Do thou, complacently and indirectly, lead him from ambition.'

The nine poetic selections include sonic of the best passages in " Gebir " and the " Hellenics." Here is a specimen, "The Death of Artemiclora ":—

" Artemidora ! Gods invisible,

While thou art lying faint along the couch, Have tied the sandal to thy veinkl feet, And stand beside thee, ready to convey Thy weary steps where other rivers flow. Refreshing shades will waft thy wearinese Away, and voices like thine own come nigh, Soliciting, nor vainly, thy embrace.' Artemidora sighed, and would have pressed The hand now pressing hers, but was too weak.

Iris stood over her dark hair unseen While thus Elpenor Rinke. He look'd into Eyes that had given light and life erewhile To those above them, those now dim with tears And watchfulness. Again he snake of joy Eternal. At that word, that sad word, joy, Faithful and fond her bosom heav'd once more, Her bead fell back ; and now a loud, deep sob Swell'd thro' the darken'd chamber; 'twas not hers."

The second section is the least satisfactory of the three. It begins with passages respecting religion, but Lander was neither theologian nor deep philosopher ; and such sayings as "Out of gratitude, purest gratitude, rose Idolatry," and "There is nothing on earth divine except humanity," can be praised neither for their depth, nor for their dramatic propriety. They are obviously among the sayings noted down from time to time, and for which a _place was afterwards found. Lawlor shows his limits on the rare occasions when he discusses divine subjects ; nor is he wholly up to the mark when he deals with Plato, or with some portions of Dante's poetry. Many of these extracts, however, well illustrate one of Lanclor's especial merits, viz., the greatness of his detached thoughts, and. the' majesty and perfection with which they are expressed. His excellence is sometimes more marked in sentences than in paragraphs, and, indeed, the care with which he elaborated them —for by him a sentence was modulated with all the fastidious care which a poet bestows on a stanza—not seldom deprived his style of one great merit, viz., continuity. In this respect, he is at a disadvantage when compared with that writer to whom, among moderns, the palm of style is justly awarded—Cardinal Newman. Many readers are acquainted with the Cardinal's.

wonderful description of music. On that subject Lander has also a striking passage :—

" Sometimes I have absorbed music so totally, that nothing was left of it in its own form : my ear detained none of the notes, none. of the melody : they went into the heart immediately, mingled with the spirit, and lost themselves among the operations of the fancy, whose finest and most recondite springs they pat simultaneously and, vigorously in motion."

The following remarks on history will not be acceptable to some of our recent historians ;—

"History, when she has lost her muse, will lose her dignity, her- occupation, her character, her name. She will wander about the Agora ; she will start, she will stop, she will look wild, she will look stupid, she will take languidly to her bosom doubts, queries, essays, dissertations, some of which ought to go before her, some to follow, and all to stand apart. The field of History should not merely be well tilled, but well peopled. None is delightful to me, or interesting, in which I find not as many illustrious names as have a right to enter it. We might as well in a drama place the actors behind the scenes, and listen to the dialogue there, as in a history push valiant men back, and protrude ourselves with husky disputations. Show me rather how great projects were executed, great advantages gained, and great calamities averted. Show me the generals and the states- men who stood foremost, that I may bend to them in reverence; tell me their names, that I may repeat them to my children. Teach me whence laws were introduced, upon what foundation laid, by what custody guarded, in what inner keep preserved. Let the books of the treasury lie closed as religiously as the Sibyl's ; leave weights and measures in the market-place, Commerce in the harbour, the Arts in the light they love, Philosophy in the shade place History on her rightful throne, and, at the sides of her, Eloquence and War.'

The third part of this volume is entitled. "Personal and Autobiographical." It consists chiefly of poems, in which, brief as they are, what Landor most valued in his long life is recorded with a touch as light as that of a falling leaf, though by a hand heavy when mailed for conflict, literary or political. The loveliest are those addressed to " Ianthe," his youthful love, and his friend in later years. We have room only for the dirge in which the love-songs end :—

"Mild is the parting year, and sweet The odour of the falling spray; Life passes on more rudely fleet, And balmless is its closing day.

I wait its close, I court its gloom, But mourn that there can never fall, Or on my breast or on my tomb, The tear that would have soothed it all."

In English letters, Landor occupies a position almost unique. He descends from no literary order, and belongs to no class. He was as Hellenic as if a soul intended for Athens in the days of Pericles had found its way to England by accident, crossing, one might fancy, that of honest, old Phocion, intended for England. Yet he had also much of the Roman about him, not of the Roman demagogue, but of some stately head of an ancient " stirps." The characteristics of both races are im- pressed on an imagination, subtle, refined, and various, and on an intellect severe and grave. It was said of Shaftesbury, author of the Characteristics, that his style suggested the thought that his coronet stood opposite to him as he wrote. Before Landor there ever stood, not a coronet, nor those historic worthies from whom he claimed a family descent, but men to whom he was bound by "spiritual affinity," the great ones who had walked beside the Ilyssus and the Tiber. He wrote to please them, for it was with them he was in sympathy ; not to please the many, with whom he had none. He was by instinct, no less than habit, an artist ; yet nature was more to him than art. He was severe in his judgment of books, severest where he most admired, for he deemed that the greater the work, the worthier it was of strict examination, and the better able to bear just criticism ; but to writers, especially the younger, he was in- dulgent and encouraging. Except Shelley, no one had such a vivid faculty of admiration, and he bestowed it heartily on genius the least like his own, such as that of Wordsworth and Southey, undeterred by prejudices, political or polemical. His all-enjoying temperament was no hindrance to his industry; the gravest books continued to the end to be his delight, and, unlike those writers who are for ever giving out, but never taking in, his mature life and his old age, like his ardent youth, worked on in a pas- sionate persistency of self-education. Yet, in the compass of Landor's large nature, as widely d'eveloped, but not as dis- ciplined, as his manifold intelligence, there was room for a full share of our mortal infirmities. With the intellectual merits lie had some of the ethical defects of the ancients. Storms of ungovernable anger, and a chronic waywardness, worked con- fusions in his life and frustrated no small part of it, though lie laughed his way through the brambles with which they beset his path. But for them, he might have built up that "orderly and solid work in history" which he long aspired to leave behind him, as "the great end of all his studies." As it is, his work, half done, may be described in his own enchanting lines :—

"The long moonbeam on the bard, wet sand, Lay like a jasper column half upreared."

If he had a noble, unselfish pride, that lifted him above the weak- nesses which often degrade the literary character, he had also an ignoble, personal pride, which too often prevented his genius from using its strength aright. It little becomes us, however, to sit in judgment upon those of whom we know little, except that they have been our benefactors. In his life he was neglected ; but this may have been a gain, not a loss to him ; for high genius, like high moral excellence, remains the fresher for the veil that hides it, and is by nothing more easily seduced from its highest aims, than by an adulation often but little less servile than that which fawns upon wealth or power. Landor had friends whose fidelity proves that he deserved to have them. Among the departed, of every renowned land also he had intimates and associates whose images are reflected in his chief work, the Imaginary Conversations, as in a mirror. Over that silent glass, there passes, in long procession, a pageant ampler still and more wonderful,—the characters of races, the transits of nations, the succession of social polities, the changes of litera- tures, the apparition of sequent philosophies from Epictetus to Montaigne, their growth and their evanescence. Such was, at least, the design of a work which only a great man could have conceived,—a Shakespearean design, the fittest per- haps for a late age too feeble to be in entire sympathy with Dramatic Action, yet versatile enough to take grate- ful account of its accumulated treasures, not through a criticism pretentious, acrid, or one-sided, but through a new and happy conjunction of dramatic thought with a philosophy full of the Humanities. A drama of the ages belongs to those designs which are too great to be more than partially carried into effect. But a great part of Landor's enterprise was accom- plished. A man who leaves behind him such a bequest as he has left, must be a man more desirous to confer benefits than rapacious for applause. If Landor did not find a contem- porary public, he did not need it ; but one day, a stronger hand than that of critic, friendly or hostile, a hand lifted up out of the darkness—to modify slightly a line of his,— " Will hold his steeds erect: and motionless As molten coursers o'er some palace gates ;" and those who pass beneath will find themselves in a palm raised out of the quarries of Pentelicus and Paros.