afterwards at Trinity College, Oxford, which he quitted without taking a degree. He then travelled for some time, and, after getting into difficulties connected with his estate, he raised, in 1808, at his own expense, a body of troops in aid of the Spanish patriots. After his marriage in 1811, he resided for many years abroad, but ultimately returned to England and settled at Bath. Of a rash and impulsive disposition, Mr. Landor was for ever "in hot water." He refused an allowance from his father of 4001. a-year rather than follow the law. Once in possession of his estate he became exasperated with his tenants, sold his possessions, and pulled down a handsome house he had built. The same unsettled disposition and love of litigation pervaded his literary career. An epigram which we remember to have once read, thus summed him up :

"In a freak of Dame Nature's, her malice to show it, She resolved to combine critic, pedant, and poet; And true to her word, we've that book-Salamander That was properly named at the font, Savage Landor!" In truth Landor was a mocker throughout, but he was a ripe scholar, and in classical knowledge he outstripped most of his contemporaries. His earliest poetical works were collected and republished in 1831. They consist of "Gebir," an epic poem (originally written in Latin), "Count Julian," a tragedy, and miscellaneous poems. The work in which his acquirements and genius were most displayed was his "Imaginary Conversations," published at intervals between 1824 and 1846, by which time they had numbered one hundred and twenty-five, and ranged over the history, poetry, and all subjects of all periods. It was in his nervous prose that Landor's greatest strength lay. Mr. Landor continued to write until he was turned eighty. In 1851 he contributed largely to the columns of the Examiner. In 1853 he issued a volume of essays, "Last Fruit off an Old Tree ;" and in 1858 another volume entitled "Dry Sticks." For some grossly indecent slanders on a lady in Bath, this poor old man who, with all his vast store of wit had not enough to control his own vindictive spirit, underwent the indignity of a trial for defamation, was amerced in damages to the amount of 1000l., and once more became an exile from his native land; dying abroad, with the regret of no one, for his friends who could and would have pitied him had not survived him, in 1864.]

WHO will away to Athens with me? Who

Loves choral songs and maidens crowned with flowers
Unenvious? Mount the pinnace; hoist the sail,
I promise ye, as many as are here,

Ye shall not, while ye tarry with me, taste

From unrinsed barrel the diluted wine

Of a low vineyard, or a plant ill-pruned,
But such as anciently the Ægean isles
Poured in libation at their solemn feasts;
And the same goblets shall ye grasp, embost
With no vile figures of loose languid boors,
But such as gods have lived with and have led.

The sea smiles bright before us. What white sail Plays yonder? What pursues it? Like two hawks Away they fly. Let us away in time

To overtake them. Are they menaces

We hear? And shall the strong repulse the weak,
Enraged at her defender? Hippias!

Art thou the man? 'Twas Hippias. He had found
His sister borne from the Cecropion port
By Thrasymedes. And reluctantly?
Ask, ask the maiden; I have no reply.

"Brother! O brother Hippias! Oh, if love,
If pity ever touched thy breast, forbear!
Strike not the brave, the gentle, the beloved,
My Thrasymedes, with his cloak alone
Protecting his own head and mine from harm."
"Didst thou not once before," cried Hippias,
Regardless of his sister, hoarse with wrath
At Thrasymedes, "didst thou not, dog-eyed,
Dare, as she walked up to the Parthenon
On the most holy of all holy days,
In sight of all the city, dare to kiss
Her maiden cheek?"

"Ay, before all the gods,

Ay, before Pallas, before Artemis,
Ay, before Aphrodite, before Herè,

I dared; and dare again. Arise, my spouse!
Arise! and let my lips quaff purity

From thy fair open brow."

The sword was up,

And yet he kissed her twice. Some god withheld

The arm of Hippias; his proud blood seethed slower And smote his breast less angrily; he laid

His hand on the white shoulder and spoke thus: "Ye must return with me.

A second time

Offended, will our sire Peisistratos

Pardon the affront? Thou shouldst have asked thyself That question ere the sail first flapt the mast.”

Already thou hast taken life from me;

Put up thy sword," said the sad youth, his eyes
Sparkling; but whether love or rage or grief
They sparkled with, the gods alone could see.
Peiræus they re-entered, and their ship
Drove up the little waves against the quay,
Whence was thrown out a rope from one above,
And Hippias caught it. From the virgin's waist
Her lover dropped his arm, and blushed to think
He had retained it there, in sight of rude
Irreverent men; he led her forth nor spake.
Hippias walked silent too, until they reached
The mansion of Peisistratos, her sire.
Serenely in his sternness did the prince
Look on them both awhile: they saw not him,
For both had cast their eyes upon the ground.
"Are these the pirates thou hast taken, son?"
Said he. Worse, father! worse than pirates they
Who thus abuse thy patience, thus abuse
Thy pardon, thus abuse the holy rites
Twice over."

66

"Well hast thou performed thy duty,"

Firmly and gravely said Peisistratos.

66

Nothing then, rash young man! could turn thy heart From Eunöe my daughter ?"

Shall ever turn it.

"Nothing, Sir,

I can die but once

And love but once. O Eunöe! farewell!"

"Nay, she shall see what thou canst bear for her."
"O father! Shut me in my chamber, shut me
In my poor mother's tomb, dead or alive,
But never let me see what he can bear;

I know how much that is when borne for me."

"Not yet: come on. And lag not thou behind,
Pirate of virgin and of princely hearts!
Before the people, and before the goddess,
Thou hadst evinced the madness of thy passion,
And now wouldst bear from home and plenteousness
To poverty and exile, this my child."
Then shuddered Thrasymedes, and exclaimed,
"I see my crime; I saw it not before.
The daughter of Peisistratos was born
Neither for exile nor for poverty,

Ah! nor for me!" He would have wept, but one
Might see him, and weep worse.

The prince unmoved
Strode on, and said, "To-morrow shall the people
All who beheld thy trespasses behold

The justice of Peisistratos, the love

He bears his daughter, and the reverence

In which he holds the highest law of God."

He spake; and on the morrow they were one.

THE STOUT GENTLEMAN.

WASHINGTON IRVING.

It was a rainy Sunday, in the gloomy month of November. I had been detained, in the course of a journey, by a slight indisposition, from which I was recovering; but I was still feverish, and was obliged to keep within doors all day, in an inn of the small town of Derby. A wet Sunday in a country inn! whoever has had the luck to experience one, can alone judge of my situation. The rain pattered against the casements; the bells tolled for church with a melancholy sound. I went to the windows in quest of something to amuse the eye; but it seemed as if I had been placed completely out of the reach of all amusement. The windows of my bedroom looked out among tiled roofs and stacks of chimneys, while those of my sitting-room commanded a full view of the stable-yard. I know of nothing more cal

culated to make a man sick of this world than a stableyard on a rainy day. The place was littered with wet straw that had been kicked about by travellers and stable-boys. In one corner was a stagnant pool of water, surrounding an island of muck; there were several half-drowned fowls crowded together under a cart, among which was a miserable, crest-fallen cock, drenched out of all life and spirit; his drooping tail matted, as it were, into a single feather, along which the water trickled from his back; near the cart was a half-dozing cow, chewing the cud, and standing patiently to be rained on, with wreaths of vapour rising from her reeking hide; a wall-eyed horse, tired of the loneliness of the stable, was poking his spectral head out of a window, with the rain dripping on it from the eaves; an unhappy cur, chained to a dog-house hard by, uttered something every now and then between a bark and a yelp; a drab of a kitchen wench tramped backwards and forwards through the yard in pattens, looking as sulky as the weather itself; everything in short, was comfortless and forlorn, excepting a crew of hard-drinking ducks, assembled like boon companions round a puddle, and making a riotous noise over their liquor.

I was lonely and listless, and wanted amusement. My room soon became insupportable. I abandoned it, and sought what is technically called the travellers'room. This is a public room set apart at most inns for the accommodation of a class of wayfarers called travellers or riders; a kind of commercial knights errant, who are incessantly scouring the kingdom in gigs, on horseback, or by coach. They are the only successors that I know of at the present day, to the knights errant of yore. They lead the same kind of roving adventurous life, only changing the lance for a driving whip, the buckler for a pattern-card, and a coat of mail for an upper Benjamin. Instead of vindicating the charms of peerless beauty, they rove about spreading the fame and standing of some substantial tradesman or manufacturer, and are ready at any time