Walter Savage Landor

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“NARRATIVE HISTORY” AMOUNTS TO FABULATION, THE REAL STUFF BEING MERE CHRONOLOGY

“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project Walter Savage Landor HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1775

January 30, Monday: The Reverend Asa Dunbar recorded in his journal: “Very much unstrung with taking phisic [sic].”

Walter Savage Landor was born at Eastgate House at almost the top of Smith Street, next to the eastward town gate of Warwick, England as the eldest son of a physician, Dr Walter Landor, with his 2d wife, Elizabeth Savage Landor (his birth home is now The King’s High School For Girls).

His father inherited estates at Rugeley in Staffordshire and his mother estates at Ipsley Court and Tachbrook in Warwickshire. The family tradition was Whig, in reaction to King George III and Prime Minister William Pitt. After attending a school at Knowle Walter would be sent to Rugby School, HDT WHAT? INDEX

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but there he would take offence at Dr. James’s review of his work and be removed at this headmaster’s request (in later life the two would reconcile). Walter’s temperament and violent opinions would create such embarrassment that when guests were expected the family would usually ask him to make himself scarce. Finally he would study privately with the Reverend William Langley, vicar of Fenny Bentley and headmaster of Ashbourne Grammar School. In his youth there would be an incident in which a local farmer objected to his trespass — for this he caught the farmer in a net and threw him into the river. He was such a man as to create trouble wherever he went, throughout his life — and yet he would become dear to a great many people.

NOBODY COULD GUESS WHAT WOULD HAPPEN NEXT

Walter Savage Landor “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1793

Walter Savage Landor entered Trinity College of Oxford University and immediately displayed rebelliousness in his informal dress. He was so taken with the ideals of French republicanism that he would become notorious as a “mad Jacobin.” He impressed his tutor Dr Benwell but unfortunately his education at this school, like his previous experience at Rugby School, would be brief.

TRINITY COLLEGE

NO-ONE’S LIFE IS EVER NOT DRIVEN PRIMARILY BY HAPPENSTANCE

“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project Walter Savage Landor HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1794

Walter Savage Landor fired his shotgun at the windows of a Tory for whom he had formed an aversion, whose evening revels disturbed his studies. Rusticated from Trinity College, when the authorities became willing to allow him to return to his studies at Oxford, he would refuse. Quarreling with his father, young Walter expressed an intention to leave home for ever. At Tenby in Wales he would have a love affair with one Nancy Evans and write for her some of his earliest love poems. He would also get this young lady pregnant. When his father disapproved of this match, Walter would remove for a time to lodgings near Portland Place in London. The infant would die.

William Blake reprinted his illuminated 1789 collection of 19 poems, adding 26 new poems, as SONGS OF INNOCENCE AND OF EXPERIENCE SHOWING THE TWO CONTRARY STATES OF THE HUMAN SOUL: • Earth’s Answer • The Clod and the Pebble • Holy Thursday • The Little Girl Lost • The Little Girl Found • The Chimney Sweeper •Nurse’s Song •The Sick Rose • The Fly • The Angel • The Tyger • My Pretty Rose Tree • Ah! Sunflower •The Lily • The Garden of Love • The Little Vagabond • London • The Human Abstract •Infant Sorrow • A Poison Tree • A Little Boy Lost • A Little Girl Lost • To Tirzah • The Schoolboy • The Voice of the Ancient Bard WILLIAM BLAKE HDT WHAT? INDEX

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(This collection of poems would be presented by Miss Elizabeth Palmer Peabody to Waldo Emerson in 1842, and Emerson’s copy inscribed “R.W. Emerson from his friend E.P.P.” has notes throughout made by Emerson. We do not have evidence, however, that Henry Thoreau ever sighted this volume in Emerson’s study, nor do we have evidence that Emerson made these notes while Thoreau was alive. It is generally recognized that Blake had no particular influence on either side of the Atlantic prior to the latter part of the 19th Century. In particular we do not have evidence that Thoreau became aware of the poem “A Poison Tree.” This is of relevance because, in 2012 in LITERARY PARTNERSHIPS AND THE MARKETPLACE: WRITERS AND MENTORS IN NINETEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA (Louisiana State UP), David Oakley Dowling of the University of Iowa –still an assistant professor almost two decades after his PhD– would announce

on his page 135 that he had discovered, in Emerson’s protege Thoreau’s journal for May 1849, that Thoreau had developed an animosity toward his mentor that he expressed in the imagery and style of that poem: I was angry with my friend: I told my wrath, my wrath did end. I was angry with my foe: I told it not, my wrath did grow. The wording of Thoreau’s journal in late May 1849 reveals his animosity toward his patron, whom he felt supported the book’s strengths early on only to point out its flaws after it was too late. “No one appreciates our virtue like our friend, yet methinks that I do not receive from my friend that criticism which is most valuable & indispensable to me until he is estranged from [me] — & then the harmless truth will be shot with a poisoned arrow[,] will have a poisoned barb,” he wrote. “Poisoned barb” apparently called to mind William Blake’s “A Poison Tree” for Thoreau, as the next few lines echo the 1794 poem’s simple declarative statements of parallel repetition accounting for the source of poison in their relationship. Blake’s lines also paradoxically straddle tones of open, unself- conscious direct confession and venomous “wrath,” relating to the events of profoundly complex emotional significance in spare, childlike language. Thoreau takes his keynote and structure from Blake’s lines — “I was angry with my friend: / I told my wrath, my wrath did end. / I was angry with my foe: / I told it not, my wrath did grow” — to express the trauma of HDT WHAT? INDEX

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Emerson’s vacillating attitude toward A WEEK. “I had a friend, I wrote a book, I asked my friend’s criticism, I never got but praise for what was good in it — my friend became estranged from me,” he wrote, concluding his litany of frustration by ironically casting himself as the poisoned “foe outstretched beneath the tree” at the close of Blake’s poem, with Emerson’s ill-timed criticism, of course, providing the poison: “and then I got blame for all that was bad, — & so I got at last the criticism I wanted.” It took four years for Thoreau to rid himself of the $300 debt incurred from the publication of A WEEK, and much longer to rid himself of his wrath for Emerson. His journal reflects a tortured soul, obsessing over the loss of his closest friend and greatest literary model. (page 135).

It is generally presumed among Emerson scholars that, in Thoreau’s journal of May 1849, in all probability the reference is to Emerson since Emerson was so very important and since Emerson saw Thoreau “not only as his disciple but also as his professional apprentice” and since Emerson “fathered Thoreau’s career” — what is not immediately clear is that there is any resemblance whatever in imagery or style between this Blake poem and the indicated Thoreau snippet. Assistant Professor Dowling appears to be just making stuff up out of whole cloth, the way he makes up pseudo-history such as “Thoreau stayed at Emerson’s house most evenings while he purportedly was sleeping in his self-made cabin at Walden Pond.” Thoreau is not referring at this point in his journal to the fruit of a poisoned tree but to a poisoned arrow/barb, nor is Thoreau considering whether to inform or not inform whatever person it was with whom he had been having this difficulty:

After September 11: Wherever we sat there we might live –what is a house but a sedes a seat –a country seat –& the landscape radiated from us accordingly.– We discovered may a site for a house –which some might have thought too far from the village –not likely soon to be improved. but to our eyes the village might have seemed to far from it. and instantly it became the centre of the world where would not be heard a rumor of the world. We never have the benefit of our friend’s criticism, and none is so severe & searching –until he is estranged from us. No one appreciates our virtues like our friend, yet methinks that I do not receive from my friend that criticism which is most valuable & indispensable to me until he is estranged from me. He who knows best what we are, knows what we are not. He will never tell me the fatal truth which it concerns me most to know until he is estranged from –& then the harmless truth will be shot with a poisoned arrow will have a poisoned barb. When we are such friends & have such for our friends that our love is not a partiality, that truth is not crowded out or postponed – or delayed there will be Friendship. Now first we are dealt with absolutely– This truth without that poison & we were friends still & indeed. The fruit of partiality is enmity I had a friend, I wrote a book, I asked my friend’s criticism, I never got but praise for what was good in it – my friend became estranged from me and then I got blame for all that was bad, –& so I got at last the criticism which I wanted. While my friend was my friend he flattered me, and I never heard the truth from him, but when he became my enemy he shot it to me on a poisoned arrow There is as much hatred as love in the world. Hate is a good critic. When two can treat each other with absolute truth, then there will be but those two in the world. Then men will no longer be divided but be one as God is. If friendship is but a sweetmeat, I ... {six pages missing} HDT WHAT? INDEX

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Other presumptuous remarks by Assistant Professor Dowling include describing Thoreau’s literary career as “wayward” and as “rocky,” plus the entirely unsupported animadversion “Thoreau stayed at Emerson’s house most evenings while he purportedly was sleeping in his self-made cabin at Walden Pond”: Thoreau gravitated toward the Concord transcendentalist literary circle out of a desire to forge a career from his artistic vision. The established circle that published THE DIAL included influential and powerful figures in the literary world such as Emerson and Margaret Fuller, who represented connections vital to the success of a fledgling writer like Thoreau. Fuller and Emerson were not replacements for the traditional patrician patron of the arts in the way they supported Thoreau. Instead of wealthy, leisure-class genteel amateurs, Fuller and Emerson were literary professionals themselves. Their aid to the young Thoreau was not by means of large financial donations. They were instead exemplars of how to attain success in the field, providers of solid personal references, and mentors of the craft. Simply because Thoreau stayed at Emerson’s house most evenings while he purportedly was sleeping in his self-made cabin at Walden Pond does not make him the recipient of eighteenth-century-style patronage. It does, however, make him the recipient of a new style of patronage that would guide his ventures into the Philadelphia and New York markets, albeit unsuccessfully, to try to find work as a writer (pages 3-4).

(Assistant Professor Dowling describes Thoreau as “desperate” and speaks of Thoreau’s “venom.” He characterizes Chapter 1 of WALDEN as merely “another agrarian jeremiad lamenting capitalist corruption.”)

LIFE IS LIVED FORWARD BUT UNDERSTOOD BACKWARD? — NO, THAT’S GIVING TOO MUCH TO THE HISTORIAN’S STORIES. LIFE ISN’T TO BE UNDERSTOOD EITHER FORWARD OR BACKWARD.

“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project Walter Savage Landor HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1795

A small volume of English and Latin verse appeared, THE POEMS OF WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR (London: Cadell and Davies). The author also made an anonymous attack on William Pitt, the Parliamentary leader for King George III, for trying to suppress liberal influences, in a pamphlet of 19 pages A MORAL EPISTLE; RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED TO EARLY STANHOPE (London: Cadell and Davies).1

The Right Honourable William Pitt the Younger

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“Poems from the Arabic & Persian” 1800 pretending to be translations. “A Satire upon Satirists, and Admonition to Detractors” printed 1836 not published Letters called “High & Low Life in Italy” “Imaginary Conversations” “Pentameron & Pentalogia” “Examination of William Shakspeare before Sir Thomas Lucy, Knt., touching Deer-stealing.” {One-fourth page blank} Vide again Richard’s sail in “Rich. 1st & the Abbot” Phocion’s remarks in conclusion of “Eschines & Phocion” “Demosthenes & Eubulides” In Milton & Marvel speaking of the Greek poets –he says “There is a sort of refreshing odor flying off it perpetually; not enough to oppress or to satiate; nothing is beaten or bruized; nothing smells of the stalk; the flower itself is half-concealed by the Genius of it hovering round.” Pericles & Sophocles Marcus Tullius Cicero & his Brother Quinctus in this a sentence on Sleep and Death. Johnson & Tooke for a criticism on words. {Three-fifths page blank} ...

Through the efforts of Dorothea Lyttelton, the young author would reconcile with his family (he would later indicate to his biographer John Forster that he and Dorothea would have married had he been financially independent). His father agreed to provide him with £150 a year, setting him free to live as he liked and come home as he pleased. He settled in South Wales, returning to Warwick for short visits. At Swansea he became friendly with the family of Lord Aylmer, and Rose, whom he would write of in the poem “Rose Aylmer,” lent him THE PROGRESS OF ROMANCE by Clara Reeve. This contained a story “The History of Charoba, Queen of Egypt” which would inspire his GEBIR (in 1798 Rose Aylmer would sail with an aunt to India, and there soon succumb to cholera).

THE FUTURE IS MOST READILY PREDICTED IN RETROSPECT

“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project Walter Savage Landor HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1798

Walter Savage Landor’s GEBIR, A POEM IN SEVEN BOOKS (London: Rivingtons), in which a prince of southwestern Spain2 falls in love with Queen Charoba of Egypt, his enemy.

After December 23, 1845: ... {One-fourth page blank} Landor’s works are WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR 1st A small volume of poems 1793 out of print next Poems of “Gebir” “Chrysaor”, the “Phocaeans” &c The “Gebir” eulogized by Southey & Coleridge Wrote verses in Italian & Latin. The dramas “Andrea of Hungary” “Giovanna of Naples” and “Fra Rupert.” “Pericles & Aspasia” “Poems from the Arabic & Persian” 1800 pretending to be translations. “A Satire upon Satirists, and Admonition to Detractors” printed 1836 not published Letters called “High & Low Life in Italy” “Imaginary Conversations” “Pentameron & Pentalogia” “Examination of William Shakspeare before Sir Thomas Lucy, Knt., touching Deer-stealing.” {One-fourth page blank} Vide again Richard’s sail in “Rich. 1st & the Abbot” Phocion’s remarks in conclusion of “Eschines & Phocion” “Demosthenes & Eubulides” In Milton & Marvel speaking of the Greek poets –he says “There is a sort of refreshing odor flying off it perpetually; not enough to oppress or to satiate; nothing is beaten or bruized; nothing smells of the stalk; the flower itself is half-concealed by the Genius of it hovering round.” Pericles & Sophocles Marcus Tullius Cicero & his Brother Quinctus in this a sentence on Sleep and Death. Johnson & Tooke for a criticism on words. {Three-fifths page blank} ...

2. The Rock of Gibraltar derives its name from the eponymous Gebir, prince of that Boetic region of the Iberian peninsula. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1799

For some three years Walter Savage Landor would be leading an unsettled life, centered in London. He became friends with the classics scholar Dr. Samuel Parr, who lived at Hatton near Warwick and who appreciated his ability to write well in Latin. Materials written in Latin had the advantage of being, at least in England, exempt from libel laws, and Walter found it convenient to conceal his playful material from public view: “Siquid forte iocosius cuivis in mentem veniat, id, vernacule, puderet, non enim tantummodo in luce agitur sed etiam in publico.” Robert Adair, party organizer for Charles James Fox, enlisted Walter to write for The Morning Post and The Courier in opposition to the ministry of William Pitt.

The Right Honourable William Pitt the Younger HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1800

Walter Savage Landor’s POEMS FROM THE ARABIC AND PERSIAN, WITH NOTES, BY THE AUTHOR OF ‘GEBIR.’ (Warwick: printed by H. Sharpe, High Street, and sold by Messrs. Rivingtons, St. Paul’s Churchyard, London). He also produced a pamphlet made up of Latin verses, and POETRY, BY THE AUTHOR OF ‘GEBIR,’ AND A POSTSCRIPT TO THAT POEM, WITH REMARKS ON SOME CRITICS (Warwick: Sharpe, Printer), although his new friend Isaac Mocatta would persuade him to suppress that volume (Isaac, a moderating influence, would die during the following year).

THE FUTURE CAN BE EASILY PREDICTED IN RETROSPECT

“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project Walter Savage Landor HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1802

Napoléon Bonaparte revoked the emancipation decree act of 1794 and reintroduced slavery to French colonies and sent an army to put down the rebellion in Haiti (Saint Domingue).

“The grandeur of a country is to assume all its history. With its glorious pages but also its more shady parts.” — President Jacques Chirac of France

SLAVEHOLDING

Walter Savage Landor went to Paris, where observing Bonaparte at close quarters was enough to cure him of his idealism in regard to French republicanism. His POETRY, BY THE AUTHOR OF ‘GEBIR’ (London: Rivingtons) included the narrative poems “The Story of Chrysaor” and “From the Phocæans.”

DO I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION? GOOD.

Walter Savage Landor “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1803

Walter Savage Landor’s younger brother Robert Landor helped with corrections and additions to GEBIR, APOEM IN SEVEN BOOKS, and a 2d edition appeared (London: Rivingtons). About the same time he republished the entire poem in Latin (anyway, large portions of it had been composed originally in Latin and then recomposed in English) as GEBIRIUS; POEMA. SCRIPSIT SAVAGIUS LANDOR (Oxford: Slatter and Munday). During this period the poet was traveling through England in constant debt, spending much of the year at Bath. At Bath he met Sophia Jane Swift and courted her ardently, despite the unpleasant detail that she was already engaged to her cousin Godwin Swifte (whom she would indeed marry).

CHANGE IS ETERNITY, STASIS A FIGMENT

Walter Savage Landor “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1805

Walter Savage Landor’s father died, which put him at the age of 30 in possession of an independent fortune, and he settled in Bath, determined to live in the grand style:

WHAT I’M WRITING IS TRUE BUT NEVER MIND YOU CAN ALWAYS LIE TO YOURSELF

Walter Savage Landor “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1806

Walter Savage Landor’s SIMONIDEA (Bath: Meyler; and London: Robinson) included poems to Ianthe and Ione. It also included “Gunlaug and Helga,” a narrative poem from the Reverend William Herbert, Dean of Manchester’s SELECT ICELANDIC POETRY, TRANSLATED FROM THE ORIGINALS; WITH NOTES (London: Printed for T. Reynolds, Oxford-Street; by I. Gold, Shoe Lane, 1804). HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1808

Robert Southey’s THE CHRONICLE OF THE CID.

Ebenezer Elliott wrote to Southey for advice on how to get published and Southey responded (they would correspond until 1824, and in 1823 they would meet each other in person).

At Bristol, England Walter Savage Landor caught up with Southey, whom he had missed on a trip to the Lake District in the previous year. He also wrote a work “The Dun Cow” which was written in defence of his friend Dr. Samuel Parr who had been attacked in an anonymous work “Guy’s Porridge Pot,” which Landor was fierce to deny was any work of his. Landor felt impelled to participate in the Peninsular War. At the age of 33 he left England for Spain as a volunteer, to serve in the national army against Napoléon Bonaparte. He landed at Corunna, introduced himself to the British envoy, offered 10,000 reals for the relief of Venturada, and set out to join the army of General Joaquín Blake y Joyes. However, in this he would be disappointed, for he would not be permitted to take part in any real action and found himself assigned to mere support roles, and then at Bilbao he almost got captured. A couple of months later when the Convention of Sintra brought an end to the campaign, Landor returned to England. The Spanish Government offered him its gratitude, and King Ferdinand awarded him the credentials of a Colonel in the Spanish Army. However, the King of England would restore the Jesuit Order and Landor would on account of this return his commission. Returning to England, he joined Wordsworth and Southey in denouncing this Convention of Sintra. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1809

Walter Savage Landor’s THREE LETTERS, WRITTEN IN SPAIN, TO D. FRANCISCO RIGUELME, COMMANDING THE 3RD DIVISION OF THE GALLICIAN ARMY (London: Printed for G. Robinson and J. Harding), offering this Spanish general the benefit of his wisdom. He wrote an ode in Latin to Gustavus IV of Sweden, AD GUSTAVEM REGEM, and wrote to the press using various pseudonyms. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1810

Walter Savage Landor wrote “a brave and good letter to Sir Francis Burdett.” HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1811

At a ball in Bath, Walter Savage Landor observed a pretty girl and exclaimed “That’s the nicest girl in the room and I’ll marry her” — this was Julia Thuillier, daughter of an impoverished Swiss banker who had an unsuccessful business at Banbury and had left his family at Bath and gone to Spain.

May 24, Friday: At St James Church in Bath, England Walter Savage Landor got married with Julia Thuillier. The newlyweds would settle for awhile at Llanthony Priory in Monmouthshire, a ruined Benedictine abbey. Landor would be visited there by Robert Southey, after he sent him a letter describing the idylls of their country life, including nightingales and glow-worms. This idyll would not last, for during the following three years Landor would be vexed by his neighbors and tenants, the local lawyers and lords-lieutenant, and the Bishop of St David’s. Landor’s troubles with his neighbors would stem from petty squabbles, many of his own creation. His trees were uprooted and his timber stolen, much of this in retaliation. He made the mistake of employing Charles Gabell as his solicitor — a fee professional who proceeded to milk him like a cow. A man against whom he had been forced to “swear the peace” would proceed to drink himself to death, and he would be accused of causing this man’s intemperance. Prosecuting a man for stealing from him, he found himself being insulted in court by the guy’s counsel.

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 6th day 24 of 5 Mo// The mind in a low condition, - I want to be low & humble & withall be good, innocent & clean in all things, but Oh that I may keep my confidence in God, & not let in unproffitable discouragements ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1812

Walter Savage Landor’s COUNT JULIAN: A TRAGEDY based on Julian, count of Ceuta. Robert Southey undertook to arrange publication and after an initial refusal by Longman’s obtained publication in London by Murray. Also, Landor’s COMMENTARY ON MEMOIRS OF MR. FOX (London: Murray). Before embarking for Spain Landor had been looking for a property, and had settled on Llanthony Priory in Monmouthshire, a ruined Benedictine abbey. He offered for sale the property he had inherited from his father at Rugeley, and persuaded his mother to sell her Tachbrook estate to complete the purchase cost. On his return from Spain he had made himself busy finalizing these matters. The previous owner of the abbey parcel had erected some buildings among the ruins, and an Act the Parliament had passed in 1809 enabled Landor to pull down those structures and begin to construct a house (which he would never complete). He wanted to make of himself a model country gentleman — planting trees, importing sheep from Spain, improving the roads, that sort of thing. But this was not to be. Eventually he would have no alternative but to abandon the property to his creditors (primarily, fortunately, to his mother). HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1813

December 19, Sunday morning: Captain Nathaniel Leonard arrived at the gate of Fort Niagara only to be surprised to encounter there British sentries rather than American ones (only his being a prisoner of war in Canada would prevent a courts martial). The British sallied out of the fort, torched the village of Youngstown, New York, and continued up the River Road to drive away an American detachment at Lewiston, New York and torch that village as well (by the end of the year the British troops would have also put Manchester, Schlosser, Black Rock, and Buffalo to the torch).

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 1st day 19 of 12 M / I staid from meeting this forenoon to give my H an opportunity of going - In the Afternoon I went but had a rather a dry meeting - however It has been a day of no small favor - life has been near & my mind has been expanded in a manner a little uncommon on the subject of War as being inconsistent with the pure spirit of Christianity RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1814

General Joachim Murat deserted the Emperor Napoléon I and joined the Allies. Allied armies defeated the French and entered Paris on March 30th. Napoleon abdicated and was banished to Elba. Louis XVIII entered Paris and took up the throne. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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With Napoleon Bonaparte’s abdication, France was opened once again to the importation of cane sugar SWEETS from abroad and its domestic beet sugar, produced, of necessity, without the use of slave labor, became, of WITHOUT necessity, noncompetitively expensive. SLAVERY Walter Savage Landor and his wife had gone to the Isle of Jersey in the English Channel off the coast of France, but there they quarreled and when he set off for the mainland he was on his own. Eventually she would rejoin him, at Tours, as would his younger brother Robert Landor. At Tours they met up with Francis George Hare of Herstmonceux, East Sussex, and Gresford, Flintshire, Wales. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1815

Walter Savage Landor’s IDYLLIA NOVA QUINQUE HEROUM ATQUE HERODIUM (Oxford).

September: Walter Savage Landor had quickly become dissatisfied with Tours, and after a conflict with his landlady his party set off for Italy. The married couple would finally settled at Como, where they would remain for three years. Even at Como Landor would have a problem, for at the time Caroline of Brunswick, lawful wife of the Prince Regent of England, was in residence — Landor would fall under suspicion of acting as an agent of her husband, dispatched to observe her conduct during their divorce proceedings.

An anonymous fake biography of Napoléon Bonaparte appeared:

AMOURS SECRETTES DE HDT WHAT? INDEX

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NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE When Nappy, on Isle Sainte Hélène one evening in the winter of 1817, would glance through this book,

he would be heartily amused. He would comment that actually he had sexually “known” none of the women mentioned: They make a Hercules of me! HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1818

Walter Savage Landor fell afoul of the libel laws of Italy, which he had not realized to be somewhat different from the libel laws of England. Thinking it to be as safe in Italy as in England, he wrote a Latin poem that contained an insult to the authorities. When it was pointed out to him that although this sort of thing might be OK in England, it was definitely not OK in Italy, he would respond by threatening to beat up the regio delegato — and would be ordered out of the area.

The affair makes you want to praise the Italian authorities for their restraint. They could have locked him up and thrown away the key. However, the case of Amanda Knox this was not.

March 5, Thursday: Franz Schubert applied for membership as an accompanist in the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde. He would be rejected because he was not an amateur.

Mosè in Egitto, an azione tragico-sacra by Gioachino Rossini to words of Tottola after Ringhieri, was performed for the initial time, in Teatro San Carlo, Naples. It was an immediate success.

Julia Thuillier Savage Landor gave birth to an infant that would be christened Arnold Savage Landor in honor of one of the earliest speakers in the House of Commons, Sir Arnold Savage (actually, they had no idea whether this famous personage had or had not been one of their family’s ancestors).

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 5th day 5 of 3rd M / Our friend Daniel Quinby was at Meeting & appeard in a short but sound & powerful testimony - his opening was from Nehemiah 2 Chapt 17 verse “ye see the distress that we are in, how Jerusalem lieth waste, & the gates thereof are burned with fire: come let us build up the Walls of Jerusalem that we be no more a reproach” he very forcibly impressed the necessity of our living up to our profession & rebuilding the walls & waste places of Zion, & that we steadily persue the purpose, notwithstaning the Sanballats & Tobiahs that might arise & dispise the work as a vain thing & too much to be attempted - he labord to streangthen the feeble laborers & to warn the rebelious among us & concluded in a living powerful Prayer which reached the hearts of some present. —

September: Walter Savage Landor went to Genoa and Pisa. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1820

Walter Savage Landor’s IDYLLIA HEROICA DECEM. PARTIM JAM PRIMO PARTIM ITERUM ATQUE TERTIO EDIT SAVAGIUS LANDOR (Pisa). HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1821

Walter Savage Landor’s POCHE OSSERVAZIONI, ETC., DI WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR (Naples). He settled his family in apartments in the Medici Palace in Florence.

March: Julia Thuillier Savage Landor gave birth to a female infant that would be christened as Julia.

Austrian troops crushed the Neapolitan republic and restored the hegemony of the Bourbons throughout Italy. NAPLES HDT WHAT? INDEX

WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR

1822

November 13, Wednesday: Julia Thuillier Savage Landor gave birth to an infant that would be christened, after its father, Walter Savage Landor.

In Greece, Nafplion fell to the forces of the rebellion.

In France, the Congregation of St. Basil (Basilian Fathers) was founded. HDT WHAT? INDEX

WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR

1823

A new Pope, named Leo XII (previously known as Annibale Francesco Clemente Melchiore Girolamo Nicola Sermattei della Genga of La Genga).

After two years in apartments in the Medici Palace in Florence, Walter Savage Landor settled with his wife and children at the Villa Castiglione. It was at this time that Lady Blessington and her husband were living at Florence, and they became firm friends. HDT WHAT? INDEX

WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR

1824

Leopold II was made Grand Duke of Tuscany (until 1859).

The 1st and 2d volumes of Walter Savage Landor’s IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS OF LITERARY MEN AND STATESMEN (London: Taylor and Hessey).

IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS

WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR

The “Gebir” eulogized by Southey & Coleridge Wrote verses in Italian & Latin. The dramas “Andrea of Hungary” “Giovanna of Naples” and “Fra Rupert.” “Pericles & Aspasia” “Poems from the Arabic & Persian” 1800 pretending to be translations. “A Satire upon Satirists, and Admonition to Detractors” printed 1836 not published Letters called “High & Low Life in Italy” “Imaginary Conversations” “Pentameron & Pentalogia” “Examination of William Shakspeare before Sir Thomas Lucy, Knt., touching Deer-stealing.” {One-fourth page blank} Vide again Richard’s sail in “Rich. 1st & the Abbot” Phocion’s remarks in conclusion of “Eschines & Phocion” “Demosthenes & Eubulides” In Milton & Marvel speaking of the Greek poets –he says “There is a sort of refreshing odor flying off it perpetually; not enough to oppress or to satiate; nothing is beaten or bruized; nothing smells of the stalk; the flower itself is half-concealed by the Genius of it hovering round.” Pericles & Sophocles Marcus Tullius Cicero & his Brother Quinctus in this a sentence on Sleep and Death. Johnson & Tooke for a criticism on words. {Three-fifths page blank} ... HDT WHAT? INDEX

WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR

1825

August 5, Friday: Julia Thuillier Savage Landor gave birth prematurely to an infant that would be christened Charles, after a grandfather. HDT WHAT? INDEX

WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR

1826

A 2d edition, corrected and enlarged, of the initial two volumes of Walter Savage Landor’s IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS OF LITERARY MEN AND STATESMEN, ETC. (London: Colburn). HDT WHAT? INDEX

WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR

1828

The wealthy sculptor Horatio Greenough went to Italy again, this time (almost) for good.

A 3rd volume of Walter Savage Landor’s IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS OF LITERARY MEN AND STATESMEN, ETC. (London: Colburn). HDT WHAT? INDEX

WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR

1829

A new Pope, named Pius VIII (he had been Francesco Saverio Castiglioni of Cingoli in Marche).

The 4th and 5th volumes of Walter Savage Landor’s IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS OF LITERARY MEN AND STATESMEN, ETC. (London: Duncan). Some silver was stolen from his home, and this led him into a struggle with the police of Florence. Their interviews with local tradesmen led to his being classified as “dangerous” and he was banished from the city. With a loan from Joseph Ablett of Llanbedr Hall, Denbighshire, he purchased the Villa Gherardesca at Fiesole, but almost immediately he would become involved in a lawsuit with a neighbor there, over water rights. Landor was visited by William Hazlitt and James Henry Leigh Hunt, and was on intimate terms with Charles Armitage Brown. He became acquainted with Edward John Trelawny, whom he would include in the 4th volume of his IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS.

October: Walter Savage Landor’s mother died and his cousin Walter Landor of Rugeley took over the management of the family estate in Wales. Walter would for the next few years be happy at Villa Gherardesca in Fiesole, writing books, playing with his children, planting his gardens, listening to his nightingales. He would have visitors such as Henry Crabb Robinson, but most notably in this year he was visited by Sophia Jane Swift (his “Ianthe”) —who had become a widow. HDT WHAT? INDEX

WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR

1830

At Villa Gherardesca in Fiesole, Walter Savage Landor was visited by John Robert Kenyon, establishing a long friendship.

From the 1830s through the 1840s, the wealthy Massachusetts sculptor Horatio Greenough would be becoming the “leader” of the American artists’ colony in Rome, Italy. HDT WHAT? INDEX

WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR

1831

In Marseilles, the nationalist Giuseppe Mazzini, who early in the year had been exiled from the Piedmont to Marseilles for membership in a secret society pledged to overthrow absolute rule, known as the Carbonari, began the Giovine Italia or Young Italy movement to promote a unified and republican Italy. The movement was based upon the inevitable laws of progress, duty, and sacrifice — in other words, its attraction was that it constituted a complete legitimation for whatever unexpressed viciousness lay latent in those years in young Italian men’s hearts.

Walter Savage Landor’s GEBIR, COUNT JULIAN, AND OTHER POEMS (London: Moxon). This sold only 40 copies. He completed his work on HIGH AND LOW LIFE IN ITALY and forwarded the manuscript to Crabb Robinson (on account of difficulties with publishers this would not be making an appearance until 1837). HDT WHAT? INDEX

WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR

1832

Joseph Ablett persuaded Walter Savage Landor to visit England, where he met many old friends. He saw the widow Sophia Jane Swift (his “Ianthe”) at Brighton, and met Lord Wenlock. He also visited his family of origin in Staffordshire — his brother Charles Landor was rector of Colton, and his cousin Walter Landor of Rugeley was trying to deal with the complex business of Llanthony. He visited Charles Lamb at Enfield, Samuel Taylor Coleridge at Highgate, and Julius Charles Hare at Cambridge. He and Ablett visited the Lake District and saw Robert Southey and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. On returning to Fiesole Landor found his children out of hand and obtained a German governess for them. In Italy he met Richard Monckton Milnes, 1st Baron Houghton, who would later wrote about him. He worked on the conversations which would lead in 1834 to the volumes upon PERICLES AND ASPASIA, the PENTAMERON, and CITATION AND EXAMINATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE EUSEBY TREEN JOSEPH CARNABY AND SILAS GOUGH CLERK BEFORE THE WORSHIPFUL SIR THOMAS LUCY KNIGHT TOUCHING DEER-STEALING ON THE 19TH DAY OF SEPTEMBER IN THE YEAR OF GRACE 1582 NOW FIRST PUBLISHED FROM ORIGINAL PAPERS. TO WHICH IS ADDED A CONFERENCE OF MASTER EDMUND SPENSER A GENTLEMAN OF NOTE WITH THE EARL OF ESSEX TOUCHING THE STATE OF IRELAND A.D. 1595 (Lady Blessington persuaded Saunders and Otley of Conduit Street in London to publish HDT WHAT? INDEX

WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR

this). HDT WHAT? INDEX

WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR

Between this year and 1841 Charles-Lucien Jules Laurent Bonaparte would be publishing his work on the animal life forms of Italy, ICONOGRAFIA DELLA FAUNA ITALICA. HDT WHAT? INDEX

WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR HDT WHAT? INDEX

WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR

1833

May 15, Wednesday: Waldo Emerson met Walter Savage Landor at his Fiesole villa in Tuscany. He would eventually publish about this encounter in ENGLISH TRAITS, in a manner which would excite Landor and cause him to privately issue in 1856 a 23-page printed response in England in an unknown number of copies, titled LETTER FROM W.S. LANDOR TO R.W. EMERSON (Bath: published by E. Williams). HDT WHAT? INDEX

WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR

1834

Walter Savage Landor’s CITATION AND EXAMINATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE EUSEBY TREEN JOSEPH CARNABY AND SILAS GOUGH CLERK BEFORE THE WORSHIPFUL SIR THOMAS LUCY KNIGHT TOUCHING DEER- STEALING ON THE 19TH DAY OF SEPTEMBER IN THE YEAR OF GRACE 1582 NOW FIRST PUBLISHED FROM ORIGINAL PAPERS. TO WHICH IS ADDED A CONFERENCE OF MASTER EDMUND SPENSER A GENTLEMAN OF NOTE WITH THE EARL OF ESSEX TOUCHING THE STATE OF IRELAND A.D. 1595 (London: Saunders and Otley of Conduit Street). WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR

1835

The widow Sophia Jane Swift (his “Ianthe”) again visited Walter Savage Landor in Fiesole, this time bringing along her half-sister, Mrs. Paynter. Although Julia Thuillier Savage Landor had herself taken a younger lover, at this she became jealous and there would come to be a complete separation between the husband and his family, with the husband going to live at Lucca.

September: By this point Walter Savage Landor had reached 60 years of age, and at Lucca he finished PERICLES AND ASPASIA before returning alone to England. He had an income of about £600 per annum from properties in England, but when he left Italy he made over £400 of the share to his wife, and gifted the villa and farms at Fiesole to his son Arnold. His income was thus reduced to £200 a year and he would come into financial difficulties. He would remain with Joseph Ablett at Llanbedr for three months. HDT WHAT? INDEX

WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR

Winter: Walter Savage Landor spent this season at Clifton and would then return to Joseph Ablett at Llanbedr. Ablett would persuade him to write LITERARY HOURS, which would be published during the following year. HDT WHAT? INDEX

WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR

1836

Walter Savage Landor’s DEATH OF CLYTEMNESTRA. FRIENDLY CONTRIBUTIONS FOR THE BENEFIT OF THREE INFANT SCHOOLS IN THE PARISH OF KENSINGTON. PRINTED SOLELY FOR THE RIGHT HONOURABLE LADY MARY FOX.

There were other publications during this year, such as his LITERARY HOURS, THE LETTERS OF A CONSERVATIVE; IN WHICH ARE SHOWN THE ONLY MEANS OF SAVING WHAT IS LEFT TO THE ENGLISH CHURCH, ADDREST TO LORD MELBOURNE (London: Saunders and Otley), A SATIRE ON SATIRISTS, AND ADMONITION TO DETRACTORS (London: Saunders and Otley, Conduit Street) which included a criticism of William Wordsworth’s failure to appreciate Robert Southey, ALABIADAS THE YOUNG MAN, and a satire on Irish priests, TERRY HOGAN; AN ECLOGUE LATELY DISCOVERED IN THE LIBRARY OF THE PROPAGANDA AT ROME, AND NOW FIRST TRANSLATED FROM THE IRISH. THERUNTO IS SUBJOINED A DISSERTATION BY THE EDITOR, PHELIM OCTAVIUS QUARLE, S.T.P. ... (London: printed by J. Westheimer and Co.). Wordsworth’s Poems, in Chronological Sequence • November 1836 • Six months to six years added he remained HDT WHAT? INDEX

WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR

March: Walter Savage Landor’s PERICLES AND ASPASIA (London: Saunders and Otley). This was in the form of an IMAGINARY CONVERSATION and described the development of Aspasia’s romance with Pericles, told as a invented series of letters to a friend named Cleone. On one occasion Walter was travelling to Clifton incognito, and chatting with a fellow traveller, when the traveller remarked that this strange paradoxical conversation was coming across to him “like one of the IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS of Walter Savage Landor” (in a later timeframe he would find himself being introduced formally to this traveler, the Reverend John Sterling).

WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR

“A Satire upon Satirists, and Admonition to Detractors” printed 1836 not published Letters called “High & Low Life in Italy” “Imaginary Conversations” “Pentameron & Pentalogia” “Examination of William Shakspeare before Sir Thomas Lucy, Knt., touching Deer-stealing.” {One-fourth page blank} Vide again Richard’s sail in “Rich. 1st & the Abbot” Phocion’s remarks in conclusion of “Eschines & Phocion” “Demosthenes & Eubulides” In Milton & Marvel speaking of the Greek poets –he says “There is a sort of refreshing odor flying off it perpetually; not enough to oppress or to satiate; nothing is beaten or bruized; nothing smells of the stalk; the flower itself is half-concealed by the Genius of it hovering round.” Pericles & Sophocles Marcus Tullius Cicero & his Brother Quinctus in this a sentence on Sleep and Death. Johnson & Tooke for a criticism on words. {Three-fifths page blank} ...

Also during this year Landor would meet John Forster (who would become his biographer).

He would travel to Heidelberg in Germany hoping to visit his children, but would be disappointed. He would author more “imaginary conversations,” including one between Lord Eldon and his son Encombe. When a lady friend found it unseemly for him to critique the Lord Chancellor of England because he was more than 80 years of age, Landor quipped “The devil is older.” HDT WHAT? INDEX

WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR

Winter: Walter Savage Landor wintered again at Clifton, where Robert Southey visited him (it seems possible that Sophia Jane Swift was living at Bristol, but the evidence is not clear, and in 1837 she would depart for Austria, and remain there for a number of years). After leaving Clifton, Landor visited Charles Armitage Brown at Plymouth. He established many friendships including Sir William Francis Patrick Napier. At the end of the year he published DEATH OF CLYTEMNESTRA and THE PENTALOGIA. The last piece presented was PENTAMERON.

(In a later timeframe Henry Thoreau would be studying these works.)

WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR

1837

William Wordsworth traveled through France and Italy. Wordsworth’s Poems, in Chronological Sequence • Memorials of a Tour in Italy, 1837 • To Henry Crabb Robinson • Musings near Aquapendente. April 1837 • The Pine of Monte Mario at Rome •At Rome • At Rome — Regrets — In allusion to Niebuhr and other modern Historians • Continued • Plea for the Historian •At Rome • Near Rome, in sight of St. Peter’s • At Albano • Near Anio’s stream, I spied a gentle Dove • From the Alban Hills, looking towards Rome • Near the Lake of Thrasymene • Near the same Lake • The Cuckoo at Laverna. May 25, 1837 • At the Convent of Camaldoli • Continued • At the Eremite or Upper Convent of Camaldoli • At Vallombrosa • At Florence • Before the Picture of the Baptist, by Raphael, in the Gallery at Florence • At Florence — From Michael Angelo • At Florence — From M. Angelo • Among the Ruins of a Convent in the Apennines • In Lombardy • After leaving Italy • Continued • At Bologna, in Remembrance of the late Insurrections, 1837 • Ah, why deceive ourselves! by no mere fit • Hard task! exclaim the undisciplined, to lean • As leaves are to the tree whereon they grow • What if our numbers barely could defy • A Night Thought HDT WHAT? INDEX

WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR

Walter Savage Landor’s HIGH AND LOW LIFE IN ITALY, created in 1831, finally made its way into print. Also, his THE PENTAMERON AND PENTALOGIA (London: Saunders and Otley).

WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR

Phocion’s remarks in conclusion of “Eschines & Phocion” “Demosthenes & Eubulides” In Milton & Marvel speaking of the Greek poets –he says “There is a sort of refreshing odor flying off it perpetually; not enough to oppress or to satiate; nothing is beaten or bruized; nothing smells of the stalk; the flower itself is half-concealed by the Genius of it hovering round.” Pericles & Sophocles Marcus Tullius Cicero & his Brother Quinctus in this a sentence on Sleep and Death. Johnson & Tooke for a criticism on words. {Three-fifths page blank} ...

November 2, Thursday: Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 5th day 2nd of 11th M 1837 / Our Qry Meeting at Somersett was well attended & the Public Meeting favourd - Joseph Davis & Ruth Davis were favourd in testimony & Abijah Johnson in testimony & supplication — In the last meeting John Wilbur recd an endorsement on the Certificate of his Moy [Monthly] Meeting to travel in the Ministry in Connecticut & the Southern Qry Meetings in NYork Yearly Meeting, which was the only buisness out of the usual course — After meeting we took our carriage & without dinner rode to Providence & lodged at the School House. — RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS HDT WHAT? INDEX

WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR

Waldo Emerson to his journal:

Immense curiosity in Boston to see the delegation of the Sacs & the Ioways. I saw the Sacs & Foxes at the Statehouse on Monday — about 30 in number. Edward Everett addressed them & they replied. One chief said “They had no land to put their words upon, but they were nevertheless true.” One chief wore the skin of a buffaloe’s [sic] head with the horns attached, on his head, others birds with outspread wings. Immense breadth of shoulder & very muscular persons. Our Picts were so savage in their headdress & nakedness that it seemed as if the bears & catamounts had sent a deputation. They danced a war-dance on the Common, in the center of the greatest crowd ever seen on that area. The Governor cautioned us of the gravity of the tribe & that we should beware of any expression of the ridiculous; and the people all seemed to treat their guests gingerly as the keepers of lions & jaguars do those creatures whose taming is not quite yet trustworthy. Certainly it is right & natural that the Indian should come & see the civil White man, but this was hardly genuine but a show so we were not parties but spectators.... At Faneuil Hall they built a partition between the two tribes because the tribes are at war. HDT WHAT? INDEX

WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR

Emerson wrote to Walter Savage Landor: Dear Sir, You will hardly remember my name, & I will remind you that in the Spring of the year 1833, I was indebted to your hospitality & courtesy at Florence, as I had already been & shall always be to your wisdom. It was my design as soon as I returned home, to send you one or two books, which, I then thought, might give you a good hope of New England. But I found the opportunities of direct communication between Florence & Boston so rare & uncertain, that I feared my pacquet might come to you charged with some expense; and I have waited until one of the books is out of print, & with regard to the other, I have changed my mind. You are now in England, as I learn by your recent paragraphs in the papers. My friend, Mr Sumner, offers to take charge of letters to Paris & London, & I venture to send you a pamphlet & a little book of my own. [Presumably this would have been Nature and the Phi Beta Kappa address.] They can have little value to you except as an acknowledgement of the delight & instruction I have found in the Imaginary Conversations. With great respect, Your humble servant, R. Waldo Emerson.

When Landor would receive the above he would respond that he considered himself “highly honored,” and indicate that it would gratify him very much to “see you” at Bath — he noted that he would be able to offer Emerson a bed, and indicated that customarily he dined at the old-fashioned hour of four. HDT WHAT? INDEX

WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR

1838

Spring: Walter Savage Landor took a house in Bath and wrote three plays ANDREA OF HUNGARY, GIOVANNA OF NAPLES, and FRA RUPERT. These plays are in the form of a trilogy in the 1st of which Fra Rupert contrives the death of Andrea, the husband of Giovanna. In the 2d play Giovanna is suspected but acquitted. In the 3d play Fra Rupert is revealed as the culprit.

WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR

1839

Walter Savage Landor completed his plays ANDREA OF HUNGARY and GIOVANNA OF NAPLES. His attempts to publish these manuscripts would be delayed due to an ongoing dispute between the London publisher Richard Bentley, Charles Dickens, and John Forster.

WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR

1841

Walter Savage Landor’s FRA RUPERT (London: Saunders and Otley).

February 8, Monday: Charles Dickens’s 2d son was born, and would be christened as Walter Landor Dickens in honor of his godfather Walter Savage Landor.

There has been much uninformed speculation as to Henry Thoreau’s intent in keeping a journal. This speculation has tended to overlook the fact that Thoreau recorded, in his journal, exactly what it was that he was up to in keeping his journal. This is to be found in the entry for this day:

Feb. 8. All we have experienced is so much gone within us, and there lies. It is the company we keep. HDT WHAT? INDEX

WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR

One day, in health or sickness, it will come out and be remembered. Neither body nor soul forgets anything. The twig always remembers the wind that shook it, and the stone the cuff it received. Ask the old tree and the sand. To be of most service to my brother I must meet him on the most equal and even ground, the platform on which our lives are passing. But how often does politeness permit this? I seek a man who will appeal to me when I am in fault. We will treat as gods settling the affairs of men. In his intercourse I shall be always a god to-day, who was a man yesterday. He will never confound me with my guilt, but let me be immaculate and hold up my skirts. Differences he will make haste to clear up, but leave agreements unsettled the while. As time is measured by the lapse of ideas –we may grow of our own force –as the muscle adds new circles to its shell– My thoughts secrete the lime.– As time is measured by the lapse of ideas, we may grow of our own force, as the mussel adds new circles to its shell. My thoughts secrete the lime. We may grow old with the vigor of youth. Are we not always in youth so long as we face heaven? We may always live in the morning of our days. To him who seeks early, the sun never gets over the edge of the hill, but his rays fall slanting forever. His wise sayings are like the chopping of wood and crowing of cocks in the dawn. My Journal is that of me which else would spill over and run to waste, gleanings from the field which in action I reap. I must not live for it, but in it for the gods. They are my correspondent, to whom daily I send off this sheet postpaid. I am clerk in their counting-room, and at evening transfer the account from my day-book to ledger. It is as a leaf which hangs over my head in the path– I bend the twig and write my prayers on it then letting it go the bough springs up and shows the scrawl to heaven. As if it were not kept shut in my desk –but were as public a leaf as any in nature –it is papyrus by the riverside –it is vellum in the pastures –it is parchment on the hills– I find it every where as free as the leaves which troop along the lanes in autumn– The crow –the goose –the eagle –carry my quill –and the wind blows the leaves –as far as I go– Or if my imagination does not soar, but gropes in slime and mud –then I write with a reed.3 It is always a chance scrawl, and commemorates some accident, — as great as earthquake or eclipse. Like the sere leaves in yonder vase, these have been gathered far and wide. Upland and lowland, forest and field have been ransacked. In our holiest moment our devil with a leer stands close at hand. He is a very busy devil. It gains vice some respect, I must confess, thus to be reminded how indefatigable it is. It has at least the merit of industriousness. When I go forth with zeal to some good work, my devil is sure to get his robe tucked up the first and arrives there as soon as I, with a look of sincere earnestness which puts to shame my best intent. He is as forward as I 3. William M. White’s version of the journal entry is:

It is as a leaf which hangs over my head in the path. I bend the twig and write my prayers on it; Then letting it go, The bough springs up and shows the scrawl to heaven. As if it were not kept shut in my desk, But were as public a leaf as any in nature.

It is papyrus by the riverside; It is vellum in the pastures; It is parchment on the hills. I find it everywhere As free as the leaves Which troop along the lanes in autumn.

The crow, the goose, the eagle carry my quill, And the wind blows the leaves as far as I go. HDT WHAT? INDEX

WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR

to a good work, and as disinterested. He has a winning way of recommending himself by making himself useful. How readily he comes into my best project, and does his work with a quiet and steady cheerfulness which even virtue may take pattern from. I never was so rapid in my virtue but my vice kept up with me. It always came in by a hand, and never panting, but with a curried coolness halted, as if halting were the beginning not the end of the course. It only runs the swifter because it has no rider. It never was behind me but when I turned to look and so fell behind myself. I never did a charitable thing but there he stood, scarce in the rear, with hat in hand, partner on the same errand, ready to share the smile of gratitude. Though I shut the door never so quick and tell it to stay at home like a good dog, it will out with me, for I shut in my own legs so, and it escapes in the meanwhile and is ready to back and reinforce me in most virtuous deeds. And if I turn and say, “Get thee behind me,” he then indeed turns too and takes the lead, though he seems to retire with a pensive and compassionate look, as much as to say, “Ye know not what ye do.” Just as active as I become to virtue, just so active is my remaining vice. Every time we teach our virtue a new nobleness, we teach our vice a new cunning. When we sharpen the blade it will stab better as well as whittle. The scythe that cuts will cut our legs. We are double-edged blades, and every time we whet our virtue the return stroke straps our vice. And when we cut a clear descending blow — our vice on tother edge rips up the work.– Where is the skillful swordsman that can draw his blade straight back out of the wound?' Everyman proposes fairly, and does not wilfully take the devil for his guide — as our shadows never fall between us and the sun– Go towards the sun and your shadow will fall behind you.

October 18, Monday: Henry Thoreau was written to by Margaret Fuller, rejecting a poem “With frontier strength ye stand your ground” for THE DIAL.4 This letter indicates that Thoreau was already contemplating going “to the THE DIAL, OCTOBER 1841

lonely hut,” presumably meaning his purchase of the Hollowell Farm rather than his building a cabin on Walden Pond. This letter also referred to some sort of secret about Thoreau to which Fuller was privy, which Canby hypothesizes had to do with Thoreau’s unsuccessful proposal of marriage to Ellen Devereux Sewall. 18th Octr 1841. I do not find the poem on the mountains improved by mere compression, though it might be by fusion and glow. Its merits to me are a noble recognition of nature, two or three man- ly thoughts, and, in one place, a plaintive music. The image of the ships does not please me originally. It illustrates the greater by the less and affects me as when Byron compares the light on Jura to that of the dark eye of woman. I cannot define my position here, and a large class of readers would differ from me. As the poet goes on to “Unhewn, primeval timber For knees so stiff, for masts so limber” he seems to chase an image, already rather forced, into conceits. Yet now that I have some knowledge of the man, it seems there is no objection I could make to his lines, (with the exception of such of- fences against taste as the lines about the humors of the eye &c as to which we are already agreed) which I could not make to him self. He is healthful, sane, of open eye, ready hand, and noble scope. He sets no limits to his life, nor to the invasions of nature; he is not 4. Material which Thoreau was eventually able to include in the essay “A Walk to Wachusett” and place in the Boston Miscellany of Literature for January 1843. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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wilfully pragmatical, cautious, ascetic or fantastical. But he is as yet a somewhat bare hill which the warm gales of spring have not visited. Thought lies too detached, truth is seen too much in detail, we can number and mark the substances embedded in the rock. Thus his verses are startling, as much as stern; the thought does not excuse its conscious existence by letting us see its relation with life; there is a want of fluent music. Yet what could a companion do at present unless to tame the guard- ian of the Alps too early? Leave him at peace amid his native snows. He is friendly; he will find the generous office that shall educate him. It is not a soil for the citron and the rose, but for the whortleberry, the pine or the heather. The unfolding of affections, a wider and deeper human experience, the harmonizing influences of other na- tures, will mould the man, and melt his verse. He will seek thought less and find knowledge the more. I can have no advice or criticism for a person so sincere, but if I give my impression of him I will say He says too constantly of nature She is mine; She is not yours till you have been more hers. Seek the lotus, and take a draught of rapture. Say not so confidently All places, all occasions are alike. This will never come true till you have found it false. I do not know that I have more to say now, perhaps these words will say nothing to you; If intercourse should continue, perhaps a bridge may be made between the minds so widely apart, for I apprehended you in spirit, and you did not seem to mistake me as widely as most of your kind do. If you should find yourself inclined to write to me, as you thought you might, I dare say many thoughts would be suggested to me! –many have already by seeing you day by day. Will you finish the poem in your own way and send it for the Dial. Leave out “And seems to milk the sky” —The image is too low. Mr Emerson thought so too. Farewell. May Truth be irradiated by Beauty!— Let me know whether you go to the lonely hut, and write to me about Shakspeare, if you read him there. I have many thoughts about him which I have never yet been led to express. Margaret F. The pencilled paper Mr E. put into my hands. I have taken the liberty to copy it– You expressed one day my own opinion that the moment such a crisis is passed we may speak of it. There is no need of artifi- cial delicacy, of secrecy, it keeps its own secret, it cannot be made false. Thus you will not be sorry that I have seen the paper. Will you not send me some other records of the good week.

This issue of THE DIAL contained Waldo Emerson’s essay on Walter Savage Landor: We sometimes meet in a stage coach in New England an erect muscular man, with fresh complexion and a smooth hat, whose HDT WHAT? INDEX

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nervous speech instantly betrays the English traveller; — a man nowise cautious to conceal his name or that of his native country, or his very slight esteem for the persons and the country that surround him. When Mr. Bull rides in an American coach, he speaks quick and strong, he is very ready to confess his ignorance of everything about him, persons, manners, customs, politics, geography. He wonders that the Americans should build with wood, whilst all this stone is lying in the roadside, and is astonished to learn that a wooden house may last a hundred years; nor will he remember the fact as many minutes after it has been told him; he wonders they do not make elder-wine and cherry-bounce, since here are cherries, and every mile is crammed with elder bushes. He has never seen a good horse in America, nor a good coach, nor a good inn. Here is very good earth and water, and plenty of them, — that he is free to allow, — to all others gifts of nature or man, his eyes are sealed by the inexorable demand for the precise conveniences to which he is accustomed in England. Add to this proud blindness the better quality of great downrightness in speaking the truth, and the love of fair play, on all occasions, and, moreover, the peculiarity which is alleged of the Englishman, that his virtues do not come out until he quarrels. Transfer these traits to a very elegant and accomplished mind, and we shall have no bad picture of Walter Savage Landor, who may stand as a favorable impersonation of the genius of his countrymen at the present day. A sharp dogmatic man with a great deal of knowledge, a great deal of worth, and a great deal of pride, with a profound contempt for all that he does not understand, a master of all elegant learning and capable of the utmost delicacy of sentiment, and yet prone to indulge a sort of ostentation of coarse imagery and language. His partialities and dislikes are by no means calculable, but are often whimsical and amusing; yet they are quite sincere, and, like those of Johnson and Coleridge, are easily separable from the man. What he says of Wordsworth, is true of himself, that he delights to throw a clod of dirt on the table, and cry, “Gentlemen, there is a better man than all of you.” Bolivar, Mina, and General Jackson will never be greater soldiers than Napoleon and Alexander, let Mr. Landor think as he will; nor will he persuade us to burn Plato and Xenophon, out of our admiration of Bishop Patrick, or “Lucas on Happiness,” or “Lucas on Holiness,” or even Barrow’s Sermons. Yet a man may love a paradox, without losing either his wit or his honesty. A less pardonable eccentricity is the cold and gratuitous obtrusion of licentious images, not so much the suggestion of merriment as of bitterness. Montaigne assigns as a reason for his license of speech, that he is tired of seeing his Essays on the work-tables of ladies, and he is determined they shall for the future put them out of sight. In Mr. Landor’s coarseness there is a certain air of defiance; and the rude word seems sometimes to arise from a disgust at niceness and over- refinement. Before a well-dressed company he plunges his fingers in a sess-pool, as if to expose the whiteness of his hands and HDT WHAT? INDEX

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the jewels of his ring. Afterward, he washes them in water, he washes them in wine; but you are never secure from his freaks. A sort of Earl Peterborough in literature, his eccentricity is too decided not to have diminished his greatness. He has capital enough to have furnished the brain of fifty stock authors, yet has written no good book. But we have spoken all our discontent. Possibly his writings are open to harsher censure; but we love the man from sympathy, as well as for reasons to be assigned; and have no wish, if we were able, to put an argument in the mouth of his critics. Now for twenty years we have still found the “Imaginary Conversations” a sure resource in solitude, and it seems to us as original in its form as in its matter. Nay, when we remember his rich and ample page, wherein we are always sure to find free and sustained thought, a keen and precise understanding, an affluent and ready memory familiar with all chosen books, an industrious observation in every department of life, an experience to which nothing has occurred in vain, honor for every just and generous sentiment, and a scourge like that of the Furies for every oppressor, whether public or private, we feel how dignified is this perpetual Censor in his curule chair, and we wish to thank a benefactor of the reading world. Mr. Landor is one of the foremost of that small class who make good in the nineteenth-century the claims of pure literature. In these busy days of avarice and ambition, when there is so little disposition to profound thought, or to any but the most superficial intellectual entertainments, a faithful scholar receiving from past ages the treasures of wit, and enlarging them by his own love, is a friend and consoler of mankind. When we pronounce the names of Homer and Aeschylus, — Horace, Ovid, and Plutarch, — Erasmus, Scaliger, and Montaigne, — Ben Jonson and Isaak Walton, — Dryden and Pope, — we pass at once out of trivial associations, and enter into a region of the purest pleasure accessible to human nature. We have quitted all beneath the moon, and entered that crystal sphere in which everything in the world of matter reappears, but transfigured and immortal. Literature is the effort of man to indemnify himself for the wrongs of his condition. The existence of the poorest play- wright and the humblest scrivener is a good omen. A charm attaches to the most inferior names which have in any manner got themselves enrolled in the registers of the House of Fame, even as porters and grooms in the courts, to Creech and Fenton, Theobald and Dennis, Aubrey and Spence. From the moment of entering a library and opening a desired book, we cease to be citizens, creditors, debtors, housekeepers, and men of care and fear. What boundless leisure! what original jurisdiction! the old constellations have set, new and brighter have arisen; an elysian light tinges all objects. “In the afternoon we came unto a land In which it seemed always afternoon.” And this sweet asylum of an intellectual life must appear to HDT WHAT? INDEX

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have the sanction of nature, as long as so many men are born with so decided an aptitude for reading and writing. Let us thankfully allow every faculty and art which opens new scope to a life so confined as ours. There are vast spaces in a thought; a slave, to whom the religious sentiment is opened, has a freedom which makes his master’s freedom a slavery. Let us not be so illiberal with our schemes for the renovation of society and nature, as to disesteem or deny the literary spirit. Certainly there are heights in nature which command this; there are many more which this commands. It is vain to call it a luxury, and as saints and reformers are apt to do, decry it as a species of day-dreaming. What else are sanctities, and reforms, and all other things? Whatever can make for itself an element, means, organs, servants, and the most profound and permanent existence in the hearts and heads of millions of men, must have a reason for its being. Its excellency is reason and vindication enough. If rhyme rejoices us, there should be rhyme, as much as if fire cheers us, we should bring wood and coals. Each kind of excellence takes place for its hour, and excludes everything else. Do not brag of your actions, as if they were better than Homer’s verses or Raphael’s pictures. Raphael and Homer feel that action is pitiful beside their enchantments. They could act too, if the stake was worthy of them; but now all that is good in the universe urges them to their task. Whoever writes for the love of truth and beauty, and not with ulterior ends, belongs to this sacred class, and among these, few men of the present age, have a better claim to be numbered than Mr. Landor. Wherever genius or taste has existed, wherever freedom and justice are threatened, which he values as the element in which genius may work, his interest is sure to be commanded. His love of beauty is passionate, and betrays itself in all petulant and contemptuous expressions. But beyond his delight in genius, and his love of individual and civil liberty, Mr. Landor has a perception that is much more rare, the appreciation of character. This is the more remarkable considered with his intense nationality, to which we have already alluded. He is buttoned in English broadcloth to the chin. He hates the Austrians, the Italians, the French, the Scotch, and the Irish. He has the common prejudices of the English landholder; values his pedigree, his acres, and the syllables of his name; loves all his advantages, is not insensible to the beauty of his watchseal, or the Turk’s head on his umbrella; yet with all this miscellaneous pride, there is a noble nature within him, which instructs him that he is so rich that he can well spare all his trappings, and, leaving to others the painting of circumstance, aspire to the office of delineating character. He draws his own portrait in the costume of a village schoolmaster, and a sailor, and serenely enjoys the victory of nature over fortune. Not only the elaborated story of Normanby, but the whimsical selection of his heads prove this taste. He draws with evident pleasure the portrait of a man, who never said anything right, and never did anything wrong. But in HDT WHAT? INDEX

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the character of Pericles, he has found full play for beauty and greatness of behavior, where the circumstances are in harmony with the man. These portraits, though mere sketches, must be valued as attempts in the very highest kind of narrative, which not only has very few examples to exhibit of any success, but very few competitors in the attempt. The word Character is in all mouths; it is a force which we all feel; yet who has analyzed it? What is the nature of that subtle, and majestic principle which attaches us to a few persons, not so much by personal as by the most spiritual ties? What is the quality of the persons who, without being public men, or literary men, or rich men, or active men, or (in the popular sense) religious men, have a certain salutary omnipresence in all our life’s history, almost giving their own quality to the atmosphere and the landscape? A moral force, yet wholly unmindful of creed and catechism, intellectual, but scornful of books, it works directly and without means, and though it may be resisted at any time, yet resistance to it is a suicide. For the person who stands in this lofty relation to his fellow men is always the impersonation to them of their conscience. It is a sufficient proof of the extreme delicacy of this element, evanescing before any but the most sympathetic vision, that it has so seldom been employed in the drama and in novels. Mr. Landor, almost alone among living English writers, has indicated his perception of it. These merits make Mr. Landor’s position in the republic of letters one of great mark and dignity. He exercises with a grandeur of spirit the office of writer, and carries it with an air of old and unquestionable nobility. We do not recollect an example of more complete independence in literary history. He has no clanship, no friendships, that warp him. He was one of the first to pronounce Wordsworth the great poet of the age, yet he discriminates his faults with the greater freedom. He loves Pindar, Aeschylus, Euripides, Aristophanes, Demosthenes, Virgil, yet with open eyes. His position is by no means the highest in literature; he is not a poet or a philosopher. He is a man full of thoughts, but not, like Coleridge, a man of ideas. Only from a mind conversant with the First Philosophy can definitions be expected. Coleridge has contributed many valuable ones to modern literature. Mr. Landor’s definitions are only enumerations of particulars; the generic law is not seized. But as it is not from the highest Alps or Andes, but from less elevated summits, that the most attractive landscape is commanded, so is Mr. Landor the most useful and agreeable of critics. He has commented on a wide variety of writers, with a closeness and an extent of view, which has enhanced the value of those authors to his readers. His Dialogue on the Epicurean philosophy is a theory of the genius of Epicurus. The Dialogue between Barrow and Newton is the best of all criticisms on the Essays of Bacon. His picture of Demosthenes in three several Dialogues is new and adequate. He has illustrated the genius of Homer, Aeschylus, Pindar, Euripides, Thucydides. Then he has examined before he expatiated, and the minuteness of his verbal HDT WHAT? INDEX

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criticism gives a confidence in his fidelity, when he speaks the language of meditation or of passion. His acquaintance with the English tongue is unsurpassed. He “hates false words, and seeks with care, difficulty, and moroseness, those that fit the thing.” He knows the value of his own words. “They are not,” he says, “written on slate.” He never stoops to explanation, nor uses seven words where one will do. He is a master of condensation and suppression, and that in no vulgar way. He knows the wide difference between compression and an obscure elliptical style. The dense writer has yet ample room and choice of phrase, and even a gamesome mood often between his valid words. There is no inadequacy or disagreeable contraction in his sentence, any more than in a human face, where in a square space of a few inches is found room for every possible variety of expression. Yet it is not as an artist, that Mr. Landor commends himself to us. He is not epic or dramatic, he has not the high, overpowering method, by which the master gives unity and integrity to a work of many parts. He is too wilful, and never abandons himself to his genius. His books are a strange mixture of politics, etymology, allegory, sentiment, and personal history, and what skill of transition he may possess is superficial, not spiritual. His merit must rest at last, not on the spirit of the dialogue, or the symmetry of any of his historical portraits, but on the value of his sentences. Many of these will secure their own immortality in English literature; and this, rightly considered, is no mean merit. These are not plants and animals, but the genetical atoms, of which both are composed. All our great debt to the oriental world is of this kind, not utensils and statues of the precious metal, but bullion and gold dust. Of many of Mr. Landor’s sentences we are fain to remember what was said of those of Socrates, that they are cubes, which will stand firm, place them how or where you will. We will enrich our pages with a few paragraphs, which we hastily select from such of Mr. Landor’s volumes as lie on our table. ______“The great man is he who hath nothing to fear and nothing to hope from another. It is he, who while he demonstrates the iniquity of the laws, and is able to correct them, obeys them peaceably. It is he who looks on the ambitious, both as weak and fraudulent. It is he who hath no disposition or occasion for any kind of deceit, no reason for being or for appearing different from what he is. It is he who can call together the most select company when it pleases him...... Him I would call the powerful man who controls the storms of his mind, and turns to good account the worst accidents of his fortune. The great man, I was going on to show thee, is somewhat more. He must be able to do this, and he must have that intellect which puts into motion the intellect of others.” “All titulars else must be produced by others; a knight by a knight, a peer by a King, while a gentleman is self-existent.” HDT WHAT? INDEX

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“Critics talk most about the visible in sublimity ... the Jupiter, the Neptune. Magnitude and power are sublime, but in the second degree, managed as they may be. Where the heart is not shaken, the gods thunder and stride in vain. True sublimity is the perfection of the pathetic, which has other sources than pity; generosity, for instance, and self-devotion. When the generous and self-devoted man suffers, there comes Pity; the basis of the sublime is then above the water, and the poet, with or without the gods, can elevate it above the skies. Terror is but the relic of a childish feeling; pity is not given to children. So said he; I know not whether rightly, for the wisest differ on poetry, the knowledge of which, like other most important truths, seems to be reserved for a purer state of sensation and existence.” “O Cyrus, I have observed that the authors of good make men very bad as often as they talk much about them.” “The habit of haranguing is in itself pernicious; I have known even the conscientious and pious, the humane and liberal dried up by it into egoism and vanity, and have watched the mind, growing black and rancid in its own smoke.” GLORY. “Glory is a light which shines from us on others, not from others on us.” “If thou lovest Glory, thou must trust her truth. She followeth him who doth not turn and gaze after her.” RICHARD I. “Let me now tell my story ... to confession another time. I sailed along the realms of my family; on the right was England, on the left was France; little else could I discover than sterile eminences and extensive shoals. They fled behind me; so pass away generations; so shift, and sink, and die away affections. In the wide ocean I was little of a monarch; old men guided me, boys instructed me; these taught me the names of my towns and harbors, those showed me the extent of my dominions; one cloud, that dissolved in one hour, half covered them. “I debark in Sicily. I place my hand upon the throne of Tancred, and fix it. I sail again, and within a day or two I behold, as the sun is setting, the solitary majesty of Crete, mother of a religion, it is said, that lived two thousand years. Onward, and many specks bubble up along the blue Aegean; islands, every one of which, if the songs and stories of the pilots are true, is the monument of a greater man than I am. I leave them afar off.... and for whom? O, abbot, to join creatures of less import than the sea-mews on their cliffs; men praying to be heard, and fearing to be understood, ambitious of another’s power in the midst of penitence, avaricious of another’s wealth under vows of poverty, and jealous of another’s glory in the service of their God. Is this Christianity? and is Saladin to be damned if HDT WHAT? INDEX

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he despises it?” DEMOSTHENES. “While I remember what I have been, I never can be less. External power can affect those only who have none intrinsically. I have seen the day, Eubulides, when the most august of cities had but one voice within her walls; and when the stranger, on entering them, stopped at the silence of the gateway, and said, ‘Demosthenes is speaking in the assembly of the people.’" “There are few who form their opinions of greatness from the individual. Ovid says, ‘the girl is the least part of herself.’ Of himself, certainly, the man is.” “No men are so facetious as those whose minds are somewhat perverted. Truth enjoys good air and clear light, but no playground.” “I found that the principal means (of gratifying the universal desire of happiness) lay in the avoidance of those very things, which had hitherto been taken up as the instruments of enjoyment and content; such as military commands, political offices, clients, adventures in commerce, and extensive landed property.” “Abstinence from low pleasures is the only means of meriting or of obtaining the higher.” “Praise keeps good men good.” “The highest price we can pay for a thing is to ask for it.” “There is a gloom in deep love as in deep water; there is a silence in it which suspends the foot; and the folded arms, and the dejected head are the images it reflects. No voice shakes its surface; the Muses themselves approach it with a tardy and a timid step, and with a low and tremulous and melancholy song.” “Anaxagoras is the true, firm, constant friend of Pericles; the golden lamp that shines perpetually on the image I adore.” [The Letter of Pericles to Aspasia in reply to her request to be permitted to visit Xeniades.] “Do what your heart tells you; yes, Aspasia, do all it tells you. Remember how august it is. It contains the temple, not only of Love, but of Conscience; and a whisper is heard from the extremity of one to the extremity of the other. “Bend in pensiveness, even in sorrow, on the flowery bank of youth, whereunder runs the stream that passes irreversibly! let the garland drop into it, let the hand be refreshed by it — but — may the beautiful feet of Aspasia stand firm.” E. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1842

Walter Savage Landor received a visit from his son Arnold Landor, and wrote a long essay on Catullus for John Forster, editor of Foreign Quarterly Review. He followed this up with THE IDYLLS OF THEOCRITUS. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1843

Walter Savage Landor mourned the death of his friend Robert Southey and dedicated to him a poem in the Examiner. He was visited by his children Walter Landor and Julia Landor, and placed a poem to Julia in Blackwood’s Magazine. By that dejected city, Arno runs, Where Ugolino claspt his famisht sons. There wert thou born, my Julia! there thine eyes Return’d as bright a blue to vernal skies. And thence, my little wanderer! when the Spring Advanced, thee, too, the hours on silent wing Brought, while anemonies were quivering round, And pointed tulips pierced the purple ground, Where stood fair Florence: there thy voice first blest My ear, and sank like balm into my breast: For many griefs had wounded it, and more Thy little hands could lighten were in store. But why revert to griefs? Thy sculptured brow Dispels from mine its darkest cloud even now. And all that Rumour has announced of grace! I urge, with fevered breast, the four-month day. O! could I sleep to wake again in May.

March 21, Tuesday: Robert Southey died, mentioning to the last the name of his friend Walter Savage Landor. The body would be placed in the churchyard of Crosthwaite Church in Keswick. A memorial to him, written by his friend William Wordsworth, is inside this church. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1844

Walter Savage Landor’s daughter Julia Landor returned and gave him a dog Pomero, who would be for many years his faithful companion. He published a poem to Elizabeth Barrett Browning in the Morning Chronicle. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1845

After December 23: I wish to say something tonight not of and concerning the Chinese and Sandwich CHINESE Islanders as to and concerning those who hear me –who are said to live in New England. Something about your condition –especially your outward condition or circumstances in this world –in this town. what it is –whether it is necessarily as bad as it is –whether it can’t be improved as well as not. It is generally admitted that some of your are poor find it hard to get a living –haven’t always something in your pockets, haven’t paid for all the dinners you’ve actually eaten –or all your coats and shoes –some of which are already worn out. All this is very well known to all of you by hearsay and by experience. It is very evident what –a mean and sneaking life you live always in the hampers –always on the limits –trying to get into business –and trying to get out of debt –a very ancient slough called by the Latins aes alienum anothers brass –some of their coins being made of brass –and still so many living and dying and buried today by anothers brass –always promising to pay –promising to pay –with interest tomorrow perhaps and die –to day –insolvent. Seeking to curry favor to get custom –lying –flattering voting –contracting yourselves into a nutshell of civility– or dilating into a world of thin and vaporous generosity –that you may persuade your neighbor –to let you make his {Nineteen leaves missing}{One-fifth page missing} him to be –that these “Letters & Speeches” now for the first time we might say –brought to light –edited –& published together with the elucidations, have restored unity and the wanting moral grandeur to his life. So that we can now answer for ourselves and other wherefore–, by what means, and in what sense he came to be protector in England. We learn that his actions are to be judged of as those of a man who had a steady religious purpose unparalled in the line of kings Of a remarkable common sense and practicalness yet joined with such a divine madness, though {One-fifth page missing} There is a civilization going on among brutes as well as men– Foxes are Indian dogs. I hear one barking DOG raggedly, wildly demoniacally in the darkness to night –seeking expression laboring with some anxiety – striving to be a dog –struggling for light. He is but a faint man –before pigmies –an imperfect –burrowing man.– Goules are also misformed, unfortunate men. He has come up near to my window attracted by the light, and barked a vulpine course at me –then retreated. {Six leaves missing} Reading suggested by Hallam’s Hist. of Literature.5 1 Abelard & Heloise 2 Look at Luigi Pulci –his Morgante Maggiore (published in 1481 “was to the poetical romances of chivalry what Don Quixote was to their brethren in prose.” 3 Lionardo da Vinci –the most remarkable of his writings still in manuscript –for his universality of Genius – “the first name of the 15th century.” LUDOVICO ARIOSTO 4 Read Boiardo’s Orlando Innamorato –published between 1491 –& 1500 –for its influence on Ariosto –and its intrinsic merits– Its sounding names repeated by Milton in Paradise Regained {One-fourth page blank} RICHARD HENRY HORNE Landor’s works are WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR 1st A small volume of poems 1793 out of print next Poems of “Gebir” “Chrysaor”, the “Phocaeans” &c The “Gebir” eulogized by Southey & Coleridge

5. Henry Hallam’s INTRODUCTION TO THE LITERATURE OF EUROPE IN THE FIFTEENTH, SIXTEENTH, AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES (4 volumes; London: John Murray, 1837-1839). HALLAM’S LITERATURE, I HALLAM’S LITERATURE, II HALLAM’S LITERATURE, III HALLAM’S LITERATURE, IV HDT WHAT? INDEX

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Wrote verses in Italian & Latin. The dramas “Andrea of Hungary” “Giovanna of Naples” and “Fra Rupert.” “Pericles & Aspasia” “Poems from the Arabic & Persian” 1800 pretending to be translations. “A Satire upon Satirists, and Admonition to Detractors” printed 1836 not published Letters called “High & Low Life in Italy” “Imaginary Conversations” “Pentameron & Pentalogia” “Examination of William Shakspeare before Sir Thomas Lucy, Knt., touching Deer-stealing.” {One-fourth page blank} Vide again Richard’s sail in “Rich. 1st & the Abbot” Phocion’s remarks in conclusion of “Eschines & Phocion” “Demosthenes & Eubulides” In Milton & Marvel speaking of the Greek poets –he says “There is a sort of refreshing odor flying off it perpetually; not enough to oppress or to satiate; nothing is beaten or bruized; nothing smells of the stalk; the flower itself is half-concealed by the Genius of it hovering round.” Pericles & Sophocles Marcus Tullius Cicero & his Brother Quinctus in this a sentence on Sleep and Death. Johnson & Tooke for a criticism on words. {Three-fifths page blank} It is worth the while to have lived a primitive wilderness life at some time –to know what are after all the necessaries of life –and what methods society has taken to supply them– I have looked over the old day Books of the merchants with the same view to see what it was that men bought– They are the grossest groceries –salt is perhaps the most important article of all.– most commonly bought at the stores. Of articles commonly thought to be necessaries –salt –sugar –molasses –cloth &c by the Farmer.– You will see why stores or shops exist / not to furnish tea and coffee –but salt &c here’s the rub then. {One-fifth page blank} Have you seen my hound sir– I want to know What –Lawyer’s office –law Books if you’ve seen anything of DOG a hound about here– why, what do you do here? I live here. no I have’nt haven’t you heard one In the woods anyplace O yes I heard one this morning– What do you do here– but he was someway off– Which side did he seem to be– Well I should think there this other side of the pond.– This is a large dog makes a large track –he’s been out hunting from Lexington for a week. How long have you lived here– Oh about a year Some body said there was a man up here had a camp in the woods somewhere and he’d got him Well I dont know of any body– There’s Brittons camp over the other road– It may be there– Is’nt there anybody in these woods– Yes they are chopping right up here behind me– how far is it– only a few steps –hark a moment –there dont you hear the sound of their axes. Therien the wood chopper was here yesterday –and while I was cutting wood some chicadees hopped near pecking the bark and chips and the potatoe skins I had thrown out– What do you call them he asked– I told him –what do you call them asked I– Mezezence I think he said. When I eat my dinner in the woods said he sitting very still having kindled a fire to warm my coffee –they come and light on my arm and peck at the potatoes in my fingers– I like to have the little fellers about me– Just then one flew up from the snow and perched on the wood I was holding in my arms and pecked it and looked me familiarly in the face. Chica-a-dee–dee-dee-dee-dee, –while others were whistling phebe–phe-bee – in the woods behind the house. {Three-fifths page blank} “It is related that the ancient Loeri, a people of Greece, were so charmed with the sound of the Cicada, that they erected a statue to its honor.” Davis’ notes to Morton’s Memorial. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1846

Despite his having become more than 70 years of age, Walter Savage Landor was able to place fresh IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS in the 2d volume of his THE WORKS OF WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR (London: Moxon). John Forster, who was employed at The Examiner, to which Landor frequently contributed on political and other subjects, helped publish the plays and the WORKS.

It was in this year that Landor met Eliza Lynn, who was to become a novelist and journalist under her married name Eliza Lynn Linton, and she became a regular companion in Bath.

While staying with the family of Sir Charles Brune Graves-Sawle, 2nd Baronet, Landor visited Exeter and sought shelter during a shower on the doorstep of a local barrister, James Jerwood. Supposing him to be a tramp, Jerwood drove him away; therefore, Landor being the sort of person he was, he needed to post to this barrister a follow-up letter of abuse. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1847

Walter Savage Landor’s THE HELLENICS OF WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR. ENLARGED AND COMPLETED (London: Edward Moxon, Dover Street), including the poems published under that title in the collected works, together with English translations of the Latin idyls.

John Forster had objected to some of the Latin poetry, and so Landor separately published POEMATA ET INSCRIPTIONES NOVIS AUXIT SAVAGIUS LANDOR (Londini: Impensis Edwardi Moxon). One of these pieces referred to King George IV of the House of Hanover, whose treatment of Caroline of Brunswick had seemed distasteful: Heic jacet, Qui ubique et semper jacebat Familiae pessimae homo pessimus Georgius Britanniae Rex ejus nominis IV Arca ut decet ampla et opipare ornata est Continet enim omnes Nerones. (Here lies a person who was always laying about all over the place — the worst member of the worst family — George the fourth of that name of Britain. It is suitable that the vault be large and excessively decorated as it contains all the Neros). George the First was always reckoned Vile, but viler George the Second. And what mortal ever heard Any good of George the Third, But when from earth the Fourth descended God be praised the Georges ended. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1848

Walter Savage Landor’s IMAGINARY CONVERSATION OF KING CARLO-ALBERTO AND THE DUCHESS BELGOIOSO (London: Longmans). Also, his THE ITALICS OF WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR (London: Reynell and Weight). HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1849

January 30, Tuesday: Walter Savage Landor wrote an epitaph for himself on his 74th birthday. I strove with none, for none was worth my strife. Nature I loved, and, next to nature, Art; I warm’d both hands before the fire of Life; It sinks, and I am ready to depart. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1850

Alfred, Lord Tennyson met Walter Savage Landor and recorded how while another guest fell downstairs and broke his arm, “Old Landor went on eloquently discoursing of Catullus and other Latin poets as if nothing had happened.”

Thomas Carlyle’s LATTER-DAY PAMPHLETS. He visited Walter Savage Landor and wrote “He was really stirring company: a proud irascible, trenchant, yet generous, veracious, and very dignified old man.” HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1851

Walter Savage Landor expressed the need for Church reform in a pamphlet POPERY, BRITISH AND FOREIGN (London: Chapman and Hall), and with LETTERS TO CARDINAL WISEMAN. He published various other articles in The Examiner, Fraser’s Magazine, etc. When he learned that Sophia Jane Swift had died, he wrote in tribute to her memory: Sophia! whom I seldom call’d by name, And trembled when I wrote it; O my friend Severed so long from me! one morn I dreamt That we were walking hand in hand thro’ paths Slippery with sunshine: after many years Had flown away, and seas and realms been crost, And much (alas how much!) by both endured We joined our hands together and told our tale. And now thy hand hath slipt away from mine, And the cold marble cramps it; I dream one, Dost thou dream too? and are our dreams the same? HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1853

Walter Savage Landor published THE LAST FRUIT OFF AN OLD TREE (London: Moxon) and the collected IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS OF GREEKS AND ROMANS (London: Moxon), which he dedicated to Charles Dickens. Dickens was in this year publishing BLEAK HOUSE, which contained the amazingly realistic characterisation of Landor as “Boythorn.”6

6. John Forster and Charles Dickens made a practice of meeting up with each other at Bath to celebrate, simultaneously, Landor’s birthday and the execution of Charles I. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1854

December: Toward the end of the year, Walter Savage Landor’s sister Elizabeth died, and he wrote a memorial: Sharp crocus wakes the froward year; In their old haunts birds reappear; From yonder elm, yet black with rain, The cushat looks deep down for grain Thrown on the gravel-walk; here comes The redbreast to the sill for crumbs. Fly off! fly off! I can not wait To welcome ye, as she of late. The earliest of my friends is gone. Alas! almost my only one! The few as dear, long wafted o’er, Await me on a sunnier shore.

Late in this year, ill and jobless, the Reverend Charles Henry Appleton Dall relocated with his wife Caroline Wells Healey Dall, 9-year-old son William Healey Dall, and 5-year-old daughter Sarah Keene Healey Dall from Toronto, Canada to Newton, Massachusetts. While convalescing he would be told that Charles T. Brooks, just back from India, had recommended to the American Unitarian Association the creation of a Unitarian mission there. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1855

February 1, Thursday: Henry Thoreau took another day-long skating trip.

He wrote to Friend Daniel Ricketson.

Concord Feb 1st ’55 Dear Sir, I supposed, as I did not see you on the 24th or 25th, that some track or other was obstructed; but the solid earth still holds together between New Bedford and Concord, and I trust that as [t]his time you staid away, you may live to come another day. I did not go to Boston, for with regard to that place, I sympathize with one of my neighbors, an old man, who has not been there since the last war, when he was compelled to go— No, I have a real genius for staying at home. I have been looking of late at Bewick’s tail-pieces in the “Birds” — all they BEWICK have of him at Harvard. Why

Page 2 will he be a little vulgar at times? Yesterday I made an excursion up our river — skated some thirty miles in a few hours, if you will believe it— So with reading & writing & skating, the night comes round again. Yrs Henry D. Thoreau. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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Page 3 Postage: pd {upside down: PAID 3} Postmark: CONCORD FEB 1 MASS. Address: Daniel Ricketson Esq New Bedford Mass

Thoreau wrote to Ann E. Brown in Brattleboro. Concord Feb 1st’55 Dear Madam, I have not contemplated visiting Brattle- boro next summer, as you have heard; but it is pleasant to entertain, if only for a moment the idea of such an excursion. I should like very much to walk in your woods, which are more primitive than ours, and especially in company with Mr[]Frost, of whom I have heard through Mr[]Russell & Miss Ann Whiting. Be assured that whenever I may come to Brattleboro, and I feel many attractions drawing me that way, I shall remember the spirit of your very kind and hospitable invitation. Yrs respectfully Henry D. Thoreau[.]

February 1. As usual these broad fields of ice could not be left uncovered over the third day. It began to spit a little snow at noon, just enough to show on the ice, the thickness of a blanket, though not on the ground,— I dissipated there both by the warmth and irregularity At 4 P. M., I find that the river rose last evening to within eight and a half inches of the rise of April 23d, 1852, and then began to fall. It has now fallen about four inches. Accordingly, the river falling all day, no water has HDT WHAT? INDEX

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burst out through the ice next the shore, and it is now one uninterrupted level white blanket of snow quite to the shore on every side. This, then, is established, — that, the river falling four inches during the day, though it has been as warm as yesterday, there has been no overflow along the shore. Apparently the thin recent ice of the night, which connects the main body with the shore, bends and breaks with the rising of the mass, especially in the morning, under the influence of the sun and wind, and the water establishes itself at a new level As I skated up the river so swiftly yesterday, now here now there, past the old kingdoms of my fancy, I was reminded of Landor’s “Richard the First.” “I sailed along the realms of my family; on the right was England, on the left was France [on the right was Sudbury, on the left was Wayland;] [The brackets in this paragraph are Thoreau’s.] LANDOR’S “RICHARD THE FIRST” little else could I discover than sterile eminences and extensive shoals. They fled behind me; so pass away generations; so shift, and sink, and die away affections.” “I debark in Sicily.” That was Tall’s Island. “I sail again, and within a day or two [an hour or two?] I behold, as the sun is setting, the solitary majesty of Crete, mother of a religion, it is said, that lived 2000 years. [That was Nobscot surely.] Onward, and many specks bubble up along the blue Ægean [these must have been the muskrat-houses in the meadows], every one [I have no doubt] the monument of a greater man [being?] than I am.” The swelling river was belching on a high key, from ten to eleven. Quite a musical cracking, running like chain lightning of sound athwart my course, as if the river, squeezed, thus gave its morning’s milk with music. A certain congealed milkiness in the sound, like the soft action of piano keys, — a little like the cry of a pigeon woodpecker, — a-week a-week, etc. A congealed gurgling, frog-like. As I passed, the ice forced up by the water on one side suddenly settled on another with a crash, and quite a lake was formed above the ice behind me, and my successor two hours after, to his wonder and alarm, saw my tracks disappear in one side of it and come out on the other. My seat from time to time is the springy horizontal bough of some fallen tree which is frozen into the ice, some old maple that had blown over and retained some life for a year after in the water, covered with the great shaggy perforate parmelia. Lying flat, I quench my thirst where it is melted about it, blowing aside the snow-fleas. The great arundo in the Sudbury meadows was all level with the ice. There was a great bay of ice stretching up the Pantry and up Larned Brook. I looked up a broad, glaring bay of ice at the last place, which seemed to reach to the base of Nobscot and almost to the horizon. Some dead maple or oak saplings, laid side by side, made my bridges by which I got on to the ice along the watery shore. It was a problem to get off, and another to get on, dryshod. You are commonly repaid for a longer excursion than usual, and being outdoors all day, by seeing some rarer bird for the season, as yesterday a great hawk. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1856

Waldo Emerson commented in ENGLISH TRAITS: “I find the sea-life an acquired taste, like that for tomatoes and olives.”7 ENGLISH TRAITS

At the age of 81 Walter Savage Landor published continuing IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS, ANTONY AND OCTAVIUS: SCENES FOR THE STUDY (London: Bradbury and Evans), twelve consecutive poems in dialogue, and his indignant response to Emerson’s book, A LETTER FROM W.S. LANDOR TO R.W. EMERSON (Bath: published by E. Williams). Here is what Emerson had had to say about Landor, that was considered off- putting:8 Greenough brought me, through a common friend, an invitation from Mr. Landor, who lived at San Domenica di Fiesole. On the 15th May I dined with Mr. Landor. I found him noble and courteous, living in a cloud of pictures at his Villa Gherardesca, a fine house commanding a beautiful landscape. I had inferred from his books, or magnified from some anecdotes, an impression of Achillean wrath,– an untamable petulance. I do not know whether the imputation were just or not, but certainly on this May day his courtesy veiled that haughty mind, and he was the most patient and gentle of hosts. He praised the beautiful cyclamen which grows all about Florence; he admired Washington; talked of Wordsworth, Byron, Massinger, Beaumont and Fletcher. To be sure, he is decided in his opinions, likes to surprise, and is well content to impress, if possible, his English whim upon the immutable past. No great man ever had a great son, if Philip and Alexander be not an exception; and Philip he calls the greater man. In art, he loves the Greeks, and in sculpture, them only. He prefers the Venus to every thing else, and, after that, the head of Alexander, in the gallery here. He prefers John of Bologna to Michael Angelo; in painting, Raffaelle; and shares the growing taste for Perugino and the early masters. The Greek histories he thought the only good; and after them, Voltaire’s. I could not make him praise Mackintosh, nor my more recent friends; Montaigne very cordially,– and Charron also, which seemed undiscriminating. He thought Degerando indebted to “Lucas on Happiness” and “Lucas on Holiness”! He pestered me with Southey; but who is Southey? He invited me to breakfast on Friday. On Friday I did not fail to go, and this time with Greenough. He entertained us at once with reciting half a dozen hexameter lines of Julius Caesar’s! — from Donatus, he said. He glorified Lord Chesterfield more than was necessary, and undervalued Burke, and undervalued Socrates; designated as three of the greatest of men, Washington, Phocion, and Timoleon; much as our pomologists, in 7. A copy of this volume would be found in Thoreau’s personal library. 8. This got Landor so excited that he even misspelled a word! HDT WHAT? INDEX

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their lists, select the three or the six best pears [Page 770] “for a small orchard;” and did not even omit to remark the similar termination of their names. “A great man,” he said, “should make great sacrifices, and kill his hundred oxen, without knowing whether they would be consumed by gods and heroes, or whether the flies would eat them.” I had visited Professor Amici, who had shown me his microscopes, magnifying (it was said) two thousand diameters; and I spoke of the uses to which they were applied. Landor despised entomology, yet, in the same breath, said, “the sublime was in a grain of dust.” I suppose I teased him about recent writers, but he professed never to have heard of Herschel, not even by name. One room was full of pictures, which he likes to show, especially one piece, standing before which, he said “he would give fifty guineas to the man that would swear it was a Domenichino.” I was more curious to see his library, but Mr. H______, one of the guests, told me that Mr. Landor gives away his books, and has never more than a dozen at a time in his house. Mr. Landor carries to its height the love of freak which the English delight to indulge, as if to signalize their commanding freedom. He has a wonderful brain, despotic, violent, and inexhaustible, meant for a soldier, by what chance converted to letters, in which there is not a style nor a tint not known to him, yet with an English appetite for action and heroes. The thing done avails, and not what is said about it. An original sentence, a step forward, is worth more than all the censures. Landor is strangely undervalued in England; usually ignored; and sometimes savagely attacked in the Reviews. The criticism may be right, or wrong, and is quickly forgotten; but year after year the scholar must still go back to Landor for a multitude of elegant sentences — for wisdom, wit, and indignation that are unforgetable. ENGLISH TRAITS HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1857

As usual, Walter Savage Landor was being Landor. While involved in a court case he got himself in trouble by making public statements when he should have not. Then there arose a miserable quarrel between a couple of ladies he knew, Geraldine Hooper and a Mrs Yescombe, who were struggling over £100 he had given to one of them, and he created an unfortunate pamphlet “Walter Savage Landor and the Honourable Mrs Yescombe” which could easily have led to a successful prosecution for libel (but John Forster was able to put the matter to bed by persuading Landor to offer an apology). HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1858

Walter Savage Landor produced a miscellaneous collection DRY STICKS FAGOTED BY WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR (Edinburgh: James Nichol. London: James Nisbet and Co.), which contained among other things some epigrammatic and satirical attacks fit to generate further libel lawsuits.

Samuel L. Knapp’s THE LIFE OF LORD TIMOTHY DEXTER, WITH SKETCHES OF THE ECCENTRIC CHARACTERS THAT COMPOSED HIS ASSOCIATES, INCLUDING HIS OWN WRITINGS, "DEXTER’S PICKLE FOR THE KNOWING ONES", &C., &C. (Boston: J.E. Tilton and Co.) HDT WHAT? INDEX

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July: Walter Savage Landor returned to Italy for the final six years of his life. He had expected to resume his life with wife and children but found them living disreputably at the Villa Gherardesca. He was advised to make over his property to his family, on whom he now depended. For ten months his family made his existence with them miserable, and when he fled repeatedly to Florence, they repeatedly came and bring him back. On the last occasion, he had taken refuge at a hotel in Florence with next to nothing in his pocket, and was found there by Robert Browning, who was then living at the Casa Guidi. Browning managed to negotiate an allowance for him from the family, and settled him first at Siena and then at Florence. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1859

A new edition, enlarged, of Walter Savage Landor’s THE HELLENICS OF WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR, COMPRISING HEROIC IDYLS, ETC. (Edinburgh: J. Nichol). HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1860

June 9, Saturday: George Payne Rainsford James had a stroke in Venice and died. His wife Frances Thomas James would survive in Wisconsin until 1891. An epitaph for the gravestone at Isola di San Michele would be created by Walter Savage Landor: George Payne Rainsford James. British Consul General in the Adriatic. Died in Venice on the 9th day of June, 1860. His merits as a writer are known wherever the English language is, and as a man they rest on the hearts of many. A few friends have erected this humble and perishable monument.

June 9. 7 A.M. — River fourteen and one eighth above summer level only, though after considerable rain in the night. We have had half a dozen showers to-day, distinct summer showers from black clouds suddenly wafted up from the west and northeast; also some thunder and hail, — large white stones. Standing on the Mill-Dam this afternoon, after one of these showers, I noticed the air full of some kind of down, which at first I mistook for feathers or lint from some chamber, then for light-winged insects, for it rose and fell just like the flights of may-flies. At length I traced it to the white willow behind the blacksmith’s shop, which apparently the rain has released. The wind was driving it up between and over the buildings, and it was flying all along the Mill-Dam in a stream, filling the air like a flight of bright-colored gauze-winged insects, as high as the roofs. It was the willow down with a minute blackish seed in the midst or beneath. In the moist air, seen against the still dark clouds, like large white dancing motes, from time to time falling to earth. The rain had apparently loosened them, and the slight breeze succeeding set them a-going. As I stood talking with one on the sidewalk, I saw two yellow dor-bugs fall successively to the earth from the elm above. They were sluggish, as usual by day, and appeared to have just lost their hold, perhaps on account of the rain or the slight wind arising. I also see them floating in the river, into which they have fallen, or perhaps they have been carried off by its rising. They might be called blunderers.

6 P.M. — Paddle to Flint’s hedge. River fourteen and three quarters above summer level. Viburnum Lentago nearly in prime. An abundance of Carex scoparia now conspicuously browns the shores, especially below Flint’s willows. The C. lagopodioides is apparently in prime (out say one week or less) at Flint’s hedge. That is apparently the C. rosea there under the hickory; observed the 23d of May. The C. monile is now quite conspicuous along the river, as well as the C. bullata. A kingbird’s nest and one egg. C. says that a fox stood near, watching him, in Britton’s Hollow to-day. No doubt she had young. The water-bugs begin to venture out on to the stream from the shadow of a dark wood, as at the Island. So soon as the dusk begins to settle on the river, they begin to steal out, or to extend their circling from amid the bushes and weeds over the channel of the river. They do not simply then, if ever, venture forth, but then invariably, and at once, the whole length of the stream, they one and all sally out and begin to dimple its broad surface, as if it were a necessity so to do. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1861

Second half of the year: Robert Browning left Italy and returned to England with his young son Robert after the death of his wife Elizabeth Barrett Browning. He would start writing again, and would eventually produce THE RING AND THE BOOK, a 12-volume epic about a murder trial that had taken place in Rome in 1698.

After Browning’s departure Walter Savage Landor seldom left his lodgings and remained petulant and uncomfortable. He was occasionally visited by his sons. During this year and the following one, he would publish some more of his IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS, in the Atheneum. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1863

Walter Savage Landor prepared a final volume, of HEROIC IDYLS, WITH ADDITIONAL POEMS, ENGLISH AND LATIN (London: Newby).

Back in 1826, various leading English scholars, such as Thomas Moore, William Cobbett, and Theodore Hook, had been discussing a story that an Englishman, one Roger Dodsworth, who had apparently been frozen in a Mount Saint Gothard glacier since an avalanche in 1654, and had on July 4th been recovered and reanimated “by the usual remedies” by a Dr. Hotham of Northumberland, as this story (utterly untrue, of course) had just appeared in the Journal du Commerce de Lyon in French. In that context Mary Godwin Wollstonecraft Shelley had created a story “The Reanimated Man,” based on the stimulating newspaper fiction, which had not seen publication. At this point Mrs. Shelley’s 1826 story “The Reanimated Man” was published for the initial time. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1864

May Day: Walter Savage Landor commented, to his landlady, “I shall never write again. Put out the lights and draw the curtains.” Almost the last event of his life was a visit from Swinburne, who came to Florence specifically to see him, and dedicated to him the “Atlanta in Calydon.” HDT WHAT? INDEX

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September 17, Saturday: Walter Savage Landor died at the age of 89. Rather than transporting the body to Widcombe near Bath as he had desired, it would be deposited in the Protestant Cemetery in Florence near the tomb of his pen-pal Elizabeth Barrett Browning. The stone was supposed to read “Sacred / to the Memory of / Walter Savage Landor / born 30th day of January 1775 / died on the 17th of September 1864. / This last sad tribute / of his wife and children.” However, the Italian stonecutter, unfamiliar with the English alphabet, carved “of his coife and children” (this wouldn’t matter, for the stone was not a strong one and in a few years the inscription had eroded; this stone has in 1945 been covered with a magnificent memorial slab). A statue of his wife Julia Thuillier Savage Landor, by the Sicilian sculptor Michele Auteri Pomar, is also to be noticed; it is HDT WHAT? INDEX

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above the tomb of their son Arnold Savage Landor:

“MAGISTERIAL HISTORY” IS FANTASIZING: HISTORY IS CHRONOLOGY “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project Walter Savage Landor HDT WHAT? INDEX

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COPYRIGHT NOTICE: In addition to the property of others, such as extensive quotations and reproductions of images, this “read-only” computer file contains a great deal of special work product of Austin Meredith, copyright 2015. Access to these interim materials will eventually be offered for a fee in order to recoup some of the costs of preparation. My hypercontext button invention which, instead of creating a hypertext leap through hyperspace —resulting in navigation problems— allows for an utter alteration of the context within which one is experiencing a specific content already being viewed, is claimed as proprietary to Austin Meredith — and therefore freely available for use by all. Limited permission to copy such files, or any material from such files, must be obtained in advance in writing from the “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project, 833 Berkeley St., Durham NC 27705. Please contact the project at .

“It’s all now you see. Yesterday won’t be over until tomorrow and tomorrow began ten thousand years ago.” – Remark by character “Garin Stevens” in William Faulkner’s INTRUDER IN THE DUST

Prepared: March 15, 2015 HDT WHAT? INDEX

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ARRGH AUTOMATED RESEARCH REPORT

GENERATION HOTLINE

This stuff presumably looks to you as if it were generated by a human. Such is not the case. Instead, someone has requested that we pull it out of the hat of a pirate who has grown out of the shoulder of our pet parrot “Laura” (as above). What these chronological lists are: they are research reports compiled by ARRGH algorithms out of a database of modules which we term the Kouroo Contexture (this is data mining). To respond to such a request for information we merely push a button. HDT WHAT? INDEX

WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR

Commonly, the first output of the algorithm has obvious deficiencies and we need to go back into the modules stored in the contexture and do a minor amount of tweaking, and then we need to punch that button again and recompile the chronology — but there is nothing here that remotely resembles the ordinary “writerly” process you know and love. As the contents of this originating contexture improve, and as the programming improves, and as funding becomes available (to date no funding whatever has been needed in the creation of this facility, the entire operation being run out of pocket change) we expect a diminished need to do such tweaking and recompiling, and we fully expect to achieve a simulation of a generous and untiring robotic research librarian. Onward and upward in this brave new world.

First come first serve. There is no charge. Place requests with . Arrgh.