door with a lady on his arm. Now, Landor
was a gentleman of most scrupulous
politeness, and in his carriage of himself
towards ladies there was a certain mixture of
stateliness and deference, belonging to quite
another time and, as MR. PEPYS would
observe, "mighty pretty to see." If he
could by any effort imagine himself
committing such a high crime and
misdemeanour as that in question, he could only
imagine himself as doing it of a set purpose,
under the sting of some vast injury,
to inflict a great affront. A deliberately
designed affront on the part of another
man, it therefore remained to the end of
his days. The manner in which, as time
went on, he permeated the unfortunate
lord's ancestry with this offence, was
whimsically characteristic of Landor. The
writer remembers very well, when only
the individual himself was held responsible
in the story for the breach of good breeding;
but in another ten years or so, it began
to appear that his father had always
been remarkable for ill manners; and in
yet another ten years or so, his grandfather
developed into quite a prodigy of coarse
behaviour.

Mr. Boythorn—if he may again be quoted—
said of his adversary, Sir Leicester Dedlock:
"That fellow is, and his father was,
and his grandfather was, the most stiff-necked,
arrogant, imbecile, pig-headed numskull, ever,
  by some inexplicable mistake of Nature,
born in any station of life but a walking-stick's!"

The strength of some of Mr. Landor's
most captivating kind qualities was
traceable to the same source. Knowing how
keenly he himself would feel the being at
any small social disadvantage, or the being
unconsciously placed in any ridiculous light,
he was wonderfully considerate of shy
people, or of such as might be below the
level of his usual conversation, or otherwise
out of their element. The writer once
observed him in the keenest distress of mind
in behalf of a modest young stranger who
came into a drawing-room with a glove on
his head. An expressive commentary on
this sympathetic condition, and on the
delicacy with which he advanced to the
young stranger's rescue, was afterwards
furnished by himself at a friendly dinner at
Gore House, when it was the most
delightful of houses. His dress say, his cravat
or shirt-collar had become slightly
disarranged on a hot evening, and Count
D'Orsay laughingly called his attention to
the circumstance as we rose from table.

Landor became flushed, and greatly agitated:
"My dear Count D'Orsay, I thank
you! My dear Count D'Orsay, I thank you
from my soul for pointing out to me the
abominable condition to which I am
reduced! If I had entered the Drawing-room,
and presented myself before Lady
Blessington in so absurd a light, I would
have instantly gone home, put a pistol to
my head, and blown my brains out!"

Mr. Porster tells a similar story of his
keeping a company waiting dinner, through
losing his way; and of his seeing no
remedy for that breach of politeness but
cutting his throat, or drowning himself,
unless a countryman whom he met could
direct him by a short road to the house
where the party were assembled. Surely
these are expressive notes on the gravity
and reality of his explosive inclinations to
kill kings!

His manner towards boys was charming,
and the earnestness of his wish to be on
equal terms with them and to win their
confidence was quite touching. Few,
reading Mr. Forster's book, can fail to see
in this, his pensive remembrance of that
"studious wilful boy at once shy and
impetuous," who had not many intimacies at
Rugby, but who was " generally popular
and respected, and used his influence often
to save the younger boys from undue
harshness or violence." The impulsive yearnings
of his passionate heart towards his own
boy, on their meeting at Bath, after years
of separation, likewise burn through this
phase of his character.

But a more spiritual, softened, and unselfish
aspect of it, was to be derived from
his respectful belief in happiness which
he himself had missed. His marriage
had not been a felicitous one— it may be
fairly assumed for either side—but no trace
of bitterness or distrust concerning other
marriages was in his mind. He was never
more serene than in the midst of a domestic
circle, and was invariably remarkable for
a perfectly benignant interest in young
couples and young lovers. That, in his
ever-fresh fancy, he conceived in this
association innumerable histories of himself
involving far more unlikely events that
never happened than Isaac D' Israeli ever
imagined, is hardly to be doubted; but as
to this part of his real history he was mute,
or revealed his nobleness in an impulse to
be generously just. We verge on delicate
ground, but a slight remembrance rises in
the writer which can grate nowhere. Mr.
Forster relates how a certain friend, being