d never
has been successful; and the same may be said of all his poetical works.
His first collection of poems was published in 1795, his last a full half
century later, in 1846. In the latter volume, _The Hellenics_,--which
included some translations of his earlier Latin poems, called _Idyllia
Heroica,--_one has only to read "The Hamadryad," and compare it with the
lyrics of the first volume, in order to realize the astonishing literary
vigor of a man who published two volumes, a half century apart, without any
appreciable diminution of poetical feeling. In all these poems one is
impressed by the striking and original figures of speech which Landor uses
to emphasize his meaning.

It is by his prose works, largely, that Landor has won a place in our
literature; partly because of their intrinsic worth, their penetrating
thought, and severe classic style; and partly because of their profound
influence upon the writers of the present age. The most noted of his prose
works are his six volumes of _Imaginary Conversations_ (1824-1846). For
these conversations Landor brings together, sometimes in groups, sometimes
in couples, well-known characters, or rather shadows, from the four corners
of the earth and from the remotest ages of recorded history. Thus Diogenes
talks with Plato, AEsop with a young slave girl in Egypt, Henry VIII with
Anne Boleyn in prison, Dante with Beatrice, Leofric with Lady Godiva,--all
these and many others, from Epictetus to Cromwell, are brought together and
speak of life and love and death, each from his own view point.
Occasionally, as in the meeting of Henry and Anne Boleyn, the situation is
tense and dramatic; but as a rule the characters simply meet and converse
in the same quiet strain, which becomes, after much reading, somewhat
monotonous. On the other hand, one who reads the _Imaginary Conversations_
is lifted at once into a calm and noble atmosphere which braces and
inspires him, making him forget petty things, like a view from a hilltop.
By its combination of lofty thought and severely classic style the book has
won, and deserves, a very high place among our literary records.

The same criticism applies to _Pericles and Aspasia_, which is a series of
imaginary letters, telling the experiences of Aspasia, a young lady from
Asia Minor, who visits Athens at the summit of its fame and glory, in the
great age of Pericles. This is, in our judgment, the best worth reading of
all Landor's works. One