irst and last hour was now passed
together, and before they parted they were old friends. I visited Lamb
myself (with Barry Cornwall) the following month, and remember the
boyish delight with which he read to us the verses which Landor has
written in the album of Emma Isola. He had just received them through
Robinson, and had lost little time in making rich return by sending
Landor his Last Essays of Elia.

These were Landor's verses:--

TO EMMA ISOLA

Etrurian domes, Pelasgian walls,
Live fountains, with their nymphs around
Terraced and citron-scented halls,
Skies smiling upon sacred ground--

The giant Alps, averse to France,
Point with impatient pride to those,
Calling the Briton to advance,
Amid eternal rocks and snows--

I dare not bid him stay behind,
I dare not tell him where to see
The fairest form, the purest mind,
Ausonia! that e'er sprang from thee,

and this is "Rose Aylmer";--

Ah what avails the sceptred race!
Ah what the form divine!
What every virtue, every grace!
Rose Aylmer, all were thine.
Rose Aylmer, whom these wakeful eyes
May weep, but never see,
A night of memories and of sighs
I consecrate to thee.

Of the measureless Bethams Lamb wrote in similar terms, but more fully,
in an article in the _New Times_ in 1825, entitled "Many Friends" (see
Vol. I.).

On April 9, 1834, Landor wrote to Lady Blessington:--

I do not think that you ever knew Charles Lamb, who is lately dead.
Robinson took me to see him.

"Once, and once only, have I seen thy face,
Elia! once only has thy tripping tongue
Run o'er my heart, yet never has been left
Impression on it stronger or more sweet.
Cordial old man! what youth was in thy years,
What wisdom in thy levity, what soul
In every utterance of thy purest breast!
Of all that ever wore man's form,'tis thee
I first would spring to at the gate of Heaven."

I say _tripping_ tongue, for Charles Lamb stammered and spoke hurriedly.
He did not think it worth while to put on a fine new coat to come down
and see me in, as poor Coleridge did, but met me as if I had been a
friend of twenty years' standing; indeed, he told me I had been so, and
shewed me some things I had written much longer ago, and had u