Mr. and Mrs. Carlyle, Walter Savage Landor,
Mr. and Mrs. Robert Browning, and the Procters, I heard him declare that
one of the best talkers on any subject that might be started at the
social board was the author of "Six Months in Italy." It was at a
breakfast in Kenyon's house that I first met Walter Savage Landor, whose
writings are full of verbal legacies to posterity. As I entered the room
with Procter, Landor was in the midst of an eloquent harangue on the
high art of portraiture. Procter had been lately sitting to a
daguerreotypist for a picture, and Mrs. Jameson, who was very fond of
the poet, had arranged the camera for that occasion. Landor was holding
the picture in his hand, declaring that it had never been surpassed as a
specimen of that particular art. The grand-looking author of "Pericles
and Aspasia" was standing in the middle of the room when we entered, and
his voice sounded like an explosion of first-class artillery. Seeing
Procter enter, he immediately began to address him compliments in
high-sounding Latin. Poor modest Procter pretended to stop his ears that
he might not listen to Landor's eulogistic phrases. Kenyon came to the
rescue by declaring the breakfast had been waiting half an hour. When we
arrived at the table Landor asked Procter to join him on an expedition
into Spain which he was then contemplating. "No," said Procter, "for I
cannot even 'walk Spanish' and having never crossed the Channel, I do
not intend to begin now."

"Never crossed the Channel!" roared Landor,--"never saw Napoleon
Bonaparte!" He then began to tell us how the young Corsican looked when
he first saw him, saying that he had the olive complexion and roundness
of face of a Greek girl; that the consul's voice was deep and melodious,
but untruthful in tone. While we were eating breakfast he went on to
describe his Italian travels in early youth, telling us that he once saw
Shelley and Byron meet in the doorway of a hotel in Pisa. Landor had
lived in Italy many years, for he detested the climate of his native
country, and used to say "one could only live comfortably in England who
was rich enough to have a solar system of his own."

The Prince of Carpi said of Erasmus he was so thin-skinned that a fly
would draw blood from him. The author of the "Imaginary Conversations"
had the same infirmity. A very little thing would disturb him for hours,
and his friends were never sure of his equanimity. I was present once
when a blun