ss, but somehow we are not
advancing. Naturally flesh and blood grow weary when there is no
apparent end to a discussion, except that the author must in time be
wearied of performing variations upon a single theme.

We are more easily reconciled to some other faults which are rather due
to expectations raised by his critics than to positive errors. No one,
for example, would care to notice an anachronism, if Landor did not
occasionally put in a claim for accuracy. I have no objection whatever
to allow Hooker to console Bacon for his loss of the chancellorship, in
calm disregard of the fact that Hooker died some twenty years before
Bacon rose to that high office. The fault can be amended by substituting
any other name for Hooker's. Nor do I at all wish to find in Landor
that kind of archaeological accuracy which is sought by some composers of
historical romances. Were it not that critics have asserted the
opposite, it would be hardly worth while to say that Landor's style
seldom condescends to adapt itself to the mouth of the speaker, and that
from Demosthenes to Porson every interlocutor has palpably the true
Landorian trick of speech. Here and there, it is true, the effect is
rather unpleasant. Pericles and Aspasia are apt to indulge in criticism
of English customs, and no weak regard for time and place prevents
Eubulides from denouncing Canning to Demosthenes. The classical dress
becomes so thin on such occasions, that even the small degree of
illusion which one may fairly desiderate is too rudely interrupted. The
actor does not disguise his voice enough for theatrical purposes. It is
perhaps a more serious fault that the dialogue constantly lapses into
monologue. We might often remove the names of the talkers as useless
interruptions. Some conversations might as well be headed, in legal
phraseology, Landor _v._ Landor, or at most Landor _v._ Landor and
another--the other being some wretched man of straw or Guy Faux effigy
dragged in to be belaboured with weighty aphorisms and talk obtrusive
nonsense. Hence sometimes we resent a little the taking in vain of the
name of some old friend. It is rather too hard upon Sam Johnson to be
made a mere 'passive bucket' into which Horne Tooke may pump his
philological notions, with scarcely a feeble sputter or two to represent
his smashing retorts.

There is yet another criticism or two to be added. The extreme
scrupulosity with which Landor polishes his style and removes
super