in a large part of his work, and who is not open to
the remark that his achievements are not all that we could have wished.
It is doubtless best to take what we can get, and not to repine if we do
not get something better, the possibility of which is suggested by the
actual accomplishment. If Landor had united to his own powers those of
Scott or Shakespeare, he would have been improved. Landor, repenting a
little for some censures of Milton, says to Southey, 'Are we not
somewhat like two little beggar-boys who, forgetting that they are in
tatters, sit noticing a few stains and rents in their father's raiment?'
'But they love him,' replies Southey, and we feel the apology to be
sufficient.

Can we make it in the case of Landor? Is he a man whom we can take to
our hearts, treating his vagaries and ill-humours as we do the testiness
of a valued friend? Or do we feel that he is one whom it is better to
have for an acquaintance than for an intimate? The problem seems to have
exercised those who knew him best in life. Many, like Southey or Napier,
thought him a man of true nobility and tenderness of character, and
looked upon his defects as mere superficial blemishes. If some who came
closer seem to have had a rather different opinion, we must allow that
a man's personal defects are often unimportant in his literary capacity.
It has been laid down as a general rule that poets cannot get on with
their wives; and yet they are poets in virtue of being lovable at the
core. Landor's domestic troubles need not indicate an incapacity for
meeting our sympathies any more than the domestic troubles of
Shakespeare, Milton, Swift, Burns, Byron, Shelley, or many others. In
his poetry a man should show his best self; and defects, important in
the daily life which is made up of trifles, may cease to trouble us when
admitted to the inmost recesses of his nature.

Landor, undoubtedly, may be loved; but I fancy that he can be loved
unreservedly only by a very narrow circle. For when we pass from the
form to the substance--from the manner in which his message is delivered
to the message itself--we find that the superficial defects rise from
very deep roots. Whenever we penetrate to the underlying character, we
find something harsh and uncongenial mixed with very high qualities. He
has pronounced himself upon a wide range of subjects; there is much
criticism, some of it of a very rare and admirable order; much
theological and political disquis