guing bishops.

Landor's critical utterances reveal the same tendencies. Much of the
criticism has of course an interest of its own. It is the judgment of a
real master of language upon many technical points of style, and the
judgment, moreover, of a poet who can look even upon classical poets as
one who breathes the same atmosphere at an equal elevation, and who
speaks out like a cultivated gentleman, not as a schoolmaster or a
specialist. But putting aside this and the crotchets about spelling,
which have been dignified with the name of philological theories, the
general direction of his sympathies is eminently characteristic. Landor
of course pays the inevitable homage to the great names of Plato, Dante,
and Shakespeare, and yet it would be scarcely unfair to say that he
hates Plato, that Dante gives him far more annoyance than pleasure, and
that he really cares little for Shakespeare. The last might be denied on
the ground of isolated expressions. 'A rib of Shakespeare,' he says,
'would have made a Milton: the same portion of Milton all poets born
ever since.' But he speaks of Shakespeare in conventional terms, and
seldom quotes or alludes to him. When he touches Milton his eyes
brighten and his voice takes a tone of reverent enthusiasm. His ear is
dissatisfied with everything for days and weeks after the harmony of
'Paradise Lost.' 'Leaving this magnificent temple, I am hardly to be
pacified by the fairly-built chambers, the rich cupboards of embossed
plate, and the omnigenous images of Shakespeare.' That is his genuine
impression. Some readers may appeal to that 'Examination of Shakespeare'
which (as we have seen) was held by Lamb to be beyond the powers of any
other writer except its hero. I confess that, in my opinion, Lamb could
have himself drawn a far more sympathetic portrait of Shakespeare, and
that Scott would have brought out the whole scene with incomparably
greater vividness. Call it a morning in an English country-house in the
sixteenth century, and it will be full of charming passages along with
some laborious failures. But when we are forced to think of Slender and
Shallow, and Sir Hugh Evans, and the Shakespearian method of
portraiture, the personages in Landor's talk seem half asleep and
terribly given to twaddle. His view of Dante is less equivocal. In the
whole 'Inferno,' Petrarca (evidently representing Landor) finds nothing
admirable but the famous descriptions of Francesca and Ugolino. They are