r, his admirer and his
shrewd observer. Landor, always devoted to pictures, but without much
judgment, now added to his collection; Browning in one of his letters
to Forster tells how he has found him "particularly delighted by the
acquisition of three execrable daubs by Domenichino and Gaspar Poussin
most benevolently battered by time". Another friend says that he had
a habit of attributing all his doubtful pictures to Corregoio. "He
cannot," Browning continues, "in the least understand that he is at
all wrong, or injudicious, or unfortunate in anything.... Whatever
he may profess, the thing he really loves is a pretty girl to talk
nonsense with."

Of the old man in the company of fair listeners we have glimpses
in the reminiscences of Mrs. Fields in the "Atlantic Monthly" in
1866. She also describes him as in a cloud of pictures. There with
his Pomeranian Giallo within fondling distance, the poet, seated in
his arm-chair, fired comments upon everything. Giallo's opinion was
asked on all subjects, and Landor said of him that an approving wag
of his tail was worth all the praise of all the "Quarterlies ". It
was Giallo who led to the profound couplet--

He is foolish who supposes
Dogs are ill that have hot noses.

Mrs. Fields tells how, after some classical or fashionable music had
been played, Landor would come closer to the piano and ask for an
old English ballad, and when "Auld Robin Gray," his favourite of all,
was sung, the tears would stream down his face. "Ah, you don't know
what thoughts you are recalling to the troublesome old man."

But we have Browning's word that he did not spend much time in remorse
or regret, while there was the composition of the pretty little tender
epigrams of this last period to amuse him and Italian politics to
enchain his sympathy. His impulsive generosity led him to give his old
and trusted watch to the funds for Garibaldi's Sicilian expedition;
but Browning persuaded him to take it again. For Garibaldi's wounded
prisoners he wrote an Italian dialogue between Savonarola and the
Prior of S. Marco. The death of Mrs. Browning in 1861 sent Browning
back to England, and Landor after that was less cheerful and rarely
left the house. His chief solace was the novels of Anthony Trollope
and G.P.R. James. In his last year he received a visit from a young
English poet and enthusiast for poetry, one Algernon Charles Swinburne,
who arrived in time to have a little glowing talk w