t by
comparing it to the report of a very watchful nurse, who, without the
physician's scientific knowledge, uses her own womanly instinct in
observing every change of countenance and every movement indicating
the return of health and strength to the patient ... She has written a
very vivid and truthful account." The critic has very accurately, and,
it may be said, graphically, assigned its true value and character to
the book.

I have found it necessary in a former chapter, where I have given a
number of interesting and characteristic letters from Landor to my
wife's father, to insert a deprecatory _caveat_ against the exuberant
enthusiasm of admiration which led him to talk of the probability of
her eclipsing the names and fame of other poets, including in this
estimate Elizabeth Barrett Browning. The preposterousness of this
no human being would have felt more strongly than Theodosia Garrow,
except Theodosia Trollope, when such an estimate had become yet
more preposterous. But Landor, whose unstinted admiration of Mrs.
Browning's poetry is vigorously enough expressed in his own strong
language, as may be seen in Mr. Forster's pages, would not have
dreamed of instituting any such comparison at a later day. But that
his critical acumen and judgment were not altogether destroyed by the
enthusiasm of his friendship, is, I think, shown by the following
little poem by Theodosia Trollope, written a few years after the birth
of her child. I don't think I need apologise for printing it.

The original MS. of it before me gives no title; nor do I remember
that the authoress ever assigned one to the verses.

I.

"In the noon-day's golden pleasance,
Little Bice, baby fair,
With a fresh and flowery presence,
Dances round her nurse's chair,
In the old grey loggia dances, haloed by her shining hair.

II.

"Pretty pearl in sober setting,
Where the arches garner shade!
Cones of maize like golden netting,
Fringe the sturdy colonnade,
And the lizards pertly pausing glance across the balustrade.

III.

"Brown cicala drily proses,
Creaking the hot air to sleep,
Bounteous orange flowers and roses,
Yield the wealth of love they keep,
To the sun's imperious ardour in a dream of fragrance deep.

IV.

"And a cypress, mystic hearted,
Cleaves the quiet dome of light
With its black green masses parted
But by gaps of blacker night,