rk of English literature that is not absolutely the
work of supreme genius.

For supreme genius Landor had not. His brain was not a great brain, and
he did not possess the exquisite alertness to his own weaknesses, or the
stubborn knack of confinement to things suitable to him, which some
natures much smaller than the great ones have enjoyed. But he had the
faculty of elaborate style--of style elaborated by a careful education
after the best models and vivified by a certain natural gift--as no one
since the seventeenth century had had it, and as no one except Mr.
Ruskin and the late Mr. Pater has had since. Also, he was as much wider
in his range and more fertile in his production than Mr. Pater as he was
more solidly grounded on the best models than Mr. Ruskin. Where Landor
is quite unique is in the apparent indifference with which he was able
to direct this gift of his into the channels of prose and poetry--a
point on which he parts company from both the writers to whom he has
been compared, and in which his only analogue, so far as I am able to
judge, is Victor Hugo. The style of no Englishman is so alike in the two
harmonies as is that of Landor. And it is perhaps not surprising that,
this being the case, he shows at his best in prose when he tries long
pieces, in verse when he tries short ones. Some of Landor's prose
performances in _Pericles and Aspasia_, in the _Pentameron_ (where
Boccaccio and Petrarch are the chief interlocutors), and in not a few of
the separate conversations, are altogether unparalleled in any other
language, and not easy to parallel in English. They are never entirely
or perfectly natural; there is always a slight "smell of the lamp," but
of a lamp perfumed and undying. The charm is so powerful, the grace so
stately, that it is impossible for any one to miss it who has the
faculty of recognising charm and grace at all. In particular, Landor is
remarkable--and, excellent as are many of the prose writers whom we have
had since, he is perhaps the most remarkable--for the weight, the
beauty, and the absolute finish of his phrase. Sometimes these splendid
phrases do not mean very much; occasionally they mean nothing or
nonsense. But their value as phrase survives, and the judge in such
things is often inclined and entitled to say that there is none like
them.

This will prepare the reader who has some familiarity with literature
for what is to be said about Landor's verse. It always has a certai