Chapter XV: Republican Humanism

During the period when England, as a European power, was doing the errands of the Holy Alliance, and within her own borders was oppressing the Roman Catholics and reducing the lower classes to distressful poverty by unduly favouring the landowners, there was a steady increase in the number of Englishmen who left their own country to live the life of knights-errant of freedom, and, as it were, remind the world of England's ancient fame as the protector of national independence. Such Englishmen were General Wilson, who, under Bolivar, liberated South America, and Admiral Cochrane, who won fame first in the Brazilian and then in the Greek war of liberation. And to this class also belongs _Walter Savage Landor_, the proudest and most singular figure in the literary world of his period.

Landor, born at Warwick in 1775, was the descendant of an ancient family and the heir of princely wealth. He studied at Oxford. In 1802 he resided for a time in Paris. On his return he sold the greater part of his property in Warwickshire and bought one in another county, on which he introduced every possible kind of improvement, to ensure that his numerous tenants should live under more favourable conditions than their class elsewhere in England. He spent £70,000 on these attempts at reform, which he carried out with less understanding of human nature than desire for human welfare. His benevolence was shamefully abused by its recipients, many of whom took advantage of his unselfishness and generosity to defraud him on a large scale. Enraged by the ingratitude and bad behaviour of his tenants, he determined to sell all his property, even the land which had been in the possession of his family for seven hundred years, and to live thenceforward as a free citizen of the world. This resolution he carried out in 1806.

As soon as he heard of the Spanish rebellion against the tyranny of Napoleon, Landor went to Spain, equipped a small troop at his own expense, and fought with the rebels. He received a public letter of thanks from the Spanish Junta, along with a commission as colonel in the Spanish army. This commission he returned when King Ferdinand was restored, with a letter in which he declared that, although he should always be devoted to the cause of Spain, he could have nothing to do with "a perjurer and traitor" like its King. In this one act we have the man's character--precipitate and reckless, but proud and high-minded. In this author's breast beat the heart of an independent chieftain.

In 1815 Landor settled in Italy, where he had his home for nearly thirty years.[1] From 1835 to 1858 he lived in England (at Bath). Throughout his long life--he died in 1864, at the age of 90--he was the mortal enemy of tyranny in all its manifestations, and the ardent champion of freedom in everything. To the last he was the unwearied benefactor of political refugees and persons suffering for their opinions.

The literary activity displayed during this long, honourable life was prodigious. Landor wrote twice as much as Byron. And it is with a feeling of reverence that we open many of his books; but during the whole literary period with which we are immediately concerned, his writings were neither understood nor valued. Landor wrote without any connection with a reading public, and without receiving any encouragement from the critics, who told him nothing but that he was stiff and cold, and that his English was like a translation from a foreign language; he never enjoyed the smallest amount of popularity or any species of literary triumph. After his death he began to be admired, and about 1870 to exercise influence.

To pass from Moore to Landor is like setting foot on firm ground after rocking on the waves. Landor's distinguishing characteristic is a manly decision; he stands high as an author, but higher still as a man. He is, unfortunately, so little read that one cannot presuppose acquaintance with any of his writings, or find any point of support in the memory or fancy of one's reader on which to base criticisms; and he is not easy to describe. His decision found its most remarkable expression in an estimate of himself which is startling to many. We come upon such verdicts as this: "What I write is not written upon a slate: and no finger, not of Time himself, who dips it in the clouds of years, can efface it"; and upon such answers to the reviewers of his _Imaginary Conversations_ as: "Let the sturdiest of them take the ten worst of them, and if he equals them in ten years I will give him a hot wheaten roll and a pint of brown stout for breakfast." Such pride would have made a smaller man ridiculous, but it does not harm Landor; it occasionally becomes him. It reminds us at times of the not unjustifiable, but uncontrollably arrogant feeling which Schopenhauer had of his own deserts, only that Landor's manner is always that of the refined aristocrat, whilst Schopenhauer, with his utter disregard of the laws of common politeness, is a thorough plebeian. And on rare occasions the peculiar temperament, with its grand passionateness and its even grander productivity, reminds us of a man whose name is too great to be lightly named, but who, though infinitely Landor's intellectual superior, would perhaps have acknowledged the intellectual kinship--the solitary, severe Michael Angelo.

There was something severe in Landor's nature--the severity which goes along with firmness of character and absolute truthfulness to one's self and others. In his work there is a certain salutary harshness. The poem "Hyperbion," from the _Hellenics_, may be given as a good and very characteristic example of it.

"Hyperbion was among the chosen few
Of Phœbus; and men honored him awhile,
Honoring in him the God. But others sang
As loudly; and the boys as loudly cheer'd.
Hyperbion (more than bard should be) was wroth,
And thus he spake to Phœbus: 'Hearest thou,
O Phœbus, the rude rabble from the field,
Who swear that they have known thee ever since
Thou feddest for Admetus his white bull?'
'I hear them,' said the God. 'Seize thou the first,
And haul him up above the heads of men,
And thou shalt hear them shout for thee as pleas'd.'
Headstrong and proud Hyperbion was: the crown
Of laurel on it badly cool'd his brow:
So, when he heard them singing at his gate,
While some with flints cut there the rival's name,
Rushing he seized the songster at their head:
The songster kickt and struggled hard, in vain.
Hyperbion claspt him round with arm robust,
And with the left a hempen rope uncoil'd,
Whereon already was a noose: it held
The calf until its mother's teat was drawn
At morn and eve; and both were now afield.
With all his strength he pull'd the wretch along,
And haul'd him up a pine-tree, where he died.
But one night, not long after, in his sleep
He saw the songster: then did he beseech
Apollo to enlighten him, if perchance
In what he did he had done aught amiss.
'Thou hast done well, Hyperbion!' said the God,
'As I did also to one Marsyas
Some years ere thou wert born: but better 'twere
If thou hadst understood my words aright,
For those around may harm thee, and assign
As reason that thou wentest past the law.
My meaning was that thou shouldst hold him up
In the high places of thy mind, and show
Thyself the greater by enduring him.'
Downcast Hyperbion stood: but Phœbus said:
'Be of good cheer, Hyperbion! if the rope
Is not so frayed but it may hold thy calf,
The greatest harm is, that, by hauling him,
Thou hast chafed sorely, sorely, that old pine;
And pine-tree bark will never close again.'"

Seldom has an Apollo expressed himself in a less sickly-sentimental manner on the subject of mediocrity in art. Landor's contempt for it was based on the severity of the artistic demands he made on himself. He is the severest stylist among English prose writers--not stylist in the sense of virtuoso in language, for no English is less flexible than his--but in this sense, that he represents all his characters, the most commonplace and the grandest, the ancient and the modern, in the same simple Attic style. To his marked preference for the heroic and the grand is due the majestic tranquillity which as a rule characterises his _Conversations_ (the branch of literature he specially cultivated); the dialogue is Grecian in its beautiful simplicity, Anglo-Roman in its proud decision. His style is pure, correct, concise; and its antique quality specially fits it for the representation of ancient Greek and Roman characters. The public assemblies in the market-place of Athens, the Senate and Forum of Rome, these live in his _Conversations_ with the life of their own day. Modern dialogue flowed much less easily and naturally from his pen; he was successful in the more modern _Conversations_ only when the situation was of such a nature as to be receptive of life and warmth from his own concealed indignation.

To make acquaintance with Landor in his full vigour and brilliancy one must read his _Pericles and Aspasia_, a tale in epistolary form. It is a work of the same description as Wieland's _Aristippus_, but written in a very different spirit and style. Where Wieland is florid and coquettish, Landor is distinguished by manly grace; where Wieland is sentimental, Landor is noble and proud. This correspondence is chiselled rather than written; it represents Pericles as the republican type of noble humanity and political wisdom; and in it Aspasia is not the hetæra, but a personification of Hellenic beauty and delicacy of feeling, of pagan womanhood, and of the emancipated antique intellect and culture. There is consequently not a trace of anything resembling coquetry in the letters; everything that is small and undignified seems to lie beyond the horizon of the work and its author. But the old-fashioned epistolary form and the length of the letters make the book tedious, and the reader who has not enough patience for it will do well to turn from it to Landor's masterpiece, the Conversation between Epicurus, Leontion, and Ternissa.

This Conversation is inferior to a dialogue of Plato only in profundity of thought; it rivals Plato in grace, in revelation of character, and in naturalness. The amiable philosopher, now approaching middle-age, is walking in his beautiful garden with two young Greek girls, talking of the trivial events of the day and the serious events of life. An Attic atmosphere, a dignified sensuousness, a chaste and charming grace, distinguish the whole scene, striking us perhaps most in the little touches which describe the two girls, particularly the younger, aged sixteen, with her mixture of bashfulness and attractive straightforwardness. Landor has here created the feminine counterpart of Plato's youths; he has discovered the Greek maiden, whom Plato neglected, whom Greek tragedy represented only in solemn or majestically tragic situations, and whose outward appearance alone has been preserved for us in beautiful reliefs.

One is well repaid for one's trouble in following the windings of this Conversation. It begins with a pretty description of the surrounding scene, and with praise of the solitude which is necessary to the man who desires to think, and to write his thoughts. Behind the figure of Epicurus we here catch a glimpse of Landor, who had this same love of a retired life, at a distance from the traffic and noise of the busy world. (See Conversation between Southey and Landor.) Then Epicurus discusses playfully and charmingly with Ternissa the question whether the myth of Boreas, Zethes, and Caläis is to be accepted literally or not, whilst the elder girl teases Ternissa because of her credulousness. After this the Conversation, touching lightly for a moment on the delicious scent of the vine-leaves and on the new olive plantations, turns into an affecting, profound discussion on the fear of death. The calm, dignified attitude of Epicurus arouses the girls' admiration, and leads them violently to upbraid those who condemn and persecute him as an atheist. It comes out that Leontion has written a whole book for the purpose of refuting the charges against him made by Theophrastus. Epicurus proves to her with gentle dignity how useless replies to such attacks are, and explains to her why he will contend with no one. "I would not contend even with men able to contend with me.... Whom should I contend with? The less? it were inglorious. The greater? it were vain." Here we perceive Landor himself again. This was the very argument of the man who a few years before his death prefixed to his last book the motto:

"I strove with none, for none was worth my strife:
Nature I loved, and, next to nature, Art;
I warmed both hands before the fire of life;
It sinks, and I am ready to depart."

The first of these lines contains both a confession and a justification of what appeared to be his arrogance--that which small minds found it so difficult to understand or to pardon. The second tells what was the chief subject of his earnest study, and what, supplementing it, came next in order. The third line is an expression of the noble philosophy which supported and nourished his spirit under so much misunderstanding and opposition; and the last shows him prepared, with the quiet dignity which harmonised with his character, to fold his mantle round him and depart when his time came.[2]

Leontion continues the Conversation. "The old," she says, "are all against you, for the name of pleasure is an affront to them: they know no other kind of it than that which has flowered and seeded, and of which the withered stems have indeed a rueful look. What we call dry they call sound; nothing must retain any juice in it: their pleasure is in chewing what is hard, not in tasting what is savoury." Landor, who had to submit to reproaches for the licentiousness of his writings even from Byron (see preface to _A Vision of Judgment_), evidently derives his philosophy, as John Stuart Mill did his system of morality, from Epicurus, the pagan.

The Conversation passes lightly from one subject to another; now it turns on Ternissa's blushes at the remembrance of the statues of satyrs and fauns in the bath chamber, now on Leontion's feminine objections to Aristotle and Theophrastus. It concludes in a genuinely Greek, Epicurean, erotic manner; Epicurus and Ternissa act the scene between Peleus and Thetis, which ends with a kiss.

In this Conversation we have Landor's art and his tranquil humanism at their best. But when we turn to the modern Conversations we become acquainted with the soldier in him, the writer ever armed, ever ready for the fray, who, assuming a thousand different disguises, exposes and strikes at every form of falsehood and oppression which challenges him to the attack in his character of pagan, republican, and philanthropist. In his 125 _Imaginary Conversations_ he roams, displaying an astonishing amount of information, over the whole face of the earth--from London to China, from Paris to the South Sea Islands; and throughout the whole of history--from Cicero to Bossuet, from Cromwell to Petrarch, from Tasso to Talleyrand; in every country and every age uttering a vigorous protest against tyranny, and speaking a word, sharp as a sword, in the cause of liberty. We overhear what the Empress Catharine and her favourite maid of honour say to each other while they are in the act of murdering the former's husband; and the Conversation in question is not much inferior to one of Vitet's incomparable historical scenes, which are models in this style. We hear Louis XVIII, talking politics with the supercilious, polished Talleyrand, and notice how the uncontrollable longing for plenty of pheasants and pheasants' eggs twines itself, like a scarlet thread, through the web of all His Majesty's political plans. We listen to General Kleber talking with his staff-officers in Egypt, and are conscious of the dissatisfaction with Napoleon's tyrannical measures which runs, like a subdued murmur, through all they say. We are present at the assassination of Kotzebue, and hear Sandt, in the course of his attempts to induce Kotzebue to quit the path he is treading, pronounce his own acquittal.

It was an article of Landor's political creed that the oppressor ought to fall by the sword. All his life he advocated the death of tyrants; he was not afraid openly to express his wish that Napoleon III. might be assassinated. He was a friend and spiritual kinsman of the great European revolutionists who, with Mazzini at their head, had sworn implacable enmity to the oppressors of the nations. But it is not only as a politician that Landor shoots beyond the mark; by far the greater number of his historical Conversations suffer from the too open pursuit of some aim of his own. We are always catching sight of Landor himself. Take, for example, his representation of Catharine of Russia at the terrible moment above referred to: Landor cannot resist seizing the opportunity to discourse, in the disguise of Princess Dashkoff, on the ungodliness of Voltaire's character and the immorality of his _Pucelle_, with the aim of impressing upon us what a bad influence the French spirit had upon Russia. For with all his liberal-mindedness he is sufficiently the Englishman of his day to lay the blame of everything bad on France, and never to represent a Frenchman in any but a ridiculous or contemptible light. When, for example, he writes a Conversation between Louis XVIII, and Talleyrand, he cannot refrain from making his satire so severe--Louis' foolish speeches so imbecile, Talleyrand's tone to his sovereign so ironical--that no one can believe in the historic truthfulness of the whole. Landor desires to hear the English and Wellington praised, and desires to have Louis' incapacity plainly shown, and he is rash enough to put both the eulogy of England and the mockery of Louis into the mouth of the judicious French courtier.

In the handling of the weapons of satire, Landor might have learned much from the Frenchmen whom he disliked so heartily. But he had as great a contempt for their literature as for their politics, and despised Voltaire, the author, quite as much as Voltaire, the man. In the Conversation between himself and the Abbé Delille he uses, as a critic of French tragedy, even severer language than Lessing, and shows no more appreciation than Lessing did of the great stylistic capacity inherent in the characteristically French intellect. It strikes us as comical to hear one man reproaching another with the utmost insolence for being too polished.

One hardly needs to be told that a man with this opinion of French classic poetry was a despiser of Pope, an enthusiastic admirer of Milton, and a pronounced supporter of the reform of English poetry demanded by Wordsworth. Most of the Conversations upon literary topics are written for the purpose of eulogising Wordsworth and Southey, and reproaching the reading public for its want of appreciation of such fine poetry as theirs.[3] Keats and Shelley are also warmly praised; and Landor expresses regret that he had not made the personal acquaintance of either, and, in particular, that a false report concerning Shelley's behaviour to his first wife had kept him from calling upon that poet at Pisa. He writes of Shelley that he "united, in just degrees, the ardour of the poet with the patience and forbearance of the philosopher," and that "his generosity and charity went far beyond those of any man at present in existence." But no sooner is Byron mentioned than Landor expresses himself exactly like a poet of the Lake School. The man who believed that the two fingers which held his pen had more power than the two Houses of Parliament (see conclusion of the Conversation between Landor and Marchese Pallavicini) could never forget Byron's satire of his _Gebir_. And the remarkable friendship existing, in spite of all their political and religious differences, between him and Southey, made it equally impossible for him to forget the blows which Byron had struck at his admirer. Byron's egotism and excitable restlessness were, undoubtedly, antipathetic to Landor, but it was the treatment of Southey which influenced him most, and blinded him to many of the great poet's best qualities. The connection with Southey is, on the whole, little creditable to Landor, and Forster's long _Life of Landor_ is rendered the more unreadable by the disproportionate space allotted in it to letters from and to such an uninteresting personage as Southey. In Landor's eyes Southey had the great, and certainly rare, merit of being one of the two persons who had read and bought the poem _Gebir_ when it came out. De Quincey, who was the other, tells that in his youth he was hooted in the streets of Oxford as the one reader of that poem in the University. So we can understand how Southey, who not only bought and read, but praised it, and who, moreover, wrote a favourable review of Landor's dull _Count Julian_ in the _Quarterly_, must have seemed to the self-satisfied author a man of the rarest intellectual penetration.

It is undeniable that _Gebir_, in spite of all its passionate republicanism, is a stilted, valueless composition, which bears evident traces of having been, by a characteristic whim of its author, first written in Latin verse. There was, throughout, a Latin quality in Landor's verse. Even Gosse, who admires it, feels obliged to confess that its character, like the taste of olives, is peculiar enough to acquit any person who does not like it of the charge of affectation. It is in his prose alone that his strength lies.

But a writer whose poetry is lacking in charm of expression and lyric soul, whose dramas were neither played nor read, and who found his true province in lengthy prose dialogue, spoken in all parts of the world and at all periods of history, but unconnected with any play--such a writer could not, however noble his principles and unmistakable his Radicalism, be the man to bring about a general European revulsion to liberal opinions. He repelled by his whimsicalities and crotchets, of which such instances may be given as his defence of the burning of Rome by Nero as a hygienic measure, his characterisation of Pitt as a mediocrity, and Fox as a charlatan, or, greatest absurdity of all, his advice to the Greeks, during their struggle with the Turks, to give up the use of firearms and resort to their old weapon, the bow. He was too peculiar and too much of the solitary to have admirers and imitators; he was too incomprehensible by the ordinary mind to exercise any influence upon the general public; his virtues contributed as much as his faults--his wild manliness as much as his excessive self-sufficiency--to render him unapproachable. And if he was incapable of compromising like Moore, that is to say, of ever becoming a Whig poet, he was equally incapable of ever imparting to his Radicalism a poetic form that would entrance and captivate a whole reading public. His partial understanding of the great modern movements in religion, government, and society, entitles him to be grouped with two younger and greater men, Shelley and Byron. He fought for his ideals like a brave and proud republican soldier; but he was neither fitted to be a general nor to submit to rule; and he had not the power of inspiring a multitude of other minds.[4]

The eldest of the three freedom-loving exiles, he outlived the other two--lived so long, indeed, that he became the contemporary of an entirely different generation of English poets. Browning was his friend; Swinburne's cordial admiration sweetened the last years of his life; the dedication of _Atalanta_ shows the young man's feelings towards the old. Landor's great shade, extending one hand to Wordsworth, the other to Swinburne, seems to hover over the whole poetic development of England during a period of not less than eighty years.

[1] In the Danish edition from 1924 it says "In 1815 Landor settled down in Italy and stayed there without interruption for more than 30 years. First in 1857 did he settle permanently in England (in the city of Bath). For information about where Landor lived and when we think other sources should be used.--Transcriber's note.

[2] See _The Centenary of Landor's Birth_ in _The Examiner_ of 30th January 1875, an article written by the talented poet and critic, Edmund Gosse, who for us Danes possesses the special merit of being one of the most appreciative and best-informed foreign critics of Dano-Norwegian literature.

[3] See, for example, the two Conversations between Southey and Porson, and the survey of the English poets in _Miscellaneous_, cxvi.

[4] A satirical pamphlet which he published in 1836, _Letters of a Conservative, in which are shown the only means of saving what is left of the English Church_, made no impression.