Various - The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866

On the stubbornness of Status Quo none have written better than Landor. "Unbendingness, in the moral as in the vegetable world, is an indication as frequently of unsoundness as of strength. Indeed, wise men, kings as well as others, have been free from it. Stiff necks are diseased ones."

It was impossible to be in Landor's society a half-hour and not reap advantage. His great learning, varied information, extensive acquaintance with the world's celebrities, ready wit, and even readier repartee, rendered his conversation wonderfully entertaining. He would narrate anecdote after anecdote with surprising accuracy, being possessed of a singularly retentive memory, that could refer to a catalogue of notables far longer than Don Giovanni's picture-gallery of conquests. Names, it is true, he was frequently unable to recall, and supplied their place with a "God bless my soul, I forget everything"; but facts were indelibly stamped upon his mind. He referred back to the year one with as much facility as a person of the rising generation invokes the shade of some deed dead a few years. I looked with wonder upon a person who remembered Napoleon Bonaparte as a slender young man, and listened with delight to a voice from so dim a past. "I was in Paris," said Landor one day, "at the time that Bonaparte made his entrance as First Consul. I was standing within a few feet of him when he passed, and had a capital good look at him. He was exceedingly handsome then, with a rich olive complexion and oval face, youthful as a girl's. Near him rode Murat, mounted upon a gold-clad charger,—and very handsome he was too, but coxcombical."

Like the rest of human kind, Landor had his prejudices,—they were very many. Foremost among them was an antipathy to the Bonaparte family. It is not necessary to have known him personally to be aware of his detestation of the first Napoleon, as in the conversation between himself, an English and a Florentine visitor, he gives expression to a generous indignation, which may well be inserted here, as it contains the pith of what Landor repeated in many a social talk. "This Holy Alliance will soon appear unholy to every nation in Europe. I despised Napoleon in the plenitude of his power no less than others despise him in the solitude of his exile: I thought him no less an impostor when he took the ermine, than when he took the emetic. I confess I do not love him the better, as some mercenaries in England and Scotland do, for having been the enemy of my country; nor should I love him the less for it, had his enmity been principled and manly. In what manner did this cruel wretch treat his enthusiastic admirer and humble follower, Toussaint l'Ouverture? He was thrown into a subterranean call, solitary, dark, damp, pestiferously unclean, where rheumatism racked his limbs, and where famine terminated his existence." Again, in his written opinions of Cæsar, Cromwell, Milton, and Bonaparte, Landor criticises the career of the latter with no fondness, but with much truth, and justly says, that "Napoleon, in the last years of his sovereignty, fought without aim, vanquished without glory, and perished without defeat."

Great as was Landor's dislike to the uncle, it paled before his detestation of the reigning Emperor,—a detestation too general to be designated an idiosyncrasy on the part of the poet. We always knew who was meant when a sentence was prefaced with "that rascal" or "that scoundrel,"—such were the epithets substituted for the name of Louis Napoleon. Believing the third Napoleon to be the worst enemy of his foster-mother, Italy, as well as of France, Landor bestowed upon him less love, if possible, than the majority of Englishmen. Having been personally acquainted with the Emperor when he lived in England as an exile, Landor, unlike many of Napoleon's enemies, acknowledged the superiority of his intellect. "I used to see a great deal of the Prince when he was in London. I met him very frequently of an evening at Lady Blessington's, and had many conversations with him, as he always sought me and made himself particularly civil. He was a very clever man, well informed on most subjects. The fops used to laugh at him, and call him a bore. A coxcombical young lord came up to me one evening after the Prince had taken his leave, and said, 'Mr. Landor, how can you talk to that fool, Prince Napoleon?' To which I replied, 'My Lord, it takes a fool to find out that he is not a wise man!' His Lordship retired somewhat discomfited," added Landor with a laugh, "The Prince presented me with his work on Artillery, and invited me to his house. He had a very handsome establishment, and was not at all the poor man he is so often said to have been." Of this book Landor writes in an article to the "Quarterly Review" (I think): "If it is any honor, it has been conferred on me to have received from Napoleon's heir the literary work he composed in prison, well knowing, as he did, and expressing his regret for, my sentiments on his uncle. The explosion of the first cannon against Rome threw us apart forever." I shall not soon forget Landor's lively narration of Napoleon's escape from the prison at Ham, given in the same language in which it was told to him by the Prince. I would feign repeat it here, were it not that an account of this wonderful escape found its way into print some years ago. Apropos of Napoleon, an old friend of Landor's told me that, while in London, the Prince was in the habit of calling upon him after dinner. He would sip café noir , smoke a cigar, ply his host with every conceivable question, but otherwise maintain a dignified reticence. It seems then that Louis Napoleon is indebted to nature, as well as to art, for his masterly ability in keeping his own counsel.

Among other persons of note encountered by Landor at Lady Blessington's was Rachel. It was many years ago, before her star had attained its zenith. "She took tea with her Ladyship, and was accompanied by a female attendant, her mother I think. Rachel had very little to say, and left early, as she had an engagement at the theatre. There was nothing particularly noticeable in her appearance, but she was very ladylike. I never met her again."

Landor entertained a genuine affection for the memory of Lady Blessington. "Ah, there was a woman!" he exclaimed one day with a sigh. "I never knew so brilliant and witty a person in conversation. She was most generous too, and kind-hearted. I never heard her make an ill-natured remark. It was my custom to visit her whenever the laurel was in bloom; and as the season approached, she would write me a note, saying, 'Gore House expects you, for the laurel has begun to blossom.' I never see laurel now, that it does not make me sad, for it recalls her to me so vividly. During these visits I never saw Lady Blessington until dinner-time. She always breakfasted in her own room, and wrote during the morning. She wrote very well, too; her style was pure. In the evening her drawing-room was thrown open to her friends, except when she attended the opera. Her opera-box faced the Queen's, and a formidable rival she was to her Majesty."

"D'Orsay was an Apollo in beauty, very amiable, and had considerable talent for modelling." Taking me into his little back sitting-room, Landor brought out a small album, and, passing over the likenesses of several old friends, among whom were Southey, Porson, Napier, and other celebrities, he held up an engraving of Lady Blessington. Upon my remarking its beauty, Landor replied: "That was taken at the age of fifty, so you can imagine how beautiful she must have been in her youth. Her voice and laugh were very musical." Then, turning to a young lady present, Landor made her an exceedingly neat compliment, by saying, " Your voice reminds me very vividly of Lady Blessington's. Perhaps," he continued with a smile, "this is the reason why my old, deaf ears never lose a word when you are speaking." Driving along the north side of the Arno, one summer's day, Landor gazed sadly at a terrace overlooking the water, and said: "Many a delightful evening have I spent on that terrace with Lord and Lady Blessington. There we used to take our tea. They once visited Florence for no other purpose than to see me. Was not that friendly? They are both dead now, and I am doomed to live on. When Lady Blessington died, I was asked to write a Latin epitaph for her tomb, which I did; but some officious person thought to improve the Latin before it was engraved, and ruined it."