WORKS.  Landor’s reaction from Romanticism is all the more remarkable in view of his early efforts, such as Gebir, a wildly romantic poem, which rivals any work of Byron or Shelley in its extravagance.  Notwithstanding its occasional beautiful and suggestive lines, the work was not and never has been successful; and the same may be said of all his poetical works.  His first collection of poems was published in 1795, his last a full half century later, in 1846.  In the latter volume, The Hellenics,—­which included some translations of his earlier Latin poems, called Idyllia Heroica,—­one has only to read “The Hamadryad,” and compare it with the lyrics of the first volume, in order to realize the astonishing literary vigor of a man who published two volumes, a half century apart, without any appreciable diminution of poetical feeling.  In all these poems one is impressed by the striking and original figures of speech which Landor uses to emphasize his meaning.

It is by his prose works, largely, that Landor has won a place in our literature; partly because of their intrinsic worth, their penetrating thought, and severe classic style; and partly because of their profound influence upon the writers of the present age.  The most noted of his prose works are his six volumes of Imaginary Conversations (1824-1846).  For these conversations Landor brings together, sometimes in groups, sometimes in couples, well-known characters, or rather shadows, from the four corners of the earth and from the remotest ages of recorded history.  Thus Diogenes talks with Plato, AEsop with a young slave girl in Egypt, Henry VIII with Anne Boleyn in prison, Dante with Beatrice, Leofric with Lady Godiva,—­all these and many others, from Epictetus to Cromwell, are brought together and speak of life and love and death, each from his own view point.  Occasionally, as in the meeting of Henry and Anne Boleyn, the situation is tense and dramatic; but as a rule the characters simply meet and converse in the same quiet strain, which becomes, after much reading, somewhat monotonous.  On the other hand, one who reads the Imaginary Conversations is lifted at once into a calm and noble atmosphere which braces and inspires him, making him forget petty things, like a view from a hilltop.  By its combination of lofty thought and severely classic style the book has won, and deserves, a very high place among our literary records.

The same criticism applies to Pericles and Aspasia, which is a series of imaginary letters, telling the experiences of Aspasia, a young lady from Asia Minor, who visits Athens at the summit of its fame and glory, in the great age of Pericles.  This is, in our judgment, the best worth reading of all Landor’s works.  One gets from it not only Landor’s classic style, but—­what is well worth while—­a better picture of Greece in the days of its greatness than can be obtained from many historical volumes.