It was a modest house in a modest street that Landor inhabited during the last six years of his life. Tourists can have no recollection of the Via Nunziatina, directly back of the "Carmine" in the old part of Florence; but there is no loving lounger about those picturesque streets that does not remember how, strolling up the Via dei Seragli, one encounters the old shrine to the Madonna, which marks the entrance to that street made historical henceforth for having sheltered a great English writer. There, half-way down the via, in that little two-story casa, No. 2671, dwelt Walter Savage Landor, with his English housekeeper and cameriera. Sitting-room, bed-room, and dining-room opened into each other; and in the former he was always found, in a large arm-chair, surrounded by paintings; for he declared he could not live without them. His snowy hair and beard of patriarchal proportions, clear, keen, gray eyes, and grand head made the old poet greatly resemble Michel Angelo's world-renowned masterpiece of "Moses"; nor was the formation of Landor's forehead unlike that of Shakespeare. "If, as you declare," said he, jokingly, one day, "I look like that meekest of men, Moses and Shakespeare, I ought to be exceedingly good and somewhat clever."
At Landor's feet was always crouched a beautiful Pomeranian dog, the gift of his kind American friend, William W. Story. The affection existing between "Gaillo" and his master was really touching. Gaillo's eyes were always turned towards Landor's; and upon the least encouragement, the dog would jump into his lap, lay his head most lovingly upon his master's neck, and generally deport himself in a very human manner. "Gaillo is such a dear dog!" said Landor, one day, while patting him. "We are very fond of each other, and always have a game of play after dinner; sometimes, when he is very good, we have two. I am sure I could not live, if he died; and I know that, when I am gone, he will grieve for me." Thereupon Gaillo wagged his tail, and looked piteously into padrone's face, as much as to say he would be grieved indeed. Upon being asked if he thought dogs would be admitted into heaven, Landor answered: "And, pray, why not? They have all of the good and none of the bad qualities of man." No matter upon what subject conversation turned, Gaillo's feelings were consulted. He was the only and chosen companion of Landor in his walks; but few of the Florentines who stopped to remark the vecchio con quel bel canino, knew how great was the man upon whom they thus commented.
It is seldom that England gives birth to so rampant a republican as Landor. Born on the 30th of January, two years before our Declaration of Independence, it is probable that the volcanic action of those troublous times had no little influence in permeating the mind of the embryo poet with that enthusiasm for and love of liberty for which he was distinguished in maturer years. From early youth, Landor was a poor respecter of royalty and rank per se. He often related, with great good-humor, an incident of his boyhood which brought his democratic ideas into domestic disgrace. An influential bishop of the Church of England, happening to dine with young Landor's father one day, assailed Porson, and, with self-assumed superiority, thinking to annihilate the old Grecian, exclaimed "We have no opinion of his scholarship." Irate at this stupid pronunciamento against so renowned a man, young Landor looked up, and, with a sarcasm the point of which was not in the least blunted by age, retorted, "We, my Lord?" Of course such unheard of audacity and contempt of my Lord Bishop's capacity for criticism was severely reprobated by Landor Senior; but no amount of reproof could force his son into a confession of sorrow.
"At Oxford," said Landor, "I was about the first student who wore his hair without powder. 'Take care,' said my tutor. 'They will stone you for a republican.' The Whigs (not the wigs) were then unpopular; but I stuck to my plain hair and queue tied with black ribbon."
Of Landor's mature opinion of republics in general we glean much from a passage of the "Pentameron," in which the author adorns Petrarca with his own fine thoughts.
"When the familiars of absolute princes taunt us, as they are wont to do, with the only apothegm they ever learnt by heart,—namely, that it is better to be ruled by one master than by many,—I quite agree with them; unity of power being the principle of republicanism, while the principle of despotism is division and delegation. In the one system, every man conducts his own affairs, either personally or through the agency of some trustworthy representative, which is essentially the same: in the other system, no man, in quality of citizen, has any affairs of his own to conduct; but a tutor has been as much set over him as over a lunatic, as little with his option or consent, and without any provision, as there is in the case of the lunatic, for returning reason. Meanwhile, the spirit of republics is omnipresent in them, as active in the particles as in the mass, in the circumference as in the centre. Eternal it must be, as truth and justice are, although not stationary."
Let Europeans who, having predicted dismemberment of our Union, proclaimed death to democracy, and those thoughtless Americans who believe that liberty cannot survive the destruction of our Republic, think well of what great men have written. Though North America were submerged to-morrow, the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans rushing over our buried hopes to a riotous embrace, republicanism would live as long as the elements endure,—borne on every wind, inhaled in every breath of air, abiding its opportunity to become an active principle. Absorbed in our own peculiar form of egotism, we believe that a Supreme Being has cast the cause of humanity upon one die, to prosper or perish by the chances of our game. What belittling of the Almighty! what magnifying of ourselves!
Though often urged, Landor never became a candidate for Parliamentary honors. Political wire-pulling was not to the taste of a man who, notwithstanding large landed interests, could say: "I never was at a public dinner, at a club or hustings. I never influenced or attempted to influence a vote, and yet many, and not only my own tenants, have asked me to whom they should give theirs." Nor was he ever presented at court, although a presentation would have been at the request of the (at that time) Regent. Landor would not countenance a system of court-favor that opens its arms to every noodle wearing an officer's uniform, and almost universally turns its back upon intellect. He put not his faith in princes, and of titles says: "Formerly titles were inherited by men who could not write; they now are conferred on men who will not let others. Theirs may have been the darker age; ours is the duller. In theirs a high spirit was provoked; in ours, proscribed. In theirs the bravest were pre-eminent; in ours, the basest."
Although a democrat, Landor was not indifferent to the good name of his own ancestors, not because of a long pedigree, but because many of these ancestors were historical personages and served their country long and well. That stock must be worthy of honorable mention which, extending with its ramifications over several centuries, gives to the world its finest fruit in its latest scion. It is a satisfaction to spring from hidalgo blood when the advantages of gentle rearing are demonstrated by being greater than one's fathers. In Lander's most admirable "Citation and Examination of William Shakespeare," the youngster whom Sir Silas Gough declares to be as "deep as the big tankard" says, "out of his own head":—"Hardly any man is ashamed of being inferior to his ancestors, although it is the very thing at which the great should blush, if, indeed, the great in general descended from the worthy. I did expect to see the day, and, although I shall not see it, it must come at last, when he shall be treated as a madman or an impostor who dares to claim nobility or precedency, and cannot show his family name in the history of his country. Even he who can show it, and who cannot write his own under it in the same or as goodly characters, must submit to the imputation