The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 | Page 4

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