456 



LANDOR, WALTER SAVAGE. 



contest, by a lavish use of money to churches, 

 charities, and for more direct support, the elec- 

 tions went in favor of the Governor and against 

 his late advisers. The majority, one or two at 

 first, finally increased to about seven. In 1848 

 a new election having in the interim changed 

 the majority largely the other way, on a motion 

 of non-confidence moved by Mr. Baldwin, and 

 seconded by Mr. Lafontaine, the ministry of 

 Lord Metcalfe's preference fell. He had him- 

 self, in the mean time, left the province in the 

 last stages of a terrible disease, and died. 



Now came the period of Mr. Lafontaine's 

 greatest power. The majority of the ministry 

 was enormous; but it was overweighted, and 

 inclined to fall to pieces. But this tendency was 

 Aot observable in the Lower Canada section. 



M. Lafontaine retired from political life at 

 exactly the right period to save his reputation 

 and his credit. He had probably done all the 

 good it was possible for him to do. At an im- 

 portant and in some respects critical period ho 

 had rendered good service to the country. He 

 reconciled Lower Canada to a union it had de- 

 tested, and did much to knit together two peo- 

 ple in indissoluble bonds. But he was a finality 

 statesman, and when he retired he had reached 

 the farthest goal of progress. This was in 1850. 

 Becoming Chief Justice of Lower Canada, he 

 was created a baronet, and discharged the du- 

 ties of that exalted position with credit and 

 advantage. He died February 26th, aged fifty- 

 eight years. 



LANDOR, WALTER SAVAGE, an English au- 

 thor, born at Ipsley Court, Warwickshire, 

 January 30, 1775, died in Florence, September 

 17, 1864. lie was the eldest son of a wealthy 

 country gentleman, and was educated at Rugby 

 School and at Trinity College, Oxford ; but for 

 irregularities of conduct was rusticated and 

 never returned to the university to take his 

 degree. A certain wild strength and individ- 

 uality of character made him an unfit compan- 

 ion for the staid society of the chapel or com- 

 mon room ; and despising creeds and formu- 

 laries, and aspiring already toward Greek 

 culture and Greek love of art and freedom, he 

 gladly renounced academic restraints and dis- 

 cipline to go out into the world. Thenceforth 

 ne was in politics a republican, in religion little 

 better than a pagan. In 1795, soon after leav- 

 ing Oxford, he published a volume of poems, 

 followed in 1798 by "Gebir," an epic poem of 

 some pretensions, a favorable notice of which 

 by Southey abundantly compensated the au- 

 thor for the strictures or neglect of the smaller 

 critics a class whom he invariably despised. 

 A few years later he published a Latin version 

 of this poem. Refusing to enter the army or 

 study for the bar, he lived for some years on a 

 small stipend granted by his father, and travel- 

 led on the Continent, where he seems to have 

 imbibed a hatred of the French perfectly char- 

 acteristic of the time. Upon succeeding to the 

 paternal estates he expended large sums in im- 

 proving them ; but becoming exasperated in 



1806 by the bad conduct of some of his tenants, 

 he disposed of his whole landed property, some 

 of which had been in the family upward of 

 seven hundred years, pulled down a handsome 

 mansion recently built by him, and determined 

 to live abroad, free from the vexations incident- 

 al to a British landlord. This rash impulsive- 

 ness pervaded his literature as well as his whole 

 life. In 1808 he went to Spain to assist the 

 patriots of that country against Napoleon, 

 raised a body of troops at his own expense, 

 and contributed twenty thousand reals to the 

 cause, receiving in return the thanks of the 

 Government and a colonel's commission in the 

 Spanish army. On the return of King Ferdi- 

 nand to Madrid, and the consequent violation 

 of the constitution framed by the Spaniards 

 during their struggle for independence, Landor 

 threw down his sword, and left the country in 

 disgust, declaring he would have nothing to 

 do with a perjurer and a traitor. In 1811 

 he married Julia Thuillier do Malaperte, the 

 daughter of a French emigre of ancient family, 

 and in 1815 removed to Florence, where the 

 greater part of his subsequent life was passed 

 in literary culture arid labor. 



After more than thirty years' residence in 

 Italy incompatability of temper induced him, 

 when considerably past his seventieth year, to 

 separate from his wife and children. Settling 

 upon them his elegant villa in Florence and 

 the greater part of his fortune, he returned to 

 England, and for several winters passed a soli- 

 tary existence in Bath, cultivating few friend- 

 ships, and rather shunned by the world. A 

 man of violent temper, intolerant, revolution- 

 ary, and sarcastic, he repelled rather than at- 

 tracted. His poems, of which he published a 

 new edition in 1831 under the title of " Gebir, 

 Count Julian, and other Poems," were too se- 

 verely Hellenic in genius and style to find many 

 readers, and his Idyllia fferoica, despite their 

 elegant Latinity, appealed necessarily to a 

 small though select audience. His "Imagi- 

 nary Conversations" (5 vols. 8vo, 1824-'29), 

 written in pure nervous English, and among 

 the most finished productions in the language, 

 form his chief title to literary distinction ; but 

 even these so abound in paradox, in contradic- 

 tions, in attacks upon received opinions, for no 

 other purpose- apparently than to gratify a 

 spirit of opposition, and in theories subversive 

 of all social laws, that the public almost feared 

 while they admired them. The author seemed 

 too extravagant and dogmatical, too much at 

 war with all opinions but his own, too solitary 

 and proud in his egotism to attract general 

 sympathy. His residence in Bath, however, 

 was not an idle one. Immersed as ever in 

 books and study, he produced within a few 

 years Iris "Hellenics" (1847), " Imaginary Con- 

 versations of King Carlo Alberto and the 

 Duchess Belgiojoso on the Affairs and Pros- 

 pects of Italy" (1848); "Popery, British and 

 Foreign" (1851); "The Last Fruit of an Old 

 Tree" (1853V "Letters of an American" 



