_North_.--There have been able Italian writers both in verse and prose? _Landor_.--In verse not many, in prose hardly any. _North_.--Boccaccio? _Landor_.--He is entertaining. _North_.--Machiavelli? _Landor_.--A coarse comedian. [103] [Footnote 103: Vol. ii. p. 252.] _North_.--You honour Ariosto? _Landor_.--I do not. Ariosto is a plagiary, the most so of all poets. [104] Ariosto is negligent; his plan inartificial, defective, bad. [Footnote 104: Vol. i. p. 290.] _North_.--You protect Tasso? _Landor_.--I do, especially against his French detractors. _North_.--But you esteem the French? _Landor_.--I despise and abominate the French. _North_.--And their literature! _Landor_.--And their literature. As to their poets, bad as Ariosto is, divide the Orlando into three parts, and take the worst of them, and although it may contain a large portion of extremely vile poetry, it will contain more of good than the whole French language. [105] [Footnote 105: Vol. i. p. 290.] _North_.--Is Boileau so very contemptible? _Landor_.--Beneath contempt. He is a grub. [106] [Footnote 106: See Mr. Landor's Polite Conversation with De Lille, Vol. i. and Note at the end, p. 309, 310.] _North_.--Racine? _Landor_.--Diffuse, feeble, and, like Boileau, meanly thievish. The most admired verse of Racine is stolen, [107] so is almost every other that is of any value. [Footnote 107: Vol. i. p. 293, 294.] _North_.--But Voltaire, Mr. Landor? _Landor_.--Voltaire, sir, was a man of abilities, and author of many passable epigrams, besides those which are contained in his tragedies and heroics, [108] though, like Parisian lackeys, they are usually the smartest when out of place. I tell you I detest and abominate every thing French. [109] [Footnote 108: Vol. i. p. 254.] [Footnote 109: We, however, find Mr. Landor giving the French credit for their proceedings in one remarkable instance, and it is so seldom that we catch him in good-humour with any thing, that we will not miss an opportunity of exhibiting him in an amiable light. This champion of the liberties of the world, who has cracked his lungs in endeavouring, on the shores of Italy, to echo the lament of Byron over Greece, and who denounced the powers of Europe for suffering the Duke d'Angoulême to assist his cousin Ferdinand in retaking the Trocadero, yet approves of French proceedings in Spain on a previous occasion. Admiring reader! you shall hear Sir Oracle himself again:-- "The laws and institutions introduced by the French into Spain were excellent, and the _king_" (Joseph Bonaparte!) "was liberal, affable, sensible, and humane." Poor Trelawney, the friend of Byron, is made to talk thus! Both Trelawney and Odysseus the noble Greek, to whom he addresses himself, were more likely to participate in the "indignation of a high-minded Spaniard," so vividly expressed by a high-minded Englishman in the following sonnet:--