_North_.--Both original, no doubt; only, as Puff says in the _Critic_, one of you thought of it the first, that's all. But how busy would Wordsworth be, and how we should laugh at him for his pains, if he were to set about reclaiming the thousands of ideas that have been pilfered from him, and have been made the staple of volumes of poems, sermons, and philosophical treatises without end! He makes no stir about such larcenies. And what a coil have you made about that eternal sea-shell, which you say he stole from you, and which, we know, is the true and trivial cause of your hostility towards him! _Landor_.--Surely I am an ill-used man, Mr. North. My poetry, if not worth five shillings, nor thanks, nor acknowledgment, was yet worth borrowing and putting on. I, the author of _Gebir_, Mr. North, --do you mark me? _North_.--Yes; the author of Gebir and Gebirus; think of that, St. Crispin and Crispanus! "Sing me the fates of Gebir, and the Nymph Who challenged Tamar to a wrestling match, And on the issue pledged her precious shell. Above her knees she drew the robe succinct; Above her breast, and just below her arms. 'She, rushing at him, closed, and floor'd him flat. And carried off the prize, a bleating sheep; The sheep she carried easy as a cloak, And left the loser blubbering from his fall, And for his vanish'd mutton. Nymph divine! I cannot wait describing how she came; My glance first lighted on her nimble feet; Her feet resembled those long shells explored By him who, to befriend his steed's dim sight, Would blow the pungent powder in his eye.'" [117] Is that receipt for horse eye-powder to be found in White's Farriery, Mr. Landor? [Footnote 117: The lines within inverted commas, are Mr. Landor's, without alteration.] _Landor_.--Perhaps not, Mr. North. Will you cease your fooling, and allow me to proceed? "I," the author of _Gebir_, "never lamented when I believed it lost." The MS. was mislaid at my grandmother's, and lay undiscovered for four years. "I saw it neglected; and never complained. Southey and Forster have since given it a place whence men of lower stature are in vain on tiptoe to take it down. It would have been honester and more decorous if the writer of certain verses had mentioned from what bar he took his wine." [118] Now keep your ears open, Mr. North; I will read my verses first, and then Wordsworth's. Here they are. I always carry a copy of them both in my pocket. Listen! [Footnote 118: Mr. Landor's printed complaint, _verbatim_, from his "Satire on Satirists."] _North_.--List, oh list! I am all attention, Mr. Landor. _Landor_ (reads.)-- "But I have sinuous shells of pearly hue Within, and they that lustre have imbibed In the sun's palace-porch, where, when unyoked, His chariot-wheel stands midway in the wave." "Shake one, and it awakens--then apply Its polish'd lip to your attentive ear, And it remembers its august abodes, And murmurs as the ocean murmurs there."