There are those who accuse Landor of having sacrificed all things to style: it were as wise to assert that Beethoven sacrificed harmony to time. If his accusers would but read Landor before criticising, a proper regard for their own reputations would prevent them from hazarding such an opinion. "Style," writes Landor, "I consider as nothing, if what it covers be unsound: wisdom in union with harmony is oracular. On this idea, the wiser of ancient days venerated in the same person the deity of oracles and of music; and it must have been the most malicious and the most ingenious of satirists who transferred the gift of eloquence to the god of thieves." Those who by the actual sweat of their brows have got at the deep, hidden meaning of the most recent geniuses, will honor and thank Landor for having practically enforced his own refreshing theory. There are certain modern books of positive value which the reader closes with a sense of utter exhaustion. The meaning is discovered, but at too great an outlay of vitality. To render simple things complex, is to fly in the face of Nature; and after such mental "gymnastics," we turn with relief to Landor. "The greater part of those who are most ambitious of style are unaware of all its value. Thought does not separate man from the brutes; for the brutes think: but man alone thinks beyond the moment and beyond himself. Speech does not separate them; for speech is common to all, perhaps more or less articulate, and conveyed and received through different organs in the lower and more inert. Man's thought, which seems imperishable, loses its form, and runs along from proprietor to impropriator, like any other transitory thing, unless it is invested so becomingly and nobly that no successor can improve upon it by any new fashion or combination. For want of dignity or beauty, many good things are passed and forgotten; and much ancient wisdom is overrun and hidden by a rampant verdure, succulent, but unsubstantial.... Let those who look upon style as unworthy of much attention ask themselves how many, in proportion to men of genius, have excelled in it. In all languages, ancient and modern, are there ten prose-writers at once harmonious, correct, and energetic?" * * * * *