Popular as is the belief that Landor's gifts were the offspring of profound study, he himself says: "Only four years of my life were given up much to study; and I regret that I spent so many so ill. Even these debarred me from no pleasure; for I seldom read or wrote within doors, excepting a few hours at night. The learning of those who are called the learned is learning at second hand; the primary and most important must be acquired by reading in our own bosoms; the rest by a deep insight into other men's. What is written is mostly an imperfect and unfaithful copy." This confession emanates from one who is claimed as a university rather than a universal man. Landor remained but two years at Oxford, and, though deeply interested in the classics, never contended for a Latin prize. Speaking of this one day, he said: "I once wrote some Latin verses for a fellow of my college who, being in great trouble, came to me for aid. What was hard work to him was pastime to me, and it ended in my composing the entire poem. At the time the fellow was very grateful, but it happened that these verses excited attention and were much eulogized. The supposed author accepted the praise as due to himself. This of course I expected, as he knew full well I would never betray him; but the amusing part of the matter was that the fellow never afterwards spoke to me, never came near me,--in fact, treated me as though I had done him a grievous wrong. It was of no consequence to me that he strutted about in my feathers. If they became him, he was welcome to them,--but of such is the kingdom of cowards." * * * * * "Poetry," writes Landor, "was always my amusement, prose my study and business." In his thirtieth year he lived in the woods, "did not exchange twelve sentences with men," and wrote "Gebir," his most elaborate and ambitious poem, which Southey took as a model in blank verse, and which a Boston critic wonders whether anyone ever read through. "Pericles and Aspasia," and the finest of his "Imaginary Conversations," were the flowering of half a century of thought. There are few readers who do not prefer Landor's prose to his verse, for in the former he does not aim at the dramatic: the passion peculiar to verse is not congenial to his genius. He sympathizes most fully with men and women in repose, when intellect, not the heart, rules. His prose has all the purity of outline and harmony of Greek plastic art. He could not wield the painter's brush, but the great sculptor had yet power to depict the grief of a "Niobe," the agony of the "Laocooen," or the majesty of a "Moses." Like a sculptor, he rarely groups more than two figures.