"Now don't say a word. I am an old man, and if both my legs are not in the grave, they ought to be. I cannot lay up such treasures in heaven, you know,--saving of course in my memory,--and De Vere had rather you should have it than the rats. There's a compliment for you! so put the book in your pocket." This little volume is marked throughout by Landor with notes of admiration, and if I here transcribe a few of his favorite poems, it will be with the hope of benefiting many readers to whom De Vere is a sealed book. "Greece never produced anything so exquisite," wrote Landor beneath the following song:-- "Give me back my heart, fair child; To you as yet 't is worth but little. Half beguiler, half beguiled, Be you warned: your own is brittle. I know it by your redd'ning cheeks,-- I know it by those two black streaks Arching up your pearly brows In a momentary laughter, Stretched in long and dark repose With a sigh the moment after. "'Hid it! dropt it on the moors! Lost it, and you cannot find it,'-- My own heart I want, not yours: You have bound and must unbind it. Set it free then from your net, We will love, sweet,--but not yet! Fling it from you:--we are strong; Love is trouble, love is folly: Love, that makes an old heart young, Makes a young heart melancholy." And for this Landor claimed that it was "finer than the best in Horace":-- "Slanting both hands against her forehead, On me she levelled her bright eyes. My whole heart brightened as the sea When midnight clouds part suddenly:-- Through all my spirit went the lustre, Like starlight poured through purple skies. "And then she sang a loud, sweet music; Yet louder as aloft it clomb: Soft when her curving lips it left; Then rising till the heavens were cleft, As though each strain, on high expanding, Were echoed in a silver dome. "But hark! she sings 'she does not love me': She loves to say she ne'er can love. To me her beauty she denies,-- Bending the while on me those eyes, Whose beams might charm the mountain leopard, Or lure Jove's herald from above!" Below the following exquisite bit of melody is written, "Never was any sonnet so beautiful." "She whom this heart must ever hold most dear (This heart in happy bondage held so long) Began to sing. At first a gentle fear Rosied her countenance, for she is young, And he who loves her most of all was near: But when at last her voice grew full and strong, O, from their ambush sweet, how rich and clear Bubbled the notes abroad,--a rapturous throng! Her little hands were sometimes flung apart, And sometimes palm to palm together prest; While wave-like blushes rising from her breast Kept time with that aerial melody, As music to the sight!--I standing nigh Received the falling fountain in my heart."