It was sad to receive such letters from the old man, for they showed how a mind once great was tottering ere it fell. Blind, deaf, shut up within the narrow limits of his own four walls, dependent upon English newspapers for all tidings of America,--is it strange that during those last days Landor failed to appreciate the grandeur of our conflict, and stumbled as he attempted to follow the logic of events? Well do I remember that in conversations he had reasoned far differently, his sympathy going out most unreservedly to the North. Living in the dark, he saw no more clearly than the majority of Europeans, and a not small minority of our own people. Interesting as is everything that so celebrated an author as Landor writes, these extracts, so unfavorable to our cause and to his intellect, would never have been published had not English reviewers thoroughly ventilated his opinions on the American war. Their insertion, consequently, in no way exposes Landor to severer comment than that to which the rashly unthinking have already subjected him, but, on the contrary, increases our regard for him, denoting, as they do, that, however erroneous his conclusions, the subject was one to which he devoted all the thought left him by old age. The record of a long life cannot be obliterated by the unsound theories of the octogenarian. It was only ten years before that he appealed to America in behalf of freedom in lines beginning thus:-- "Friend Jonathan!--for friend thou art,-- Do, prithee, take now in good part Lines the first steamer shall waft o'er. Sorry am I to hear the blacks Still bear your ensign on their backs; The stripes they suffer make me sore. Beware of wrong. The brave are true; The tree of Freedom never grew Where Fraud and Falsehood sowed their salt." In his poem, also, addressed to Andrew Jackson, the "Atlantic Ruler" is apostrophized on the supposition of a prophecy that remained unfulfilled. "Up, every son of Afric soil, Ye worn and weary, hoist the sail, For your own glebes and garners toil With easy plough and lightsome flail. A father's home ye never knew, A father's home your sons shall have from you. Enjoy your palmy groves, your cloudless day, Your world that demons tore away. Look up! look up! the flaming sword Hath vanished! and behold your Paradise restored." This is Landor in the full possession of his intellect. * * * * *