and loses the ear of the world. Certainly Landor made this choice, and by it he must stand.
Let us take an example from the best of Landor's work, and from that region of classical art where it is wholly competent,—the brief description of small objects:—
"The ever-sacred cup
Of the pure lily hath between my hands
Felt safe, unsoiled, nor lost one grain of gold."
How completely, how distinctly, the image is given,—its form, its transparent purity, its fragile and trembling gold! How free from any other than a strictly artistic charm! And yet how different is its method of appeal from Shelley's
"tender blue-bells, at whose birth
The sod scarce heaved;"
from Shakespeare's
"daffodils
That come before the swallow dares, and take
The winds of March with beauty."
Or, to select an illustration, also of Landor's best, when the image, no less objective, yields of itself an infinite suggestion:—
"Borgia, thou once wert almost too august
And high for adoration; now thou 'rt dust.
All that remains of thee these plaits unfold,
Calm hair meandering in pellucid gold."
