Landor.—­A sweeper of the Haram. [112] A sweeper of the Haram is equally in false costume whether assuming the wreath of Musaeus or wearing the bonnet of a captain of Suliotes. I ought to have been chosen a leader of the Greeks.  I would have led them against the turbaned Turk to victory, armed not with muskets or swords but with bows and arrows, and mailed not in steel cuirasses or chain armour but in cork caps and cork shirts.  Nothing is so cool to the head as cork, and by the use of cork armour the soldier who cannot swim has all the advantage of him who can.  At the head of my swimming archers I would have astonished the admirers of Leander and Byron in the Dardanelles, and I would have proved myself a Duck worth two of the gallant English admiral who tried in vain to force that passage.  The Sultan should have beheld us in Stamboul, and we would have fluttered his dovecote within the Capi—–­

[Footnote 112:  Vol. i. p. 301.—­Vol. ii. p. 222, 223.]

North.—­I will not tempt you further.  Let us proceed to business.  To what am I indebted for the honour of this visit, Mr. Landor?

Landor.—­I sent you the manuscript of a new Imaginary Conversation between Porsou and Southey.

North.—­A sort of abnegation of your former one.  For what purpose did you send it to me?

Landor.—­For your perusal.  Have you read it?

North.—­I have, and I do not find it altogether new.

Landor.—­How?

North.—­I have seen some part of it in print before.

Landor.—­Where?

North.—­In a production of your own.

Landor.—­Impossible!

North.—­In a rhymed lampoon printed in London in 1836.  It is called “A Satire on Satirists, and Admonition to Detractors.”  Do you know such a thing?

Landor.—­(Aside.  Unlucky! some good-natured friend has sent him that suppressed pamphlet.) Yes, Mr. North; a poetical manifesto of mine with that title was printed but not published.

North.—­No, only privately distributed among friends.  It contained some reflections on Wordsworth.

Landor.—­It did.

North.—­Why did you suppress it?

Landor.—­Because I was ashamed of it.  Byron and others had anticipated me.  I had produced nothing either new or true to damage Wordsworth.

North.—­Yet you have now, in this article that you offer me, reproduced the same stale gibes.

Landor.—­But I have kept them in salt for six years:  they will now have more flavour.  I have added some spice, too.

North.—­Which you found wrapt up in old leaves of the Edinburgh Review.

Landor.—­Not the whole of it; a part was given to me by acquaintances of the poet.

North.—­Eavesdroppers about Rydal Mount and Trinity Lodge.  It was hardly worth your acceptance.