artistic skill in developing the sources and conditions of them.  In examining the parts of a landscape he would be minute; and he dealt with shrubs, flower-beds, and lawns with the readiness of a practiced landscape-gardener.  His own little grounds afforded a beautiful specimen of his skill in this latter respect; and it was curious to see how he had imparted the same faculty in some measure to his gardener—­James Dixon, I think, was his name.  I found them together one morning in the little lawn by the Mount.  ‘James and I,’ said he, ’are in a puzzle here.  The grass here has spots which offend the eye; and I told him we must cover them with soap-lees.  “That,” he says, “will make the green there darker than the rest.”  “Then,” I said, “we must cover the whole.”  He objected:  “That will not do with reference to the little lawn to which you pass from this.”  “Cover that,” I said.  To which he replies, “You will have an unpleasant contrast with the foliage surrounding it."’

Beside this warm feeling and exquisite taste, which made him so delightful a guide, his favourite spots had a human interest engrafted on them,—­some tradition, some incident, some connection with his own poetry, or himself, or some dear friend.  These he brought out in a striking way.  Apart from these, he was well pleased to discourse on poetry or poets; and here appeared to me to be his principal scholarship.  He was extremely well read in English poetry; and he would in his walk review a poem or a poet with admirable precision and fairness.  He did not intrude his own poetry or himself, but he did not decline to talk about either; and he spoke of both simply, unboastingly, and yet with a manly consciousness of their worth.  It was clear he thought he had achieved a high place among poets:  it had been the aim of his life, humanly speaking; and he had taken worthy pains to accomplish and prepare himself for the enterprise.  He never would sacrifice anything he thought right on reflection, merely to secure present popularity, or avert criticism which he thought unfounded; but he was a severe critic on himself, and would not leave a line or an expression with which he was dissatisfied until he had brought it to what he liked.  He thought this due to the gift of poetry and the character of the poet.  Carelessness in the finish of composition he seemed to look on almost as an offence.  I remember well, that after speaking with love and delight of a very popular volume of poetry, he yet found great fault with the want of correctness and finish.  Reciting one of the poems, and pointing out inaccuracies in it, he said, ’I like the volume so much, that, if I was the author, I think I should never rest till I had nearly rewritten it.’  No doubt he carried this in his own case to excess, when he corrected so largely, in the decline of life, poems written in early manhood, under a state of feelings and powers which it was impossible to reproduce, and yet which was necessary, generally speaking, for successful alteration.  I cannot but agree with many who think that on this account the earlier copies of his poems are more valuable than the later.