Excerpt from Imaginary Conversations The statement will hardly be challenged that the general reader knows almost nothing of the career and work of Walter Savage Landor. Even the student of literature, unless he is specially well read and himself a classicist, is apt to know little of the author of "Count Julian," "Gebir," and the "Imaginary Conversations of Literary Men and Statesmen" and his rare devotion to the Roman Muse. Nevertheless, he was in many respects a remarkable figure in the literary life and activities of his age, an unrivalled prose writer, and a poet of the motherland of many and great gifts, of whom so high an authority as Swinburne affirms that "he has won for himself such a double crown of glory in verse and in prose as has been won by no other Englishman but Milton." The eulogy may seem extravagant; but it comes from one who can well appreciate the rare craftsmanship of a fellow poet and man of letters, for Landor, whatever he lacked in imagination, had an incomparable literary style and did much fine creative work, however wanting it was in continuity, in unifying power, and in the qualities that inflame, inspire, and abide in the human heart. With all his defects, which, however, are mainly those of character and temperament, Landor is nevertheless worthy of high honor, and his genius should win for him a more exalted place in the annals of letters. What a new century may do for him and his reputation, it would be idle to speculate upon. Hitherto he has sung but to "the few and fit," and with all his accomplishments he has, in great measure, failed to win the ear of the world, or to be known save, for the most part, through anthologies and treasuries of choice prose. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.