to conceive. What was best in his character, whether for strength or gentleness, had left its traces here. It was altogether a face on which power was visibly impressed, but without the resolution and purpose that generally accompany it. . . . . The nose was never particularly good; the lifted brow, flatness of cheek and jaw, wide upper lip, retreating mouth and chin, and heavy neck, peculiarities necessarily prominent in youth, in age contributed only to a certain lion-look he liked to be reminded of and would confirm with a loud, long laugh hardly less than leonine. Higher and higher went peal after peal, in loud and increasing volleys, until regions of sound were reached very far beyond ordinary human lungs."

It has not been our intention to dwell largely upon the literary productions of Landor, and we cannot even hint at the many opinions which he held, given as they are in unusual fullness in the present volume, but only to present such a brief sketch of his life as would lead our readers to take up his life and writings for themselves. He comes before us in literature in a twofold relation, as a poet and as an eulogist, or rather as a prose-dramatist. If compared with any contemporary poets, what strikes one first of all is the condensed energy of his lines, the clear, aptly chosen, sharply cut words which always stand in the right places; then you perceive that the rhythm of his verse is perfect; even his blank verse has a peculiar cadence and melody; and notwithstanding the somewhat intricate plot of "Gebir," these qualities of poetical expression have redeemed it into some sort of popularity. He goes back more than any other author to the severe simplicity of Pindar, and Theocritus, and Homer. In this lies the strength and the sure renown of his poetical writings. They can never grow old, because they are cast in language so sweet and perfect as to make them. immortal. What is true of one poem, is true of all. He early wrote at his best, and even up to the last year of his life his wonderful terseness and felicity did not fail him.

But in his prose he even surpasses himself. It has been said that the modern scholar, after exhausting the best modern authors, must still go back to Homer and Horace for the masterly expression of truth. It may with equal justice be said that the reader of our own times may range all our present literature through, and not find anywhere sentences so complete, so finished, so naturally expressed, as in Landor's "Imaginary Conversations." One hun

dred and ninety in number, they are a most wonderful embodiment of the feelings and opinions of the great leaders in ancient and modern times. He makes Pericles and Aspasia, no less than Boccaccio and Petrarca, walk anew upon the stage of life, and he invests Shakespeare, and Milton, and Bacon equally with the same life and interest. His prose style always sparkles with poetry, and more apothegms and aphorisms could be gathered from his writings than from the works of all other modern essayists put together. Not widely known, nor even generally read among scholars, the time must soon come, and this volume paves the way for it, when we shall have a convenient and readable American edition of his writings. As an author he will do more to guide the taste and form the habits of our younger writers to correct and natural expression than any one else. We have ourselves to acknowledge the debt which we owe him for this very quality. While no model should ever be closely followed, the authors whom we most take into our confidence, and keep nearest to us, insensibly shape our speech and our writings, and among the few which we can never put away from us with safety is Walter Savage Landor. Yet there is one striking characteristic which we cannot omit to mention in Landor's writings. They are as truly pagan as if they had been written in the age of Homer. Full as they are of humane and generous sentiments, they hardly recognize Christianity; and Landor himself, so far as we have any means of judging, lived and died a thorough pagan. Not a Christian feeling softens the whole volume; and not a Christian truth seems to have had any hod upon his life. Greek in style, Greek in the impulsive tone of his temper and character, he was still more Greek in the absence of the qualities of spiritual manhood.

ART. IV. - PRISON REFORM.

1. Twenty-fourth Annual Report of the Executive Committee of the Prison Association of New York, etc.

2. Reports on the Prisons and Reformatories of the United States and Canada. By E. C. WINES, D. D., LL.D., and THEODORE W. DWIGHT, LL.D.

These volumes appear in the form of Reports to the Legislature of the State of New York, made at the last and the previous ses

sions of that body, and are printed in the style of ordinary legis lative documents. It is doubtless owing in part to this inferior style of typography, that they receive not only less attention than their great merit demands, but even less than the public would give them, were they printed and bound with sufficient elegance to befit their essential and important character. For no other two volumes have recently come from the press which present such numbers of impressive and well classified facts, such an array of sound principles, and such admirable specimens of judicious reasoning and interpretation on the momentous subjects which they discuss, as the reader may find in these business-like Reports.

They contain, moreover, here and there, masterly delineations. of various inclinations and passions of the human heart, and some of the descriptions glow with touches of pathos which are not unworthy of the ablest writers of fiction. There is, for instance, in one of the papers appended to the annual Report, the story of a colon of Mettray, whose cell-door the director unlocked, in order that he might join his fellow-members of the fire company organized in the Reformatory, and hasten with them to extinguish a conflagration which had broken out in a neighboring village.

After the fire had been subdued, and the company had returned to Mettray, the officers of the institution observed that this member was missing from the ranks. Though he had been released from his solitary confinement on his promise of faithfulness, and with the generous purpose of giving him the privilege of participating with his comrades in the humane and laudable work of saving the burning village, yet the director now suspected that he had taken advantage of the opportunity afforded by his temporary absence at the fire, to betray the confidence reposed in him, and so make his escape.

But no thought of pursuing this unmanly course had entered his mind. On the contrary, he had been the bold, unselfish leader, and the very hero of benevolence, in the suppression of the work of destruction; and while in the forefront of danger, had unhappily received an injury of so serious a nature as greatly to disable him. Hence it was that when his companions with their engine were about to retrace their course to Mettray, and carry him with them, the admiring and grateful villagers gathered in great numbers around him, and demanded the privilege of bearing the generous and heroic youth in their own arms to his home.

had

Thus it came to pass that in a short time after the company reached their quarters, the director saw a throng of the thankful and considerate villagers approaching the Reformatory, conveying the wounded colon in honor upon a litter, which they softly carried upon their own shoulders.

This noble example of humanity, faithfulness, and courage is now one of the treasures of Mettray. It inspires the dwellers there with a desire to cultivate and cherish the unselfish virtues; and the knowledge of the tender sensibility and appreciation which the villagers evinced for one of their number who nobly performed his duty, binds them with strong cords of fellow-feeling to the general community around them.

It will be a source of gratification and improvement to the members of that penal community for many a year to come; and who, indeed, can mark the point beyond which its benign influence will not extend?

Such incidents, showing the happy results of kind and judicious treatment, light up the otherwise dark aspect of these narratives, which disclose the condition, treatment, wants, hopes, and aspirations of various classes of convicts.

And there can be no question that the generous and faithful qualities, as well as many other hopeful features of these classes, need to be set forth wherever they are found, and to whatever extent they really exist; for there is reason to believe that the public press gives an undue attention and prominence to the wickedness and depredations of our criminal population. Deeds of unlawful violence are extensively and attractively displayed. They are, in fact, often narrated almost as though they were honorable exploits. The manifold vicissitudes which mark the wild career of many criminals, and the perilous incidents of their lawless course, as well as the brutal features which appear in the transgressions of others, are recounted with a zest and a particularity which must be regarded as out of all due proportion to their importance. Thus there is substantial ground for the complaint, that the crimes of the lawless are made to possess an inordinate share of the public attention, so that the criminal deeds of one villain occupy a larger space in the public eye than is ever given to the worthy actions of a thousand honest men who pursue the various activities of their several employments.

In this way, there is reason to fear that the popular press be

comes, to some extent, the promoter of evil, and makes the impression that wrong-doing is a greater interest in the community, and more generally prevalent, than is really the case. Few will question that the daily newspapers, with their wide circulation and immense influence, fail, in this matter, to represent the people, the country, and the age with fairness. They are false mirrors of the times, because they reflect in excess the baser features of society.

There is no difficulty in turning public attention upon a criminal who is known to be one, so long as he remains without the walls of the penitentiary; but after its door is shut upon him, few care for his course or his condition there. Few show any interest in his welfare, or his recovery from the power of those evil propensities which have made him a criminal, a convict, and a prisoner.

This is one cause of the tardiness which marks the course of prison reform; and this, in its turn, is a source of regret to every intelligent well-wisher of mankind. There is, however, relief in the assurance that the reform does in fact make progress, and with more and more speed as time advances.

In the classic ages of Greece and Rome we see no trace of amelioration or improvement in the condition of prisoners. The history of the ancient Hebrews, with their peculiar polity and social life, discloses little progress in this direction. The public mind had perhaps less perception and consciousness of the want of it, because there were comparatively few persons confined in prisons. It was the universal sentiment that a prison should be used as a place of detention, not for punishment; and this seems to have been the invariable opinion for a thousand years later. Some of the provisions of Magna Charta rest upon this theory, which prevailed in England until a period subsequent to the days of Coke and Bacon. Indeed, the founders of Virginia and the Pilgrim Fathers of New England had made their way to this country before the English-speaking people gave much acceptance to the idea that confinement in prison could properly be substituted for more violent punishments. In France the recognition of this idea followed the Revolution, and became one of the many beneficent streams started forth by that political and social earthquake and upheaval. The principle that imprisonment could be used as a punishment for crime found a partial lodgment in the minds of our people early in the history of this country. It became strong immediately after the War of Independence and the formation of our