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St Mary-le-Bow

The Church of St Mary-le-Bow is a Church of England parish church in the City of London, England. Located on Cheapside, one of the city's oldest thoroughfares, the church was founded in 1080, by Lanfranc, Archbishop of Canterbury. Rebuilt several times over the ensuing centuries, the present church is the work of Sir Christopher Wren, following the Great Fire of London (1666). With its tall spire, it is still a landmark in the City of London, being the third highest of any Wren church, surpassed only by nearby St Paul's Cathedral and St Bride's, Fleet Street. At a cost of over £15,000, it was also his second most expensive, again only surpassed by St Paul's Cathedral.

St Mary-le-Bow is widely known for its bells, which also feature in the nursery rhyme 'Oranges and Lemons'. According to legend, Dick Whittington heard the bells calling him back to the city in 1392, leading him to become Lord Mayor. Traditionally, anyone born within earshot of the bells was considered to be a true Londoner, or Cockney.

The church suffered severe damage by the Luftwaffe in the Second World War as part of the Blitz, like many churches in London. The interior was reduced to a shell and though the tower survived, fire damage made the bells crash to the floor. The church was sympathetically restored to its pre-war condition by Laurence King from 1956 to 1964. The church was awarded Grade I listed status, the highest possible rating, on the National Heritage List for England, whilst still a shell in 1950.

Foundation
Though archaeological excavations suggest an earlier Saxon building may have stood on the site prior to the Norman Conquest, the first confirmed church dedicated to St Mary on Cheapside was built by Lanfranc, Archbishop of Canterbury, in 1080. Lanfranc, who was William the Conqueror's archbishop brought over from Normandy, founded the church as part of the Norman policy of dominating London. Three major buildings were constructed as part of this policy; St Paul's Cathedral, the Tower of London, and a church on Cheapside.

The church at Cheapside was dedicated to St Mary and was constructed from Caen stone from Normandy, the same stone used in the Tower of London. The architect for the Tower of London was Gundulf, Bishop of Rochester, who may have also designed the first St Mary-le-Bow. This early church was built on two levels, with a lower undercroft partially below street level and the upper church, built above it. The lower church was constructed first and featured round stone arches, which were a novelty at the time. This led to the church being known as Sancta Maria de Arcubus (St Mary of the Arches), a name which eventually became St Mary-le-Bow, bow being an old name for arches.

11th and 12th centuries
The church was nearing completion in 1091 when it was destroyed by a violent tornado, amongst the most powerful ever to strike England. Roof rafters measuring 27-28 ft long were thrown up in the air and forced into the ground with such force that only their tips remained visible. The lower church survived, but the upper church was damaged beyond repair. The church was rebuilt, possibly in facsimile, but was destroyed again just a hundred years later, in a fire in 1196. The fire was caused by fugitive William Fitz Osbert hiding in the church tower, and to coax him out, supporters of the Archbishop of Canterbury set fire to the church. Osbert was fatally stabbed as he fled.

Late medieval period
The church was rebuilt again in the early 13th century following the 1196 fire, becoming a peculiar of the Archbishops of Canterbury and their London headquarters. It became home to the Court of Arches, to which the church gave its name. The Court of Arches, which still has its home at St Mary-le-Bow today, was the ecclesiastical court of appeal for the Province of Canterbury, founded in 1251. This allegiance to Canterbury made it the second most important church in London, after St Paul's Cathedral.

The tower partially collapsed in its south west corner in 1271, killing at least one civilian in Cheapside below, Laurence Ducket. The tower was not immediately repaired and was kept in use. From 1363 onwards, the tower's principal use was the housing of the city's curfew bell, rung at 9 pm every evening and being able to be heard as far away as Hackney Marshes.

Work to repair the tower was slow, with construction noted to take place in 1448, 1459 and 1479. The tower was finally completed in 1512, supporting a spectacular series of stone lanterns; four around the corners of the tower and one suspended in the centre by arches. These lanterns were designed to light the streets below.

Destruction during the Great Fire of London (1666)
Soon after midnight on Sunday, 2 September 1666, a fire started in Thomas Farriner's bakery on Pudding Lane, 0.7 km to the southeast of St. Mary-le-Bow. During the course of the night, the easterly wind spread the fire through the city, consuming 300 houses in the first night alone. The fire continued to grow, becoming a firestorm on Monday and sweeping west towards St Paul's Cathedral.

St Mary-le-Bow was one of over fifty churches to catch fire during the firestorm, which was only extinguished on the Thursday. The church was nearly completely destroyed, except for the tower, which survived albeit with fire damage. Attempts were made to repair the tower, but they all ultimately failed: the tower was structurally compromised from the fire and was no longer strong enough to support the ringing of bells.

Wren rebuilding
Following Christopher Wren's appointment as the King's Surveyor of Works in 1669, Wren's office was contracted to rebuild the fifty one churches of the city consumed by the fire. The Rebuilding of London Act 1670 provided the funds for this, as it included raising the tax on coal. Other than St Paul's Cathedral, St Mary-le-Bow was considered the most important church in the city, and thus, according to a document dated to 13 June 1670, at the head of the list to be rebuilt. The mason's contract for the rebuilding of St Mary-le-Bow was signed just under two months later, on 2 August.

Wren's initial designs were for a simple three bay structure and short tower, the latter topped by a simple cupola. This was revised in the same year with a much taller tower and more intricate spire. The body of the church, inspired by the Basilica of Maxentius in Rome, was completed by 1673. The tower, however, would take a further seven years to finish, being finally completed in 1680. The total cost of the rebuilding was £15,421 (equivalent to more than £2.3 million in 2021), the second most expensive of any of Wren's churches, only surpassed by St Paul's. The tower was rebuilt in Portland stone, the rest of the church in brick. The tower became such a landmark that it was known as the "Cheapside pillar".

During the rebuilding, Wren moved the position of the tower to sit directly on Cheapside, whereas the Norman and Tudor towers had sat back from the road. Whilst building the foundations for the tower, Wren came across an old Roman causeway 18 ft below ground level and 4 ft deep, which provided a solid foundation. Wren also discovered the 11th century undercroft below the ruins, but he was uninterested, believing it to be Roman. He only provided a trapdoor and ladder into the undercroft, which became the crypt for the church above it.

18th – 20th centuries
In 1820, the upper part of the spire was rebuilt and repaired by architect George Gwilt. In 1850, the church finally ceased to be a 'peculiar', coming under the jurisdiction of the Diocese of London, ending a practice started six hundred years earlier. The church continued, however, to be the home of the Court of Arches. Further alterations took place in the late 19th century, with the removal of galleries in 1867 and additional modifications from 1878-1879.

In 1914, a stone from the crypt of the church was placed in Trinity Church, New York, to mark the fact that William III granted the vestry of Trinity Church the same privileges as St Mary-le-Bow vestry.

Second World War
Beginning in 1940, the Luftwaffe began bombarding British cities from the air, a campaign known as the Blitz; London was struck especially heavily. Throughout most of the campaign, St Mary-le-Bow suffered only minor damage. However, on the final night of the Blitz, 10–11 May 1941, the church took several direct hits. A major fire started, destroying most of the building except the outer walls and the tower. The tower was not directly hit, but the fires from the church interior spread, burning out the tower floors and causing its bells to crash to the floor. The use of Portland stone in the tower, rather than the brick used in the body of the church, contributed to its survival.

From 1956 to 1964, the church was sympathetically rebuilt and restored by Laurence King to Wren's designs, at a cost of £63,000. The tower survived, mostly as Wren left it, but part of it required rebuilding due to fire damage weakening the walls. The church was reconsecrated in 1964, achieving Grade I listed status whilst still a ruin in 1950.

Plan
The church building has a rectangular plan, with the tower situated on the northwest corner, separated from the main body of the church by a vestibule. The design of the church is such that the chancel occupies the eastern end of the nave, both with north and south aisles, which are noted to be extremely narrow. A vestry adjoins the vestibule to the north of the north aisle.

Unusually, due to the addition of the vestibule separating the tower and nave, the building has a greater length north to south than east to west; measuring 79 ft from east to west but 131 ft from the north wall of the tower to the south wall of the nave. The total area of the church building is 761 m2, which according to the Church of England, makes it a "large" sized church building.

Exterior
The exterior of St Mary-le-Bow is mostly constructed from red brick with dressings of Portland stone, with the exception of the tower, which is built entirely from Portland stone. The three principal facades of the building (south, north and east) have gabled walls and pedimented centres, complete with triplets of round-headed windows. The most prominent aspect of the exterior is Wren's imposing tower, measuring 30 ft square externally and with a height of 221 feet 9 inches (67.6 m), it is the third highest of any Wren church.

The tower, constructed of Portland stone, is formed of four stages surmounted by an elaborate stone spire. The lowest stage has doorways in the north and west faces of the tower, set in substantial stone recess with added rustication. The recess has a round head and is flanked by Doric order columns, which support a moulded entablature above. The doorways inside these recesses are set between Tuscan order columns which support a Doric frieze. The second and third stages of the tower are more simple in construction, with two large square windows to the second stage, and a single round-headed window to the third. The fourth stage, housing the bell chamber, has a large round-headed opening in each wall, divided into three sections by thin mullions and filled with louvre boards. Framing the bell openings are pairs of Ionic order pilasters supporting an entablature, above which is the parapet. The parapet comprises an open balustrade between four corner pinnacles, formed of four ogee scrolls topped with small stone vases.

The spire above the tower is also formed of four stages. The lowest stage is a circular drum-shaped structure surrounded by twelve columns which have carved acanthus capitals. These twelve columns support a cornice with modillion decoration. Above the cornice is a second open balustrade, similar in design to that on the top of the tower. The second stage is formed of twelve curved flying buttresses which support a circular-shaped moulded cornice. The third stage stands on the base of the cornice, and is square in plan, with granite columns on the corners. These columns support the fourth and final stage of the spire, which takes the form of a tall, square, tapering pinnacle, surmounted by a ball and weathervane, the latter taking the shape of a winged dragon.

Interior
Only three bays make up the nave of the church, which is divided into small aisles by large round-headed arches. These arches are supported by compound piers with attached demi-columns that feature shorter pilasters for the openings and Corinthian capitals for the nave and aisles. The tunnel vault above the nave is covered in ornamental panelling that is painted blue and white and is penetrated by the clerestory windows.

The church windows are among the structure's most prominent elements following its 1964 restoration. They, along with the other furniture, vestments, etc., were created by John Hayward. All three of the east windows have rounded arches, although the central window is taller and wider than its neighbours, who have small round windows above them.

Linking the church and tower is a vestibule, featuring a tall groin-vaulted stone ceiling. The top of the vault is pierced by a removable circular trapdoor, opened to allow the bells to be lowered or raised from the tower.

Beneath the church, built on almost the same floorplan, is the 11th-century crypt. The crypt, originally built as the undercroft for the church destroyed in the tornado in 1091, is three bays in length and features Norman-era round arches, some of which contain Roman bricks, and a groined vault. The crypt is now in use as the "Café Below".

Organ
The earliest record of an organ at the church dates to 1802 when Hugh Russell of London built a small instrument formed of 13 stops and 2 manuals. This organ, like its successors, was situated on a gallery above the west doors. This organ lasted until 1867, when George Maydwell Holdich, also of London, rebuilt and enlarged the organ. He added a third manual, a pedalboard and 11 additional stops to make a total of 24.

In 1880, the organ was purchased by Walker & Sons at a cost of £255 and transferred to the Methodist Church at Thornton, Leicestershire. Walker & Sons constructed a new instrument for St Mary-le-Bow in the same year, at a cost of £1,108. This new instrument was much larger, formed of 33 stops and 3 manuals plus a pedalboard and was situated in the sanctuary at the eastern end of the church. This organ lasted unaltered until the Blitz, when following the first strike to hit the church, which only caused minor damage, it was removed for safekeeping by Rushworth and Draper.

Following the restoration of the church from 1956, the organ was remodelled in 1964. The organ was reduced in size by almost half, only 18 of the original 33 stops were reinstated and a new case designed and installed above the west door. This organ was considered by many to be a rather poor imitation of its pre-war condition but funds did not permit its replacement for 40 years.

In 2004, a project to replace the organ was launched by the church, with Kenneth Ticknell & Co chosen as builders. The project, which cost £380,000, was funded by corporate and personal donors. In January 2010, the old organ was removed, though the 1964 case, based on work by the Alsace Silbermann family, was kept. The organ was completed in August 2010 and the first recital was given by Thomas Trotter on 29 September. The new organ, which reuses the old case, has 34 stops and two manuals plus pedalboard.

The church also has a small chamber organ, formed of 1 manual and with 5 stops, made by an unknown builder. It is situated in the south nave aisle.

Early bells
The bells at St Mary-le-Bow are often considered to be the most famous peal in the world. According to legend, Richard (Dick) Whittington heard the bells in 1392 when he left the city, calling him back and leading him to become Lord Mayor. The earliest written record of bells at the church is in 1469, when the Common Council orders a curfew bell should be rung at St Mary-le-Bow at 9.00 each evening. In 1515, William Copland, one of Henry VIII's merchants, gave money for a "great bell" to be installed, with directions it should be rung to announce the curfew. With Copland's gift, the tower then contained five bells.

In the 1552 survey of church goods ordered by Edward VI, the tower is recorded as containing five bells with two additional "sanctus" bells. These five bells would later be augmented, when in 1635, six are recorded. In 1666, during the Great Fire of London, the bells and tower, along with the church, were damaged beyond repair.

Following the Great Fire and Wren's rebuilding of the church, the tenor bell of a proposed ring of eight was cast by Christopher Hodson of St Mary Cray in 1669, placed in a temporary structure in the churchyard until the tower was completed. The bell weighed approximately 52 long cwt (2,600 kg). In 1677, Hodson cast the remaining seven and hung all eight bells in the newly completed tower in a new oak frame.

18th and 19th centuries
No further work would take place to the bells until 1738 when the tenor bell was recast by Richard Phelps and Thomas Lester; Phelps had previously cast the hour bell at St Paul's Cathedral, called Great Tom, which still survives today. In 1762, Lester & Pack recast and rehung the other seven bells and added two more, to make a ring of ten, keeping the Hodson frame. The bells were rehung again in 1835 by Thomas Mears of Whitechapel and then a third time by Mears & Stainbank in 1863.

In 1881, Mears & Stainbank cast two new bells to augment the ring to twelve, rehanging the 3rd and 4th bells concurrently. This gave London its 5th ring of twelve, following St Bride's, Fleet Street; St Michael Cornhill; St Paul's Cathedral; and St Giles Cripplegate. In 1902, the bells needed rehanging again, with work taking place to the heaviest three bells by Gillett & Johnston of Croydon. This was evidently not successful, for the bells needed rehanging just 5 years later, the work given to Mears & Stainbank of Whitechapel again.

Selfridge's ring
In January 1927, following the deterioration of the fittings and the condition of the tower, the bells were declared unringable in a report first published by The Times. Over the ensuing six years, much work was done to the tower and the church to restore it, but the bells remained unringable, to much public outcry. Finally, in 1933, Harry Gordon Selfridge offered to defray the cost of restoring the bells, an offer which was accepted by the church, who gave the contract to Gillett & Johnston, who Selfridge had worked with a few years previously on bells for his Oxford Street store.

The announcement that Gillett & Johnston intended to recast the tenor, which was believed to be cracked, caused so many objections that a meeting of the Province of Canterbury's ecclesiastical court was called; the decision of the court was eventually that the tenor should be recast. Gillett & Johnston found upon removing the bells to their works in Croydon that four more of the bells (6, 7, 8 and 10) were cracked, in addition to the tenor. All five cracked bells were recast in addition to the three lightest bells, leaving only the 4th, 5th, 9th and 11th from the previous ring to be retained; these four bells were retuned. The bells were rehung in their original frame with new cast iron headstocks, ball bearings and wrought iron clappers. The frame was substantially strengthened with a massive concrete and steel grillage weighing 3.5 long tonnes (3,556 kg). The bells were rededicated by the Archbishop of Canterbury on 7 July 1933.

Shortly after their installation, the BBC World Service recorded the bells for use as a time signal, which brought the attention of the bells to a global audience; the recording survives today. On the night of 10 May 1941, the church was struck by several incendiary bombs. Though the tower was spared a direct hit, the flames from the body of the church were fanned into the tower, which acted like a furnace, destroying all of the internal floors and the frame, causing the bells to crash over 100 ft to the ground, irrevocably damaging them.

Post-war restoration
The damaged bells were removed shortly after their destruction to Mears & Stainbank's foundry in Whitechapel, but they remained in storage for more than 10 years. In 1956, as the restoration of the church began, attention turned to the restoration of the tower and the recasting of the bells. Much of the cost of restoring the tower and bells was met by the Bernard Sunley Charitable Foundation and Trinity Church, Wall Street, New York City. A new ring of twelve was cast by Mears & Stainbank in 1956, partially reusing metal salvaged from the 1933 ring. However, due to the condition of the tower, which required repairs, the bells were not hung until late 1961.

The bells were dedicated in the presence of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh by Robert Stopford, Bishop of London, on 21 December 1961. The tenor was tolled by Prince Philip at the beginning of the service. The bells were hung in a new frame, made of Javanese Jang (Dipterocarpus terminatus ). Since then, the bells have been frequently rung, both by members of the Ancient Society of College Youths who reside in or near the city, and by visiting bands of ringers, who come from across the world to ring the bells.

All the bells are named and each bell has an inscription from Psalms, the first letter of each forming the acrostic 'D. Whittington'. The largest bell weighs 41 long cwt 3 qrs 21 lb (4,697 lb or 2,131 kg), the third heaviest tenor bell in London after St Paul's and Southwark Cathedral.

In popular culture
The bells, often considered amongst the most famous in the world, have typically been used to define whether or not one is a true Londoner or Cockney; anyone born within their earshot is considered such. With the urbanisation of the City of London in the 20th and 21st centuries, the increasing population, noise pollution and the soundproofing measures installed in the belfry, the range of the Bow bells is significantly smaller than at its peak.

In 1851, the bells could be heard across north and east London, as far as Hackney Marshes, Stratford and Limehouse, with reports that they could also be heard south of the Thames in Southwark. An acoustic study taken in 2012 shows that this range has shrunk substantially, and is now confined to the eastern parts of the Square Mile and Shoreditch. With no maternity hospitals within this range and only limited residential properties, arguably the modern chance of the birth of a 'true' cockney is now very low.

The bells are also mentioned in the nursery rhyme "Oranges and Lemons": "I do not know, says the Great Bell of Bow".

Ordinarily, distances by road from London are now measured from Charing Cross but, before the late 18th century, they were measured from the London Stone in Cannon Street, or the Standard in Cornhill. However, on the road from London to Lewes, the mileage is taken from the church door of St Mary-le-Bow. To note the reference point used, mileposts along the way are marked with the rebus in cast-iron of a bow and four bells.

The church is also mentioned in the song "The London Boys" by David Bowie ("… Bow Bell strikes another night…").

It is claimed by a West Ham United F.C. Insider and a general football kit leak source that the church of St Mary le Bow will feature on the away shirt for the 2024/25 season.

Services
St Mary-le-Bow ministers to the financial industry and livery companies of the City of London. Consequently, services are held on weekdays rather than the more traditional Sunday morning. Services generally consist of two sessions of 15 minute prayer, one at 8.30 am and another at 5.45 pm on every weekday. These are supplemented by two more formal services of Eucharist, one on a Wednesday lunchtime at 1.05 pm and the second on a Thursday evening at 6.05pm.

title: St Mary-le-Bow


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Walter Savage Landor

Walter Savage Landor (30 January 1775 – 17 September 1864) was an English writer, poet, and activist. His best known works were the prose Imaginary Conversations, and the poem "Rose Aylmer," but the critical acclaim he received from contemporary poets and reviewers was not matched by public popularity. As remarkable as his work was, it was equalled by his rumbustious character and lively temperament. Both his writing and political activism, such as his support for Lajos Kossuth and Giuseppe Garibaldi, were imbued with his passion for liberal and republican causes. He befriended and influenced the next generation of literary reformers such as Charles Dickens and Robert Browning.

Summary of his work
In a long and active life of 89 years Landor produced a considerable amount of work in various genres. This can perhaps be classified into four main areas—prose, lyric poetry, political writings including epigrams, and Latin. His prose and poetry have received most acclaim, but critics are divided in their preference between them and he is now often described as 'a poet's poet' and author of perhaps the greatest very short poems in English, 'Some of the best poets, Yeats, Ezra Pound and Robert Frost among them, steered by his lights'. Landor's prose is best represented by the Imaginary Conversations. He drew on a vast array of historical characters from Greek philosophers to contemporary writers and composed conversations between pairs of characters that covered areas of philosophy, politics, romance and many other topics. These exercises proved a more successful application of Landor's natural ability for writing dialogue than his plays. Although these have many quotable passages the overall effect suffered because he never learned the art of drama.

Landor wrote much sensitive and beautiful poetry. The love poems were inspired by a succession of female romantic ideals – Ione, Ianthe, Rose Aylmer and Rose Paynter. Equally sensitive are his "domestic" poems about his sister and his children.

In the course of his career Landor wrote for various journals on a range of topics that interested him from anti-Pitt politics to the unification of Italy. He was also a master of the epigram which he used to good effect and wrote satirically to avenge himself on politicians and other people who upset him.

Landor wrote over 300 Latin poems, political tracts and essays, but these have generally been ignored in the collections of his work. Landor found Latin useful for expressing things that might otherwise have been "indecent or unattractive" as he put it and as a cover for libellous material. Fellow classical scholars of the time put Landor's Latin work on a par with his English writing.

Summary of his life
Landor's biography consists of a catalogue of incidents and misfortunes, many of them self-inflicted but some no fault of his own. His headstrong nature and hot-headed temperament, combined with a complete contempt for authority, landed him in a great deal of trouble over the years. By a succession of bizarre actions, he was successively thrown out of Rugby school, of Oxford and from time to time from the family home. In the course of his life he came into conflict deliberately with his political enemies – the supporters of Pitt – but inadvertently with a succession of Lord Lieutenants, Bishops, Lord Chancellors, Spanish officers, Italian Grand Dukes, nuncio legatos, lawyers and other minor officials. He usually gained the upper hand, if not with an immediate hilarious response, then possibly many years later with a biting epithet.

Landor's writing often landed him on the wrong side of the laws of libel, and even his refuge in Latin proved of no avail in Italy. Many times his friends had to come to his aid in smoothing the ruffled feathers of his opponents or in encouraging him to moderate his behaviour. His friends were equally active in the desperate attempts to get his work published, where he offended or felt cheated by a succession of publishers who found his work either unsellable or unpublishable. He was repeatedly involved in legal disputes with his neighbours whether in England or Italy and Dickens' characterisation of him in Bleak House revolves around such a dispute over a gate between Boythorn and Sir Leicester Dedlock. Fate dealt with him unfairly when he tried to put into practice his bold and generous ideas to improve the lot of man, or when he was mistaken at one time for an agent of the Prince of Wales and at another for a tramp. His stormy marriage with his long-suffering wife resulted in a long separation, and then when she had finally taken him back in a series of sad attempts to escape.

And yet Landor was described by Swinburne as "the kindest and gentlest of men". He collected a coterie of friends who went to great lengths to help him, and writing for the Encyclopædia Britannica Swinburne comments that "his loyalty and liberality of heart were as inexhaustible as his bounty and beneficence of hand", adding that "praise and encouragement, deserved or undeserved, came more readily to his lips than challenge or defiance". The numerous accounts of those with whom he came in contact reveal that he was fascinating company and he dined out on his wit and knowledge for a great part of his life. Landor's powerful sense of humour, expressed in his tremendous and famous laughs no doubt contributed to and yet helped assuage the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. "His passionate compassion, his bitter and burning pity for all wrongs endured in all the world, found outlet in his lifelong defence of tyrannicide. His tender and ardent love of children, of animals and of flowers makes fragrant alike the pages of his writing and the records of his life".

Early life
Walter Savage Landor was born in Warwick, England, the eldest son of Dr Walter Landor (1733–1805), a physician, and his second wife, Elizabeth (1743–1829), one of four daughters and heiresses of Charles Savage, of Tachbrook, Warwickshire. His birthplace, Eastgate House, became occupied by The King's High School For Girls. His father inherited estates at Rugeley, Staffordshire and his mother was heiress to estates at Ipsley Court and Bishop's Tachbrook in Warwickshire. Landor as the eldest son was heir to these properties and looked forward to a life of prosperity. The family tradition was Whig in reaction to George III and Pitt, and although Landor's brother Robert was the only other member to achieve fame as a writer there was a strong literary tradition in the family.

After attending a school at Knowle, he was sent to Rugby School under Dr James, but took offence at the headmaster's review of his work and was removed at Dr James' request. Years later, Landor included references to James in Latin in Simonidea with a mixture of praise and criticism and was subsequently reconciled with him. He then studied privately with Rev. William Langley, vicar of Fenny Bentley and headmaster of Ashbourne Grammar School. Langley was later mentioned in the Imaginary Conversation of Isaak Walton. Landor's temperament and violent opinions caused embarrassment at home and he was usually asked to absent himself when guests were expected. On one occasion he netted and threw in the river a local farmer who objected to his fishing on his property. In 1793 he entered Trinity College, Oxford where he showed rebelliousness in his informal dress and was known as a "mad Jacobin" since he was taken with ideas of French republicanism. His tutor Dr Benwell was impressed by him, but unfortunately his stay was short-lived. In 1794 he fired a gun at the windows of a Tory whose late night revels disturbed him and for whom he had an aversion. He was rusticated for a year, and, although the authorities were willing to condone the offence, he refused to return. The affair led to a quarrel with his father in which Landor expressed his intention of leaving home for ever.

Landor went to Tenby in Wales where he had a love affair with a local girl, Nancy Evans, for whom he wrote some of his earliest love poems referring to her as "Ione". Landor's father disapproved and he removed for a time to London, lodging near Portland Place. Ione subsequently had a child who died in infancy. In 1795 Landor brought out a small volume of English and Latin verse in three books entitled The Poems of Walter Savage Landor. Landor also wrote an anonymous Moral Epistle in pamphlet form of nineteen pages, respectfully dedicated to Earl Stanhope. It was a satire in heroic verse condemning Pitt for trying to suppress liberal influences. Although Landor subsequently disowned these "'prentice works", Swinburne wrote: "No poet at the age of twenty ever had more vigour of style and fluency of verse; nor perhaps has any ever shown such masterly command of epigram and satire, made vivid and vital by the purest enthusiasm and most generous indignation." Landor was reconciled with his family through the efforts of his friend Dorothea Lyttelton. He later told Forster that he would have married Dorothea if he were financially independent. He did not enter a profession—he did not want the law, and no more did the army want him. His father allowed him £150 a year, and he was free to live at home or not, as he pleased.

South Wales and Gebir
Landor settled in South Wales, returning home to Warwick for short visits. It was at Swansea that he became friendly with the family of Lord Aylmer, including his sister, Rose, whom Landor later immortalized in the poem, "Rose Aylmer". It was she who lent him The Progress of Romance by the Gothic author Clara Reeve. In this he found the story "The History of Charoba, Queen of Egypt", which inspired his poem Gebir. Rose Aylmer sailed to India with an aunt in 1798, and two years later died of cholera.

In 1798 Landor published Gebir, the work which established his reputation. This long poem tells the story of a prince of Spain who falls in love with his enemy Queen Charoba of Egypt. Southey, reviewed Gebir calling it "some of the most exquisite poetry in the language" and was keen to discover the anonymous author. Sidney Colvin wrote "For loftiness of thought and language together, there are passages in Gebir that will bear comparison with Milton" and "nowhere in the works of Wordsworth or Coleridge do we find anything resembling Landor's peculiar qualities of haughty splendour and massive concentration". John Forster wrote "Style and treatment constitute the charm of it. The vividness with which everything in it is presented to sight as well as through the wealth of its imagery, its moods of language – these are characteristics pre-eminent in Gebir." Gifford, on the other hand, who was ever a harsh critic of Landor, described it as "A jumble of incomprehensible trash... the most vile and despicable effusion of a mad and muddy brain...".

For the next three years Landor led an unsettled life, spent mainly in London. He became a friend of the classics scholar Dr Samuel Parr who lived at Hatton near Warwick and who appreciated Landor as a person and a Latin writer. Landor favoured Latin as a way of expressing playful material without exposing it to public view. "Siquid forte iocosius cuivis in mentem veniat, id, vernacule, puderet, non-enim tantummodo in luce agitur sed etiam in publico." Latin also had the advantage of being exempt from libel laws in England. Parr introduced Landor to Robert Adair, party organiser for Charles James Fox, who enlisted Landor to write in The Morning Post and The Courier against the ministry of Pitt. Landor published Poems from the Arabic and Persian in 1800 and a pamphlet of Latin verses. During this time he met Isaac Mocatta who stimulated his interest in art and exercised a moderating influence, but Mocatta died 1801. In 1802 Landor went to Paris where he saw Napoleon at close quarters, and this was enough for him to revoke his former praise for Napoleon in Gebir. In the same year he published Poetry by the Author of Gebir which included the narrative poems "Crysaor" and "The Phocaeans". Colvin considered "Crysaor" Landor's finest piece of narrative in blank verse.

Landor's brother Robert helped with corrections and additions to Gebir and the second edition appeared in 1803. About the same time Landor published the whole poem in Latin, which did little to increase readership but appealed to Parr and was considered by Swinburne to be comparable with the English version in might and melody of line, and for power and perfection of language.

Landor travelled the country in constant debt, spending much time at Bath. Here he met Sophia Jane Swift, who was already engaged to her cousin Godwin Swifte, whom she married despite Landor's ardent entreaties in 1803. He called her Ianthe and wrote some of his most beautiful love poems to her. His father died in 1805, which put him in possession of an independent fortune and he settled in Bath, living in grand style. In 1806 he published Simonidea which included poems to Ianthe and Ione. It also included "Gunlaug and Helga" a narrative poem from William Herbert's Select Icelandic poems. At Bristol in 1808 he caught up with Southey, whom he had missed on a trip to the Lake District in the previous year, and the mutual appreciation of the two poets led to a warm friendship. He also wrote a work "The Dun Cow" which was written in defence of his friend Parr who had been attacked in an anonymous work "Guy's Porridge Pot", which Landor was fierce to deny was any work of his.

Napoleonic Wars and Count Julian
In 1808 he had an heroic impulse to take part in the Peninsular War. At the age of 33, he left England for Spain as a volunteer to serve in the national army against Napoleon. He landed at Corunna, introduced himself to the British envoy, offered 10,000 reals for the relief of Venturada, and set out to join the army of General Joaquín Blake y Joyes. He was disappointed not to take part in any real action and found himself giving support at Bilbao where he was nearly captured. A couple of months later the Convention of Sintra brought an end to the campaign and Landor returned to England. The Spanish Government offered its thanks to him, and King Ferdinand appointed him a Colonel in the Spanish Army. However, when the King restored the Jesuits Landor returned his commission. When he returned to England, he joined Wordsworth and Southey in denouncing the Convention of Sintra, which had excited general indignation. In 1809 Landor wrote "Three letters to Don Francisco Riquelme" giving him the benefit of his wisdom as a participant in the war. He wrote an ode in Latin to Gustav IV of Sweden and wrote to press under various pseudonyms. In 1810 he wrote "a brave and good letter to Sir Francis Burdett."

The Spanish experience provided inspiration for the tragedy of Count Julian, based on Julian, count of Ceuta. Although this demonstrated Landor's distinctive style of writing, it suffered from his failure to study the art of drama and so made little impression. The plot is difficult to follow unless the story is previously known and concerns a complicated situation after the defeat of the last Visigoth King of Spain. It carries the moral tone of crime propagating crime. Southey undertook to arrange publication and eventually got it published by Murray in 1812, after an initial refusal by Longmans which led Landor to burn another tragedy "Ferranti and Giulio". Thomas de Quincey later wrote of the work

"Mr Landor is probably the one man in Europe that has adequately conceived the situation, the stern self-dependency and monumental misery of Count Julian."

Swinburne described it as:

"the sublimest poem published in our language, between the last masterpiece of Milton (Samson Agonistes) and the first masterpiece of Shelley (Prometheus Unbound), one equally worthy to stand unchallenged beside either for poetic perfection as well as moral majesty. The superhuman isolation of agony and endurance which encircles and exalts the hero is in each case expressed with equally appropriate magnificence of effect. The style of Count Julian, if somewhat deficient in dramatic ease and the fluency of natural dialogue, has such might and purity and majesty of speech as elsewhere we find only in Milton so long and so steadily sustained."

Llanthony and marriage

Before going to Spain, he had been looking for a property and settled on Llanthony Abbey in Monmouthshire, a ruined Benedictine abbey. He sold the property at Rugeley which he inherited from his father, and persuaded his mother to sell her Tachbrook estate to contribute to the purchase cost. On his return from Spain he was busy finalising these matters. The previous owner had erected some buildings in the ruins of the ancient abbey, but an Act of Parliament, passed in 1809, was needed to allow Landor to pull down these buildings and construct a house, (which was never finished). He wanted to become a model country gentleman, planting trees, importing sheep from Spain, and improving the roads. There is still an avenue of trees in the area known as "Landor's Larches" and many old chestnuts have been dated back to his time.

In 1811 he went to a ball in Bath and seeing a pretty girl exclaimed "That's the nicest girl in the room, and I'll marry her". She was Julia Thuillier, the daughter of an impoverished Swiss banker who had an unsuccessful business at Banbury and had gone to Spain, leaving his family at Bath. They married at St James' Church, Bath on 24 May 1811 and settled for a while at Llanthony Abbey. Landor had a visit from Southey, after he sent him a letter describing the idylls of country life, including nightingales and glow-worms. However the idyll was not to last long as for the next three years Landor was worried by the combined vexation of neighbours and tenants, lawyers and lords-lieutenant and even the Bishop of St David's, while at the same time he tried to publish an article on Fox, a response to a sycophantic piece by John Bernard Trotter, which was condemned by the prospective publisher John Murray as libellous and damned by Canning and Gifford.

His troubles with the neighbours stemmed from petty squabbles, many arising from his headstrong and impetuous nature. He employed a solicitor, one Charles Gabell, who saw him as a client to be milked. His trees were uprooted and his timber stolen. A man against whom he had to swear the peace drank himself to death, and he was accused of causing the misfortune and when he prosecuted a man for theft he was insulted by the defendant's counsel (whom he later "chastised" in his Latin poetry). He was fond of revenge through his verse, Latin or otherwise and gave his opinion of his lawyers in the following piece of doggerel.

When the Bishop failed to reply to his letter offering to restore part of the priory Landor followed up saying "God alone is great enough for me to ask anything of twice". He wanted to become a magistrate and after a row with the Lord Lieutenant, the Duke of Beaufort, who was suspicious of his republican sympathies, he pursued the matter with the Lord Chancellor, Lord Eldon, well known as a High Tory, without success. He wasted much effort and money in noble attempts to improve the land, and to relieve the wretchedness and raise the condition of the poorer inhabitants. The final straw was when he let his farmland to one Betham who was incompetent and extravagant and paid no rent. After an expensive action to recover the debts from Betham he had had enough, and decided to leave the country, abandoning Llanthony to his creditors – which was principally his mother. He had drafted a book-length Commentary on the Memoires of Mr. Charles Fox which presents the radical Whig leader in a positive light and includes a dedication to American president James Madison and strong criticism of the Tory government and Canning, but left it unpublished for fear of prosecution. In 1814 Landor left England for Jersey, where he had a quarrel with his wife and set off for France on his own. Eventually she joined him at Tours as did his brother Robert. At Tours he met Francis George Hare, father of Augustus Hare and brother of Julius Hare who was to be of great help to him. Landor soon became dissatisfied with Tours and after tremendous conflicts with his landlady set off in September 1815 with his wife and brother on a tempestuous journey to Italy.

Florence and Imaginary Conversations

Landor and his wife finally settled at Como, where they stayed for three years. Even here he had troubles, for at the time Caroline of Brunswick, wife of the Prince Regent was living there and Landor was suspected of being an agent involved in watching her in case of divorce proceedings. In 1818 he insulted the authorities in a Latin poem directed against an Italian poet who had denounced England, not realising that the libel laws in Italy (unlike in England) applied to Latin writings as well as Italian. After threatening the regio delegato with a beating he was ordered to leave Como. In September he went to Genoa and Pisa. He finally settled at Florence in 1821. After two years in apartments in the Medici Palace, he settled with his wife and children at the Villa Castiglione. In this, the most important period in his literary career, he produced some of his best known works – the Imaginary Conversations. It was at this time that Lady Blessington and her husband were living at Florence and became firm friends.

The first two volumes of his Imaginary Conversations appeared in 1824 with a second edition in 1826; a third volume was added in 1828; and in 1829 the fourth and fifth volumes were published. Not until 1846 was a fresh instalment added, in the second volume of his collected and selected works. Many of the imaginary conversations harshly criticize authoritarian rule and endorse republican principles.

With these works, Landor acquired a high, but not wide literary reputation. He had various disputes with the authorities in Florence. The theft of some silver led to altercations with the police, whose interviews with tradesmen ended up defining him as a "dangerous man", and the eventual upshot was that the Grand Duke banished him from Florence. Subsequently, the Grand Duke took the matter good-naturedly, and ignored Landor's declaration that, as the authorities disliked his residence, he should reside there permanently. In 1829, Landor bought the Villa Gherardesca at Fiesole helped by a generous loan from Joseph Ablett of Llanbedr Hall, Denbighshire. Here he had a dispute with a neighbour about water rights, which led to a lawsuit and a challenge, although the English Consul Kirkup succeeded in arranging the point of honour satisfactorily. Landor was visited by William Hazlitt and Leigh Hunt, and was on intimate terms with Charles Armitage Brown. It was at this time he became acquainted with Edward John Trelawny whom he included in volume IV of Imaginary Conversations. His mother, with whom he had always corresponded affectionately, died in October 1829 and his cousin Walter Landor of Rugeley took over the management of the estate in Wales. Landor was happy at Villa Gherardesca for several years, writing books, playing with his children whom he adored and with the nightingales, and planting his gardens. He had many visitors, most notably in 1829 Jane Swift (Ianthe) now a widow, who inspired him to write poetry again. Later came Henry Crabb Robinson with whom he got on extremely well. In 1831 he published a volume combining Gebir, Count Julian and Other Poems (including 31 to Ianthe). Although this sold only 40 copies, Landor was unconcerned as he was working on "High and Low Life in Italy". This last work he sent to Crabb Robinson for publication but he had difficulties with publishers and it did not appear until 1837.

In 1832 Ablett persuaded him to visit England, where he met many old friends. He saw Ianthe at Brighton and met Lord Wenlock. He also visited his family in Staffordshire – his brother Charles was rector of Colton, and his cousin Walter Landor of Rugeley was trying to deal with the complex business of Llanthony. He visited Charles Lamb at Enfield, Samuel Coleridge at Highgate, and Julius Hare at Cambridge. He went with Ablett to the Lake District and saw Southey and Coleridge.

On returning to Fiesole he found his children out of hand and obtained a German governess for them. Back in Italy he met Richard Monckton Milnes who later wrote about him. He was visited by Ralph Waldo Emerson and worked on the conversations which led to the volumes upon "Shakespeare's Examinations for Deer Stealing", "Pericles and Aspasia", and the "Pentameron". Lady Blessington sold "Shakespeare" for him. In 1835 Ianthe visited again, and brought her half-sister, Mrs Paynter, with her. Landor's wife Julia became jealous, although she already had a younger lover, and their difference of opinion ended in a complete separation.

England, Pericles and journalism
Landor was 60 by now and went to Lucca, where he finished "Pericles and Aspasia" and in September returned to England alone in the autumn. He had an income of about £600 per annum from properties in England, but when he left Italy he made over £400 of the share to his wife, and transferred the villa and farms at Fiesole to his son Arnold absolutely. His income was now £200 a year and he was in financial difficulties. He stayed with Ablett at Llanbedr for three months, spent winter at Clifton and returned to him afterwards, when Ablett persuaded him to contribute to "Literary Hours" which was published the next year. "Pericles and Aspasia", which was to become one of his most appreciated works, was published in March 1836. It is in the form of an Imaginary Conversation and describes the development of Aspasia's romance with Pericles, who died in the Peloponnesian War, told in a series of letters to a friend Cleone. The work is one of Landor's most joyous works and is singled out by contemporary critics as an introduction to Landor at his best. On one occasion Landor was travelling to Clifton incognito and chatting to a fellow traveller when the traveller, John Sterling, observed that his strange paradoxical conversation sounded like one of Landor's Imaginary Conversations. Landor covered his retreat, but later became acquainted formally with Sterling.

Also in 1836, Landor met John Forster who became his biographer, having become friends after Forster's review of his "Shakespeare". Later that year he went to Heidelberg in Germany hoping to meet his children, but was disappointed. He wrote more imaginary conversations including one between Lord Eldon and Escombe. When a lady friend rebuked him for this on the basis that Eldon was now over eighty, Landor replied unmoved with the quip "The devil is older". He had several other publications that year besides Pericles, including "Letter from a Conservative", "A Satire on Satirists" which included a criticism of Wordsworth's failure to appreciate Southey, Alabiadas the Young Man, and "Terry Hogan", a satire on Irish priests. He wintered again at Clifton where Southey visited him. It is possible that Ianthe was living at Bristol, but the evidence is not clear, and in 1837 she went to Austria, where she remained for some years. After leaving Clifton, Landor travelled around and visited Armitage Brown at Plymouth. He established many friendships including John Kenyon and Sir William Napier. At the end of the year he published "Death of Clytemnestra" and "The Pentalogia", containing five of his finest shorter studies in dramatic poetry. The last piece to be published was "Pentameron". Although this had no financial success it was much admired by his friends including Kenyon, Julius Hare, Crabb Robinson, Elizabeth Barrett Browning who said "some of the pages are too delicious to turn over", and Leigh Hunt who reckoned it Landor's masterpiece. In the spring of 1838 he took a house in Bath and wrote his three plays the "Andrea of Hungary", "Giovanna of Naples", and "Fra Rupert". These plays are in the form of a trilogy in the first of which Fra Rupert contrives the death of Andrea, husband of Giovanna. Giovanna is suspected but acquitted in the second play. In the third play Fra Rupert is discovered. George Saintsbury described these as a historical novel thrown into conversational dramatic form. In 1839 Landor's attempts to publish the plays were caught up in a dispute between Bentley and Dickens and Forster which caused considerable delay. Again, although these plays, or "conversations in verse" did not succeed with the public, Landor gained warm admirers, many of whom were his personal friends. Southey's mind was giving way when he wrote a last letter to his friend in 1839, but he continued to mention Landor's name when generally incapable of mentioning anyone. Landor wandered around the country again, frequently visiting London, where he usually stayed with Lady Blessington, whom he had known at Florence. Mrs Paynter and her daughter Rose Paynter were at Bath, and Landor's letters and verses to Rose are among his best works. Rose later married Charles Graves-Sawle of Penrice in Cornwall. Landor met Charles Dickens and they enjoyed each other's company despite the age difference. Landor greatly admired Dickens's works, and was especially moved by the character of Nell Trent (from The Old Curiosity Shop). Landor was affectionately adapted by Dickens as Lawrence Boythorn in Bleak House. He was the godfather of Dickens's son Walter Landor Dickens. He also became introduced to Robert Browning, who sent him a dedicated copy of his work.

Landor received a visit from his son Arnold in 1842 and in that year wrote a long essay on Catullus for Forster, who was editor of "Foreign Quarterly Review"; he followed it up with The Idylls of Theocritus. R. H. Super was critical of the essays claiming "A more thoroughly disorganised work never fell from his pen". In 1843 he mourned the death of his friend Southey and dedicated a poem in the Examiner. Landor was visited by his children Walter and Julia and published a poem to Julia in Blackwood's magazine.

In the following year his daughter Julia returned and gave him a dog Pomero, who was a faithful companion for a long time. In the same year, he published a poem to Browning in the Morning Chronicle.

Forster and Dickens used to visit Bath, to celebrate Landor's birthday and Charles I's execution on the same day. Forster helped Landor in publishing his plays and the 'Collected Works' in 1846, and was employed on The Examiner to which Landor frequently contributed on political and other subjects. Forster objected to the inclusion of some Latin poetry, and so Landor published his most important Latin work 'Poemata et Inscriptiones' separately in 1847. This consisted of large additions to the main contents of two former volumes of idyllic, satiric, elegiac and lyric verse. One piece referred to George IV whose treatment of Caroline of Brunswick had been distasteful to Landor.

Landor's distaste for the House of Hanover is more famously displayed in the doggerel that many do not realise is his composition:

In 1846 he also published the Hellenics, including the poems published under that title in the collected works, together with English translations of the Latin idyls. In this year he first met Eliza Lynn who was to become an outstanding novelist and journalist as Lynn Linton, and she became a regular companion in Bath. Now aged over 70, Landor was losing many of his old friends and becoming more frequently ill himself. On one occasion when staying with the Graves-Sawle he visited Exeter and sheltered in the rain on the doorstep of a local barrister, James Jerwood. Jerwood mistook him for a tramp and drove him away. Landor's follow-up letter of abuse to the barrister is magnificent: highlighting the man's "insulting language ... violent demeanour" and "coarseness and vehemence"; casting doubt on Jerwood's education (particularly in Latin); observing "Barristers in general carry a change of tongue about them, altho (sic) some of them do not put on a clean one so often as we could wish"; and lecturing him on the proprieties and "decency" involved in interacting not only with gentlemen- Landor firmly establishing himself amongst them- but with "even the lowest of men". R. H. Super, in his Walter Savage Landor- A Biography (1954) observes that "the very survival of this letter shows that Jerwood, when he received it, at least knew with whom he had to deal... it warms the heart to see that Landor's sharpest thrust was the suggestion that his man could not read Latin".

In 1849 he wrote a well-known epitaph for himself on his 74th birthday:

However he was leading an active social life. Tennyson met him in 1850 and recorded how while another guest fell downstairs and broke his arm, "Old Landor went on eloquently discoursing of Catullus and other Latin poets as if nothing had happened". Thomas Carlyle visited him and wrote "He was really stirring company: a proud irascible, trenchant, yet generous, veracious, and very dignified old man". In 1851 Landor expressed interest in Church reform with a pamphlet "Popery, British and Foreign", and Letters to Cardinal Wiseman. He published various other articles in The Examiner, Fraser's Magazine and other journals. During the year he learnt of the death of his beloved Ianthe and wrote in tribute to her:

In 1853 he published the collected Imaginary Conversations of the Greeks and Romans, which he dedicated to Dickens. Dickens in this year published Bleak House, which contained the amazingly realistic characterisation of Landor as Boythorn. He also published "The Last Fruit off an Old Tree," containing fresh conversations, critical and controversial essays, miscellaneous epigrams, lyrics and occasional poems of various kind and merit, closing with Five Scenes on the Martyrdom of Beatrice Cenci. Swinburne described these as "unsurpassed even by their author himself for noble and heroic pathos, for subtle and genial, tragic and profound, ardent and compassionate insight into character, with consummate mastery of dramatic and spiritual truth." At this time Landor was interesting himself in foreign affairs, in particular Czarist oppression as he saw it and Louis Napoleon. At the end of 1854 his beloved sister Elizabeth died and he wrote a touching memorial:

In 1856 at the age of 81 he published Antony and Octavius: Scenes for the Study, twelve consecutive poems in dialogue, and "Letter to Emerson", as well as continuing Imaginary Conversations.

Final tragedies and return to Italy

In the beginning of 1857, Landor's mind was becoming weakened and he found himself in some unpleasant situations. He became involved in a court case because he had published statements when the case was sub judice and was insulted by counsel as a poor old man brought in to talk twaddle. He then became embroiled in a miserable quarrel between two ladies he knew. He gave one of them, Geraldine Hooper, £100, a legacy received from his friend Kenyon. Unknown to Landor she transferred half of it to the other lady, a Mrs Yescombe. They then quarreled and Mrs Yescombe accused Hooper of having obtained the money from Landor for dishonourable reasons. Landor in his fury wrote a pamphlet "Walter Savage Landor and the Honourable Mrs Yescombe," which was considered libellous. Forster persuaded Landor to apologise. Then in 1858 he produced a miscellaneous collection called "Dry Sticks Fagoted by W. S. Landor," which contained among other things some epigrammatic and satirical attacks which led to further libel actions. In July that year Landor returned to Italy for the last six years of his life. He was advised to make over his property to his family, on whom he now depended. He hoped to resume his life with his wife and children but found them living disreputably at the Villa Gherardesca and ill-disposed to welcome him. He spent a miserable ten months at his villa, and fled repeatedly to Florence, only to be brought back again. On the last occasion, he took refuge at a hotel in Florence, with next to nothing in his pocket, and was found by Robert Browning then living at the Casa Guidi. Browning managed to obtain an allowance for him from the family and settled him first at Siena and then at Florence.

Landor busied himself with new editions of his works and interested himself in the unification of Italy. He wrote frequently to Eliza Lynn Linton and added to Imaginary Conversations devising any sale proceeds to the relief of Garibaldi's soldiers. Anthony Trollope visited Florence and brought with him an American girl, Kate Field, who became Landor's protégée. He was still charming, venerable, and courteous, and full of literary interests. He taught Kate Field Latin, repeated poetry and composed some last conversations. In 1861, Browning left Italy after the death of his wife. Landor afterwards seldom left the house and remained petulant and uncomfortable, occasionally visited by his sons. He was much concerned about the fate of his picture collection, little of which had any merit, and about preparations for his grave as he hoped to be buried at Widcombe near Bath. He published some Imaginary Conversations in the 'Atheneum' in 1861-2 and in 1863 published a last volume of "Heroic Idyls, with Additional Poems, English and Latin", described by Swinburne as " the last fruit of a genius which after a life of eighty-eight years had lost nothing of its majestic and pathetic power, its exquisite and exalted". Forster's refusal to publish more about the libel case had interrupted their friendship, but they renewed their correspondence before his death. Almost the last event of his life was a visit in 1864 from the poet Swinburne, who visited Florence specifically to see him, and dedicated to him the 'Atlanta in Calydon'. In 1864 on May Day Landor said to his landlady "I shall never write again. Put out the lights and draw the curtains". A few months later he died quietly in Florence at the age of 89. He was buried not after all at Widcombe but in the English Cemetery, Florence, near the tomb of his friend, Elizabeth Barrett Browning. A statue of his wife can also be found in the 'English' Cemetery, above the tomb of their son, Arnold Savage Landor. In England a memorial bust to Landor was later placed in the Church of St Mary's, Warwick. Later, his Villa Gherardesca in Fiesole would become the home of the American Icelandic scholar Daniel Willard Fiske, who renamed it the 'Villa Landor'. Landor's grandson was the writer explorer and adventurer Arnold Henry Savage Landor.

Landor was a close friend of Southey and Coleridge. His relationship with Wordsworth changed over time from great praise to a certain resentment. Lord Byron tended to ridicule and revile him, and though Landor had little good to say in return during Byron's life, he lamented and extolled him as a dead hero. He lavished sympathetic praise on the noble dramatic works of his brother Robert Eyres Landor.

Review of Landor's work by Swinburne

Swinburne wrote in the ninth edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica (replicated in the eleventh edition) and later published in his Miscellanies of 1886 an appreciation which included the following passage (here broken into paragraphs for easier reading): From nineteen almost to ninety his intellectual and literary activity was indefatigably incessant; but, herein at least like Charles Lamb, whose cordial admiration he so cordially returned, he could not write a note of three lines which did not bear the mark of his Roman hand in its matchless and inimitable command of a style at once the most powerful and the purest of his age.

The one charge which can ever seriously be brought and maintained against it is that of such occasional obscurity or difficulty as may arise from excessive strictness in condensation of phrase and expurgation of matter not always superfluous, and sometimes almost indispensable. His English prose and his Latin verse are perhaps more frequently and more gravely liable to this charge than either his English verse or his Latin prose. At times it is well-nigh impossible for an eye less keen and swift, a scholarship less exquisite and ready than his own, to catch the precise direction and follow the perfect course of his rapid thought and radiant utterance.

This apparently studious pursuit and preference of the most terse and elliptic expression which could be found for anything he might have to say could not but occasionally make even so sovereign a master of two great languages appear dark with excess of light; but from no former master of either tongue in prose or verse was ever the quality of real obscurity, of loose and nebulous incertitude, more utterly alien or more naturally remote. There is nothing of cloud or fog about the path on which he leads us; but we feel now and then the want of a bridge or a handrail; we have to leap from point to point of narrative or argument without the usual help of a connecting plank. Even in his dramatic works, where least of all it should have been found, this lack of visible connection or sequence in details of thought or action is too often a source of sensible perplexity. In his noble trilogy on the history of Giovanna queen of Naples it is sometimes actually difficult to realize on a first reading what has happened or is happening, or how, or why, or by what agency a defect alone sufficient, but unhappily sufficient in itself, to explain the too general ignorance of a work so rich in subtle and noble treatment of character, so sure and strong in its grasp and rendering of high actions and high passions, so rich in humour and in pathos, so royally serene in its commanding power upon the tragic mainsprings of terror and of pity.

As a poet, he may be said on the whole to stand midway between Byron and Shelley—about as far above the former as below the latter. If we except Catullus and Simonides, it might be hard to match and it would be impossible to overmatch the flawless and blameless yet living and breathing beauty of his most perfect elegies, epigrams or epitaphs. As truly as prettily was he likened by Leigh Hunt to a stormy mountain pine which should produce lilies. He was a classic, and no formalist; the wide range of his admiration had room for a genius so far from classical as Blake's. Nor in his own highest mood or method of creative as of critical work was he a classic only, in any narrow or exclusive sense of the term. On either side, immediately or hardly below his mighty masterpiece of Pericles and Aspasia, stand the two scarcely less beautiful and vivid studies of medieval Italy and Shakespeare in England.

In popular culture
Landor's "I Strove with None" is widely mentioned and discussed. Somerset Maugham used it in "The Razor's Edge", as does Tom Wolfe in "A Man in Full" location 8,893 (Kindle). Thomas Savage inserted it in chapter 6 of The Sheep Queen. In Josephine Pullein-Thompson's Pony Club Team, the second novel in her West Barsetshire series of pony books, it is quoted by both Noel Kettering and Henry Thornton. The poem forms the chorus of the Zatopeks' song "Death and the Hobo," from their album Damn Fool Music.

In an episode of Cheers, "The Spy Who Came In for a Cold One," Ellis Rabb's guest character plagiarizes Landor's "She I Love (Alas in Vain!)" when reciting poetry to Diane. He also plagiarizes Christina Rossetti's "A Birthday."

In his book of poems The Drunken Driver Has the Right of Way, Academy Award-winning writer/director/producer Ethan Coen facetiously describes himself as "an expert on the poetry of Walter Savage Landor and many other subjects which he travels the world to lecture upon, unsolicited".

Author Iris Murdoch quotes Landor ‘There are no voices that are not soon mute…’in the penultimate paragraph of her novel, The Unicorn.

Artistic recognition
A bust of Landor dated 1828 by John Gibson is held in the National Portrait Gallery, London.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Walter Savage Landor


text:
Mount Terror (Antarctica)

Mount Terror (-77.51667°N, 168.53333°W) is an extinct volcano about 3,230 m high on Ross Island, Antarctica, about 20 nmi eastward of Mount Erebus. Mount Terror was named in 1841 by polar explorer Sir James Clark Ross for his second ship, HMS Terror. The captain of Terror was Francis Crozier, a close friend of Ross for whom the nearby Cape Crozier is named.

Geology
Mount Terror is a large shield volcano that forms the eastern part of Ross Island, Antarctica. It has numerous cinder cones and domes on the flanks of the shield and is mostly under snow and ice. It is the second largest of the four volcanoes that make up Ross Island and is somewhat overshadowed by its neighbour, Mount Erebus, 30 km to the west.

Geography
The rocks at the summit have not been studied, but rocks from the lower areas range from 0.82 to 1.75 million years old, and Mount Terror shows no signs of more recent volcanic activity. The first ascent of Mount Terror was made by a New Zealand party in 1959. The mountain is to the west of Cape Crozier, and east of Mount Terra Nova and Mount Erebus.

Kienle Nunataks
-77.46667°N, 168.6°W. Three aligned nunataks to the north of Mount Terror in northeast Ross Island. The nunataks trend east-west for 1 nmi and rise to about 1700 m. The central nunatak is 2.5 nmi north-northeast of the Mount Terror summit. At the suggestion of P.R. Kyle, named by Advisory Committee on Antarctic Names (US-ACAN) after Juergen Kienle (d.), Geophysical Institute, University of Alaska, Fairbanks, a United States Antarctic Project (USAP) team leader for the investigation of volcanic activity and seismicity on Mount Erebus in six field seasons, 1980-81 through 1985-86.

Mount Sutherland
-77.5°N, 168.46667°W. A peak 1.4 nmi west-northwest of the summit of Mount Terror on Ross Island. The feature rises to about 2500 m. Named by Advisory Committee on Antarctic Names (US-ACAN) (2000) after Alexander L. Sutherland, Jr., Ocean Projects Manager, OPP, NSF, with responsibility for directing operations and logistics for United States Antarctic Project (USAP) research vessels from 1989; responsible for acquisition of the Research Vessel/Ice Breakers Nathaniel B. Palmer and Laurence M. Gould.

Rohnke Crests
-77.58333°N, 168.68333°W. Two rock ridges, about 1400 m high, that are parallel and rise above the general ice mantle on the southeast slopes of Mount Terror. This feature is east of the head of Eastwind Glacier and 4 nmi northeast of Conical Hill. Names in association with Eastwind Glacier after Captain (later Rear Admiral) Oscar C. Rohnke, USCG, who commanded United States Coast Guard Cutter (USCGC) Eastwind in Ross Sea during United States Navy (United States Navy) Operation Deep Freeze (OpDFrz) I, 1955-56.

Moore Peak
-77.51667°N, 168.45°W. A peak rising to 2500 m high on the west slope of Mount Terror, Ross Island. The peak is 1.6 nmi west-southwest of the summit of Mount Terror and 1 nmi south of Mount Sutherland. At the suggestion of P.R. Kyle, named by Advisory Committee on Antarctic Names (US-ACAN) (2000) after James A. Moore, a member of the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology team on Mount Erebus in the 1983–84 and 1985-86 field seasons. He completed his M.S. thesis on the geology of Mount Erebus.

Ohau Peak
-77.5°N, 168.7°W. A sharp rock peak 1.9 nmi northeast of the summit of Mount Terror on Ross Island. The feature rises to about 2400 m high and is central in three aligned summits 0.8 nmi north of Mount McIntosh. Named by New Zealand Geographic Board (NZGB) (2000) after a peak near the locality of Tekapo (see Tekapo Ridge), New Zealand.

Giggenbach Ridge
-77.46667°N, 168.33333°W. A north-south chain of summits, 5 nmi long, located to the west and northwest of Mount Terror. The ridge rises to about 2400 m west of Mount Terror, but descends to 1320 m at the north end. Named at the suggestion of P.R. Kyle, named by Advisory Committee on Antarctic Names (US-ACAN) (2000) after Werner F. Giggenbach, Chemistry Division, DSIR, who worked in the NZAP at Mount Erebus in four field seasons during the 1970s. He rappelled into the Inner Crater of Mount Erebus in 1978, but had to be pulled out when an eruption showered him and colleagues on the crater rim with volcanic bombs. He was one of the leading volcanic gas geochemists of the period.

Chuan Peak
-77.48333°N, 168.35°W. A peak, about 2200 m high, located 1 nmi northeast of Barker Peak in the south part of Giggenbach Ridge, Ross Island. At the suggestion of P.R. Kyle, named by Advisory Committee on Antarctic Names (US-ACAN) (2000) after Raymond L. Chuan who, as a scientist with the Brunswick Corporation, Costa Mesa, CA, undertook many airborne surveys of volcanic aerosols from Mount Erebus and also did sampling at the crater rim, 1983–84 and 1986–87; investigator (with Julie Palais) on a project which examined aerosols between Mount Erebus and the South Pole.

Manahan Peak
-77.48333°N, 168.43333°W. A prominent peak 1 nmi east of Giggenbach Ridge in northeast Ross Island. The peak rises to over 2000 m high 2.6 nmi northwest of the summit of Mount Terror. Named by Advisory Committee on Antarctic Names (US-ACAN) (2000) after biologist Donal T. Manahan, who worked eight seasons in Antarctica from 1983; United States Antarctic Project (USAP) prinicipal investigator in study of early stages (embryos larvae) of marine animals; chair, Polar Research Board, National Academy of Sciences, 2000.

Barker Peak
-77.5°N, 168.3°W. A peak 3.6 nmi west-northwest of Mount Terror on Ross Island. The feature rises to about 2200 m high and is the western of two peaks near the south end of Giggenbach Ridge. Name by New Zealand Geographic Board (NZGB) (2000) after Major James R. M. Barker, officer in command at Scott Base, 1970–71; a NZAP manager, 1970-86.

Joyce Peak
-77.46667°N, 168.2°W. A peak rising to over 1400 m high in the north-central part of Ross Island. It stands west of the main summits of Giggenbach Ridge and 5.3 mi south-southeast of Wyandot Point. Named by Advisory Committee on Antarctic Names (US-ACAN) (2000) after Karen Joyce, a long-term ASA employee, who from 1990 made 10 deployments to McMurdo Station, including a winter-over; assisted with computers in the Crary Science and Engineering Center.

Kristin Peak
-77.43333°N, 168.31667°W. A peak rising to over 1300 m high at the north end of Giggenbach Ridge on Ross Island. The feature is 4.5 nmi south of Cape Tennyson. Named by Advisory Committee on Antarctic Names (US-ACAN) (2000) after Kristin Larson, who has participated in support activities to United States Antarctic Project (USAP) from 1988, including two winters at McMurdo Station; supervisor, Eklund Biological Center and Thiel Labs, 1988 and 1992; supervisor, Crary Science and Engineering Center, 1992–95; editor, The Antarctican Society newsletter from 1996; later of staff of OPP, NSF.

Eastern features
Features to the east, towards the Kyle Hills, include:

Tent Peak
-77.5°N, 168.96667°W. A tent-shaped peak rising to about 1,570 m high midway between Mount Terror and Cape Crozier. It was descriptively named by a party of the New Zealand Geological Survey Antarctic Expedition (NZGSAE), 1958–59, which occupied the peak as an astronomical control station, January 5, 1959, and erected a tent below the peak.

The Tooth
-77.51667°N, 168.98333°W. A distinctive rock outcrop on the eastern slopes of Mount Terror at an elevation of about 1,400 m. The feature lies 1 nmi south-southeast of Tent Peak and is reported to resemble a fossilized shark's tooth. Descriptively named by a party of the NZGSAE, 1958–59, working in eastern Ross Island.

Slattery Peak
-77.56667°N, 168.98333°W. A somewhat isolated rock peak, about 600 m high, that rises above the ice mantle southeast of Mount Terror. The peak position is additionally defined as 5.5 nmi southwest of The Knoll and 3.8 nmi east-northeast of Rohnke Crests. Named after Leo Slattery, who wintered at Scott Base three times, twice as Officer in Charge; Post Clerk on Ross Island, summer 1973-74; Postmaster on Ross Island, summers 1979-80, 1981–82, and 1983–84.

Pönui Nunatak
-77.58333°N, 169.01667°W. A nunatak located 0.6 nmi southeast of Slattery Peak and 5.6 nmi southwest of The Knoll. The feature rises to 320 m high near the juncture of the island and Ross Ice Shelf. The name Ponui (meaning south wind) is one of several Maori wind names applied by New Zealand Geographic Board (NZGB) in this vicinity.

Conical Hill
-77.65°N, 168.56667°W. A small but distinctive rock hill, 655 m high, on the south slopes of Mount Terror, above Cape MacKay. Given this descriptive name by the British Antarctic Expedition, 1910–13, under Scott.

Cultural references

 * Mount Terror is the stronghold of Russian anarchist revolutionaries in the 1894 science fiction novel Olga Romanoff by George Griffith.
 * Mount Terror and Mount Erebus are mentioned in the 1936 novella At the Mountains of Madness by H.P. Lovecraft.
 * Mount Terror is used as a location in the 2004 novel State of Fear by Michael Crichton.
 * Mount Terror is referenced in Jules Verne's Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas by the narrator Professor Arronax, after they arrive at the South Pole, in reference to two volcanic craters, the Erebus and Terror, in context to an earlier discovery by James Clark Ross.

title: Mount Terror (Antarctica)


text:
Oranges and Lemons

"Oranges and Lemons" is a traditional English nursery rhyme, folksong, and singing game which refers to the bells of several churches, all within or close to the City of London. It is listed in the Roud Folk Song Index as No 13190. The earliest known printed version appeared c. 1744.

The rhyme has been referenced in a variety of works of literature and popular culture. The bells of St Clement Danes (one of many London churches associated with the rhyme) play the tune every day at 9am, noon, 3pm and 6pm.

Lyrics
Oranges and lemons, Say the bells of St. Clement's.

You owe me five farthings, Say the bells of St. Martin's.

When will you pay me? Say the bells at Old Bailey.

When I grow rich, Say the bells at Shoreditch.

When will that be? Say the bells of Stepney.

I do not know, Says the great bell at Bow.

Here comes a candle to light you to bed, And here comes a chopper to chop off your head! Chip chop chip chop the last man is dead

Alternative versions
Gay go up, and gay go down, To ring the bells of London town.

Bull's eyes and targets, Say the bells of St. Margaret's.

Brickbats and tiles, Say the bells of St. Giles’.

Halfpence and farthings, Say the bells of St. Martin's.

Oranges and lemons, Say the bells of St. Clement's.

Pancakes and fritters, Say the bells of St. Peter's.

Two sticks and an apple, Say the bells at Whitechapel.

Pokers and tongs, Say the bells at St. John's.

Kettles and pans, Say the bells at St. Ann's.

Old Father Baldpate, Say the slow bells at Aldgate.

Maids in white Aprons Say the bells of St Catherine's.

You owe me ten shillings, Say the bells of St. Helen's.

When will you pay me? Say the bells at Old Bailey.

When I grow rich, Say the bells at Shoreditch.

Pray when will that be? Say the bells of Stepney.

I'm sure I don't know, Says the great bell at Bow.

Here comes a candle to light you to bed, And here comes a chopper to chop off your head.

As a game
The song is used in a children's singing game with the same name, in which the players file, in pairs, through an arch made by two of the players (made by having the players face each other, raise their arms over their head, and clasp their partners' hands). The challenge comes during the final lines beginning "Here comes a chopper to chop off your head"; and on the final repetition of "chop" in the last line, the children forming the arch drop their arms to catch the pair of children currently passing through. These are then "out" and must form another arch next to the existing one. In this way, the series of arches becomes a steadily lengthening tunnel through which each set of two players has to run faster and faster to escape in time.

Alternative versions of the game include: children caught "out" by the last rhyme may stand behind one of the children forming the original arch, instead of forming additional arches; and children forming "arches" may bring their hands down for each word of the last line, while the children passing through the arches run as fast as they can to avoid being caught on the last word.

Origins and meaning
Various theories have been advanced to account for the rhyme, including: that it deals with child sacrifice; that it describes public executions; that it describes Henry VIII's marital difficulties. Problematically for these theories the last two lines, with their different metre, do not appear in the earlier recorded versions of the rhyme, including the first printed in Tommy Thumb's Pretty Song Book (c. 1744), where the lyrics are:

Two Sticks and Apple, Ring ye Bells at Whitechapple, Old Father Bald Pate, Ring ye Bells Aldgate, Maids in White Aprons, Ring ye Bells a St. Catherines, Oranges and Lemons, Ring ye bells at St. Clements, When will you pay me, Ring ye Bells at ye Old Bailey, When I am Rich, Ring ye Bells at Fleetditch, When will that be, Ring ye Bells at Stepney, When I am Old, Ring ye Bells at Pauls.

There is considerable variation in the churches and lines attached to them in versions printed in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, which makes any overall meaning difficult to establish. The final two lines of the modern version were first collected by James Orchard Halliwell in the 1840s.

"Oranges and Lemons" was the title of a square dance, published from the third (1657) edition onwards of The Dancing Master. Similar rhymes naming churches and giving rhymes to their names can be found in other parts of England, including Shropshire and Derby, where they were sung on festival days on which bells would also have been rung.

The identity of the London churches is not always clear, but the following have been suggested, along with some factors that may have influenced the accompanying statements:
 * St. Clement's may be St Clement Danes or St Clement Eastcheap, both of which are near the wharves where merchantmen landed citrus fruits.
 * St. Martin's may be St Martin Orgar in the City, or St. Martin-in-the-Fields near Trafalgar Square.
 * St Sepulchre-without-Newgate (opposite the Old Bailey) is near the Fleet Prison where debtors were held.
 * St Leonard's, Shoreditch is just outside the old City walls.
 * St Dunstan's, Stepney is also outside the City walls.
 * Bow is St Mary-le-Bow in Cheapside.
 * St. Helen's, in the longer version of the song, is St Helen's Bishopsgate, in the City.
 * "Whitechapple" may refer to St Mary Matfelon, Whitechapel, or to the Whitechapel Bell Foundry which began making bells in 1570. "Two sticks and an apple" may refer to handbells.
 * St. Catherine's is most likely St Katharine Cree, Aldgate. "Maids in white aprons" could be local market-sellers.
 * St. Margaret's is St Margaret Lothbury.
 * St. Giles' is St Giles Cripplegate.
 * St. Peter's is St Peter upon Cornhill. "Pancakes and fritters" may refer to foods sold nearby, as it was a grain market.
 * "Fleetditch" is St Pancras Old Church, located near the River Fleet.
 * St. John's is St John's Chapel in the Tower of London; "pokers and tongs" may allude to instruments of torture used on prisoners. It could also be St John Clerkenwell.
 * St. Anne's is St Anne and St Agnes near the Barbican. "Kettles and pans" may refer to nearby coppersmiths.
 * "Aldgate" is St Botolph's Aldgate, while "old father baldpate" refers to the monk Saint Botolph. It may also be an allusion to the glans penis, as St Botolph's was notorious for being a meeting-place for prostitutes.

Melody
The tune is reminiscent of change ringing, and the intonation of each line is said to correspond with the distinct sounds of each church's bells. Today, the bells of St Clement Danes ring out the tune of the rhyme—as reported in 1940 the church's playing of the tune was interrupted during World War II due to Nazi bombing of the church during the Blitz. As is the case with almost all traditional songs, there were minor variations in the melody. Collector of British folk songs, James Madison Carpenter, recorded two versions of the song in the 1930s which are now available on the Vaughan Williams Memorial Library website: one in Garsington, Oxfordshire, and another somewhere in either Yorkshire or Lincolnshire. These recordings show slight melodic and lyrical variations.

Song settings
A setting of the full Tommy Thumb's Pretty Song Book version for choir was written by Bob Chilcott. Entitled "London Bells", it is the third movement of "Songs and Cries of London Town" (2001).

Benjamin Till composed music based upon the nursery rhyme which was performed in 2009 at St Mary-le-Bow, London to honour 150 years of the great bell, Big Ben.

In popular culture
The nursery rhyme appears several times in the novel Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell. It appears in the Roald Dahl short story "A Piece of Cake," which is included in his collection The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Six More. The song and its associated game feature in the 1970 British horror comedy, Mumsy, Nanny, Sonny and Girly, as well as the novella by its screenwriter, Brian Comport. The rhyme is also used in the 1973 British folk horror film, The Wicker Man where it is played during a ritual dance in which swords are lowered over peoples' heads, nearly beheading them as a reference to the line "here comes a chopper to chop off your head". It also appears in the book Private Peaceful by Michael Morpurgo and its 2012 film adaption, frequently sung by the character Big Joe. The rhyme, featured in the 2017 supernatural horror film It, was also featured in the piano music that opens and closes the film. The film's composer, Benjamin Wallfisch, a Londoner familiar with the tune since he was a child, chose it to fit the Pennywise character. The last stanza appeared in the 2011 Doctor Who episode "The God Complex". A 2013 Doctor Who episode, "The Bells of Saint John", references the rhyme in the episode title.

The phrase Here Comes a Candle was used by Fredric Brown as the title of one of his novels. A character in Neil Gaiman's The Sandman, writer Erasmus Fry, likewise titles one of his novels Here Comes a Candle. The album Oranges & Lemons by English rock band XTC takes its name from the nursery rhyme.

title: Oranges and Lemons