212	THE STORY OF MY LIFE	[1848
I will not eat it if it comes/' and when it came, threw it all out of the window.
At the same time nothing could be more nobly courteous than his manner to his guests, and this, was as marked towards an ignorant schoolboy as. towards his most distinguished visitor'; and his conversation, whilst calculated to put all his visitors at, their ease and draw out their best points, was always, wise, chivalrous, pure, and witty.
At one time Mr. Landor's son Walter came to stay with him, but he was an ignorant rough youth, and never got on well with his father. I believe Mr. Landor preferred me at this time to any of his own children, and liked better to have me with him; yet. he must often have been grievously disappointed that I could so little reciprocate about the Latin verses of which he so constantly talked to me, and that indeed I could seldom understand them, though he was so generous and high-bred that he never would allow me to feel mortified. Mrs. Lynn Linton, then Miss, Lynn, was by her almost filial attentions a great, comfort to Landor during the earlier years of his exile at Bath. Another person whom he liked, was. a pretty young Bath lady, Miss Fray, who often came to dine with him when I was there. After-dinner Mr. Landor generally had a nap, and would say, " Now, Augustus, I ^Jm going to sleep, so make, love to Miss Fray " — which was rather awkward.^1
^1 There is really no end to the absurd calumnies which I have heard circulated during my life about dear old Mr. Lander, the-kindest, most refined, most courteous, and most genial, though most irascible of men. But nothing that was ever said about him was so utterly absurd as Mr. Adolphus Trollope's statement that he neglected