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What Milton had said, speaking of the ‘watchful cherubim,’ was–

‘Four faces each Had, like a double Janus;’

Upon which Southey–but, of course, Landor, ventriloquizing through Southey–says, ‘Better left this to the imagination: double Januses are queer figures.’ Not at all. On the contrary, they became so common, that finally there were no other. Rome, in her days of childhood, contented herself with a two-faced Janus; but, about the time of the first or second Caesar, a very ancient statue of Janus was exhumed, which had four faces. Ever afterwards, this sacred resurgent statue became the model for any possible Janus that could show himself in good company. The quadrifrons Janus was now the orthodox Janus; and it would have been as much a sacrilege to rob him of any single face as to rob a king’s statue [2] of its horse. One thing may recall this to Mr. Landor’s memory. I think it was Nero, but certainly it was one of the first six Caesars, that built, or that finished, a magnificent temple to Janus; and each face was so managed as to point down an avenue leading to a separate market-place. Now, that there were four market-places, I will make oath before any Justice of the Peace. One was called the Forum Julium, one the Forum Augustum, a third the Forum Transitorium: what the fourth was called is best known to itself, for really I forget. But if anybody says that perhaps it was called the Forum Landorium, I am not the man to object; for few names have deserved such an honor more, whether from those that then looked forward into futurity with one face, or from our posterity that will look back into the vanishing past with another.

FOOTNOTES

[1] Squatters:–They are a sort of self-elected warming-pans. What we in England mean by the political term ‘warming-pans,’ are men who occupy, by consent, some official place, or Parliamentary seat, until the proper claimant is old enough in law to assume his rights. When the true man comes to bed, the warming-pan respectfully turns out. But these ultra-marine warming-pans wouldn’t turn out. They showed fight, and wouldn’t hear of the true man, even as a bed-fellow.

[2] A king’s statue:–Till very lately the etiquette of Europe was, that none but royal persons could have equestrian statues. Lord Hopetoun, the reader will object, is allowed to have a horse, in St. Andrew’s Square, Edinburgh. True, but observe that he is not allowed to mount him. The first person, so far as I remember, that, not being royal, has, in our island, seated himself comfortably in the saddle, is the Duke of Wellington.