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If you are not located in the United States, you'll -have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using -this ebook. - - - -Title: Southey - No. 134 of 'Harper's Handy Series', 'English Men of Letters' - -Author: Edward Dowden - -Editor: John Morley - -Release Date: April 30, 2020 [EBook #61983] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SOUTHEY *** - - - - -Produced by Juliet Sutherland and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was -produced from images generously made available by The -Internet Archive) - - - - - - - - - - - _No. 134_ _25 Cts._ - - HARPER’S HANDY SERIES - - [Illustration] - - Issued Weekly - - Copyright, 1885, - by HARPER & BROTHERS - - JUNE 3, 1887 - - Subscription Price - per Year, 52 Numbers, $15 - - Entered at the Post-Office at New York, as Second-class Mail - Matter - - English Men of Letters - EDITED BY JOHN MORLEY - - SOUTHEY - - BY - EDWARD DOWDEN - - _Books you may hold readily in your hand are the most useful, - after all._ - DR. JOHNSON - - NEW YORK - HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS - 1887 - - - - -HARPER’S HANDY SERIES. - -_Latest Issues._ - - - NO. CENTS. - - 101. THE CHAPLAIN’S CRAZE. A Novel. By G. Manville Fenn. 25 - - 102. BETWEEN TWO LOVES. A Tale of the West Riding. By Amelia E. - Barr. 25 - - 103. THAT WINTER NIGHT; OR, LOVE’S VICTORY. A Novel. By Robert - Buchanan. 25 - - 104. THE BRIGHT STAR OF LIFE. A Novel. By B. L. Farjeon. 25 - - 105. THE GUILTY RIVER. A Novel. By Wilkie Collins. 25 - - 106. GOLDEN BELLS. A Peal in Seven Changes. By R. E. Francillon. 25 - - 107. THE NINE OF HEARTS. A Novel. By B. L. Farjeon. 25 - - 108. A MODERN TELEMACHUS. A Novel. By Charlotte M. Yonge. 25 - - 109. CASHEL BYRON’S PROFESSION. A Novel. By George Bernard Shaw. 25 - - 110. BRITTA. A Shetland Romance. By George Temple. Illustrated. 25 - - 111. A CHILD OF THE REVOLUTION. A Novel. By the Author of “The - Atelier du Lys.” Illustrated. 25 - - 112. A STRANGE INHERITANCE. A Novel. By F. M. F. Skene. 25 - - 113. LOCKSLEY HALL SIXTY YEARS AFTER, Etc. By Alfred, Lord - Tennyson. 25 - - 114. REGIMENTAL LEGENDS. By John Strange Winter. 25 - - 115. YEAST. A Problem. By Charles Kingsley. 25 - - 116. CRANFORD. By Mrs. Gaskell. 25 - - 117. LUCY CROFTON. A Novel. By Mrs. Oliphant. 25 - - 118. MIGNON’S SECRET, and WANTED—A WIFE. By John Strange Winter. 25 - - 119. SAMUEL JOHNSON. By Leslie Stephen. 25 - - 120. EDWARD GIBBON. By James Cotter Morison. 25 - - 121. SIR WALTER SCOTT. By Richard H. Hutton. 25 - - 122. SHELLEY. By John A. Symonds. 25 - - 123. HUME. By Professor Huxley. 25 - - 124. GOLDSMITH. By William Black. 15 - - 125. DANIEL DEFOE. By William Minto. 20 - - 126. SHE. A History of Adventure. By H. Rider Haggard. Profusely - Illustrated. 25 - - 127. MACHINE POLITICS AND MONEY IN ELECTIONS IN NEW YORK CITY. - By William M. Ivins. 25 - - 128. ROBERT BURNS. By Principal J. C. Shairp. 25 - - 129. SPENSER. By R. W. Church. 25 - - 130. THACKERAY. By Anthony Trollope. 25 - - 131. BURKE. By John Morley. 25 - - 132. MILTON. By Mark Pattison. 25 - - 133. HAWTHORNE. By Henry James, Jr. 20 - - 134. SOUTHEY. By Edward Dowden. 25 - -_Other volumes in preparation._ - -☞ _HARPER & BROTHERS will send any of the above works by mail, postage -prepaid, to any part of the United States or Canada, on receipt of the -price._ - - - - -English Men of Letters - -EDITED BY JOHN MORLEY - - - - - SOUTHEY - - BY - EDWARD DOWDEN. - - [Illustration] - - NEW YORK - HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS - FRANKLIN SQUARE - - - - -ENGLISH MEN OF LETTERS. - -EDITED BY JOHN MORLEY. - - - JOHNSON Leslie Stephen. - GIBBON J. C. Morison. - SCOTT R. H. Hutton. - SHELLEY J. A. Symonds. - HUME T. H. Huxley. - GOLDSMITH William Black. - DEFOE William Minto. - BURNS J. C. Shairp. - SPENSER R. W. Church. - THACKERAY Anthony Trollope. - BURKE John Morley. - MILTON Mark Pattison. - HAWTHORNE Henry James, Jr. - SOUTHEY E. Dowden. - CHAUCER A. W. Ward. - BUNYAN J. A. Froude. - COWPER Goldwin Smith. - POPE Leslie Stephen. - BYRON John Nichol. - LOCKE Thomas Fowler. - WORDSWORTH F. Myers. - DRYDEN G. Saintsbury. - LANDOR Sidney Colvin. - DE QUINCEY David Masson. - LAMB Alfred Ainger. - BENTLEY R. C. Jebb. - DICKENS A. W. Ward. - GRAY E. W. Gosse. - SWIFT Leslie Stephen. - STERNE H. D. Traill. - MACAULAY J. Cotter Morison. - FIELDING Austin Dobson. - SHERIDAN Mrs. Oliphant. - ADDISON W. J. Courthope. - BACON R. W. Church. - COLERIDGE H. D. Traill. - SIR PHILIP SIDNEY J. A. Symonds. - -12mo, Cloth, 75 cents per volume. - -PUBLISHED BY HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK. - -☞ _Any of the above works will be sent by mail, postage prepaid, to any -part of the United States, on receipt of the price._ - - - - -NOTE. - - -I am indebted throughout to _The Life and Correspondence of Robert -Southey_, edited by the Rev. C. C. Southey, six volumes, 1850, and to -_Selections from the Letters of Robert Southey_, edited by J. W. Warter, -B.D., four volumes, 1856. Many other sources have been consulted. I thank -Mr. W. J. Craig for help given in examining Southey manuscripts, and Mr. -T. W. Lyster for many valuable suggestions. - - - - -CONTENTS. - - - PAGE - - CHAPTER I. - - CHILDHOOD 1 - - CHAPTER II. - - WESTMINSTER, OXFORD, PANTISOCRACY, AND MARRIAGE 19 - - CHAPTER III. - - WANDERINGS, 1795-1803 44 - - CHAPTER IV. - - WAYS OF LIFE AT KESWICK, 1803-1839 80 - - CHAPTER V. - - WAYS OF LIFE AT KESWICK, 1803-1839 (_continued_) 112 - - CHAPTER VI. - - CHANGES AND EVENTS, 1803-1843 142 - - CHAPTER VII. - - SOUTHEY’S WORK IN LITERATURE 187 - - - - -SOUTHEY. - - - - -CHAPTER I - -CHILDHOOD. - - -No one of his generation lived so completely in and for literature as did -Southey. “He is,” said Byron, “the only existing entire man of letters.” -With him literature served the needs both of the material life and of -the life of the intellect and imagination; it was his means of earning -daily bread, and also the means of satisfying his highest ambitions and -desires. This, which was true of Southey at five-and-twenty years of age, -was equally true at forty, fifty, sixty. During all that time he was -actively at work accumulating, arranging, and distributing knowledge; no -one among his contemporaries gathered so large a store from the records -of the past; no one toiled with such steadfast devotion to enrich his -age; no one occupied so honourable a place in so many provinces of -literature. There is not, perhaps, any single work of Southey’s the loss -of which would be felt by us as a capital misfortune. But the more we -consider his total work, its mass, its variety, its high excellence, the -more we come to regard it as a memorable, an extraordinary achievement. - -Southey himself, however, stands above his works. In subject they are -disconnected, and some of them appear like huge fragments. It is the -presence of one mind, one character in all, easily recognizable by him -who knows Southey, which gives them a vital unity. We could lose the -_History of Brazil_, or the _Peninsular War_, or the _Life of Wesley_, -and feel that if our possessions were diminished, we ourselves in our -inmost being had undergone no loss which might not easily be endured. But -he who has once come to know Southey’s voice as the voice of a friend, -so clear, so brave, so honest, so full of boyish glee, so full of manly -tenderness, feels that if he heard that voice no more a portion of his -life were gone. To make acquaintance with the man is better than to study -the subjects of his books. In such a memoir as the present, to glance -over the contents of a hundred volumes, dealing with matters widely -remote, would be to wander upon a vast circumference when we ought to -strike for the centre. If the reader come to know Southey as he read and -wrote in his library, as he rejoiced and sorrowed among his children, as -he held hands with good old friends, as he walked by the lake-side, or -lingered to muse near some mountain stream, as he hoped and feared for -England, as he thought of life and death and a future beyond the grave, -the end of this small book will have been attained. - -At the age of forty-six Robert Southey wrote the first of a series -of autobiographic sketches; his spirit was courageous, and life had -been good to him; but it needed more than his courage to live again -in remembrance with so many of the dead; having told the story of his -boyhood, he had not the heart to go farther. The autobiography rambles -pleasantly into by-ways of old Bath and Bristol life; at Westminster -School it leaves him. So far we shall go along with it; for what lies -beyond, a record of Southey’s career must be brought together from a -multitude of letters, published or still remaining in manuscript, and -from many and massy volumes in prose and verse, which show how the -industrious hours sped by. - -Southey’s father was a linen-draper of Bristol. He had left his native -fields under the Quantock hills to take service in a London shop, but -his heart suffered in its exile. The tears were in his eyes one day when -a porter went by carrying a hare, and the remembrance suddenly came to -him of his rural sports. On his master’s death he took a place behind -the counter of Britton’s shop in Wine Street, Bristol; and when, twelve -years later, he opened a shop for himself in the same business, he had, -with tender reminiscence, a hare painted for a device upon his windows. -He kept his grandfather’s sword which had been borne in Monmouth’s -rebellion; he loved the chimes and quarter-boys of Christ Church, -Bristol, and tried, as church-warden, to preserve them. What else of -poetry there may have been in the life of Robert Southey the elder is -lost among the buried epics of prosaic lives. We cannot suppose that as a -man of business he was sharp and shrewd; he certainly was not successful. -When the draper’s work was done, he whiled away the hours over Felix -Farley’s Bristol Journal, his only reading. For library some score -of books shared with his wine-glasses the small cupboard in the back -parlour; its chief treasures were the _Spectator_, the _Guardian_, some -eighteenth-century poems, dead even then, and one or two immortal plays. - -On Sundays Mr. Southey, then a bachelor, would stroll to Bedminster to -dine at the pleasant house of Mrs. Hill—a substantial house to which -Edward Hill, gentleman, brought his second wife, herself a widow; a house -rich in old English comfort, with its diamond-tiled garden-way and -jessamine-covered porch, its wainscoted “best kitchen,” its blue room and -green room and yellow room, its grapes and greengages and nectarines, its -sweet-williams and stocks and syringas. Among these pleasant surroundings -the young draper found it natural, on Sabbath afternoons, to make love to -pleasant Margaret Hill. “Never,” writes her son Robert Southey—“never was -any human being blessed with a sweeter temper or a happier disposition.” -Her face had been marred by the seams of small-pox, but its brightness -and kindness remained; there was a charm in her clear hazel eyes, so good -a temper and so alert an understanding were to be read in them. She had -not gone to any school except one for dancing, and “her state,” declares -Southey, “was the more gracious;” her father had, however, given her -lessons in the art of whistling; she could turn a tune like a blackbird. -From a mother, able to see a fact swiftly and surely, and who knew both -to whistle and to dance, Southey inherited that alertness of intellect -and that joyous temper, without which he could not have accomplished his -huge task-work, never yielding to a mood of rebellion or _ennui_. - -After the courtship on Sunday afternoons came the wedding, and before -long a beautiful boy was born, who died in infancy. On the 12th of -August, 1774, Mrs. Southey was again in the pain of childbirth. “Is it a -boy?” she asked the nurse. “Ay, a great ugly boy!” With such salutation -from his earliest critic the future poet-laureate entered this world. -“God forgive me,” his mother exclaimed afterwards, in relating the -event, “when I saw what a great red creature it was, covered with rolls -of fat, I thought I should never be able to love him.” In due time the -red creature proved to be a distinctively human child, whose curly -hair and sensitive feelings made him a mother’s darling. He had not yet -heard of sentiment or of Rousseau, but he wept at the pathos of romantic -literature, at the tragic fate of the “Children sliding on the ice all -on a summer’s day,” or the too early death of “Billy Pringle’s pig,” and -he would beg the reciters not to proceed. His mother’s household cares -multiplied, and Southey, an unbreeched boy of three years, was borne away -one morning by his faithful foster-mother Patty to be handed over to -the tender mercies of a schoolmistress. Ma’am Powell was old and grim, -and with her lashless eyes gorgonized the new pupil; on the seizure of -her hand he woke to rebellion, kicking lustily, and crying, “Take me to -Pat! I don’t like ye! you’ve got ugly eyes! take me to Pat, I say!” But -soft-hearted Pat had gone home, sobbing. - -Mrs. Southey’s one weakness was that of submitting too meekly to the -tyranny of an imperious half-sister, Miss Tyler, the daughter of -Grandmother Hill by her first marriage. For this weakness there were -excuses; Miss Tyler was an elder sister by many years; she had property -of her own; she passed for a person of fashion, and was still held to be -a beauty; above all, she had the advantage of a temper so capricious and -violent that to quarrel with her at all might be to lose her sisterly -regard for ever. Her struggling sister’s eldest son took Aunt Tyler’s -fancy; it was a part of her imperious kindness to adopt or half-adopt -the boy. Aunt Tyler lived in Bath; in no other city could a gentlewoman -better preserve health and good looks, or enjoy so much society of -distinction on easy but not too ample means; it possessed a charming -theatre, and Miss Tyler was a patron of the drama. To Bath, then, she -had brought her portrait by Gainsborough, her inlaid cabinet of ebony, -her cherry-wood arm-chair, her mezzotints after Angelica Kaufmann, her -old-maid hoards of this and of that, the woman servant she had saved -from the toils of matrimony, and the old man, harmless as one of the -crickets which he nightly fed until he died. To Bath Miss Tyler also -brought her nephew; and she purchased a copy of the new gospel of -education, Rousseau’s _Emilius_, in order to ascertain how Nature should -have her perfect work with a boy in petticoats. Here the little victim, -without companions, without play, without the child’s beatitudes of -dirt and din, was carefully swathed in the odds and ends of habits and -humours which belonged to a maiden lady of a whimsical, irrational, -and self-indulgent temper. Miss Tyler, when not prepared for company, -wandered about the house—a faded beauty—in the most faded and fluttering -of costumes; but in her rags she was spotless. To preserve herself and -her worldly gear from the dust, for ever floating and gathering in this -our sordid atmosphere, was the business of her life. Her acquaintances -she divided into the clean and the unclean—the latter class being much -the more numerous. Did one of the unclean take a seat in her best room, -the infected chair must be removed to the garden to be aired. But did -he seat himself in Miss Tyler’s own arm-chair, pressing his abominable -person into Miss Tyler’s own cushion, then passionate were her dismay -and despair. To her favourites she was gracious and high-bred, regaling -them with reminiscences of Lady Bateman, and with her views on taste, -Shakspeare, and the musical glasses. For her little nephew she invented -the pretty recreation of pricking play-bills; all capital letters -were to be illuminated with pin-holes; it was not a boisterous nor an -ungenteel sport. At other times the boy would beguile the hours in the -garden, making friends with flowers and insects, or looking wistfully -towards that sham castle on Claverton Hill, seat of romantic mystery, -but, alas! two miles away, and therefore beyond the climbing powers of -a refined gentlewoman. Southey’s hardest daily trial was the luxurious -morning captivity of his aunt’s bed; still at nine, at ten that lady lay -in slumber; the small urchin, long perked up and broad awake, feared by -sound or stir to rouse her, and would nearly wear his little wits away in -plotting re-arrangements of the curtain-pattern, or studying the motes at -mazy play in the slant sunbeam. His happiest season was when all other -little boys were fast asleep; then, splendid in his gayest “jam,” he -sat beside Miss Tyler in a front row of the best part of the theatre; -when the yawning fits had passed, he was as open-eyed as the oldest, and -stared on, filling his soul with the spectacle, till the curtain fell. - -The “great red creature,” Robert Southey, had now grown into the lean -greyhound of his after-life; his long legs wanted to be stirring, and -there were childish ambitions already at work in his head. Freedom became -dearer to him than the daintiest cage, and when at six he returned to -his father’s house in Wine Street, it was with rejoicing. Now, too, his -aunt issued an edict that the long-legged lad should be breeched; an -epoch of life was complete. Wine Street, with its freedom, seemed good; -but best of all was a visit to Grandmother Hill’s pleasant house at -Bedminster. “Here I had all wholesome liberty, all wholesome indulgence, -all wholesome enjoyments; and the delight which I there learnt to take -in rural sights and sounds has grown up with me, and continues unabated -to this day.” And now that scrambling process called education was to -begin. A year was spent by Southey as a day-scholar with old Mr. Foot, a -dissenting minister, whose unorthodoxy as to the doctrine of the Trinity -was in some measure compensated by sound traditional views as to the uses -of the cane. Mr. Foot, having given proof on the back of his last and his -least pupil of steadfastness in the faith according to Busby, died; and -it was decided that the boy should be placed under Thomas Flower, who -kept school at Corston, nine miles from Bristol. To a tender mother’s -heart nine miles seemed a breadth of severance cruel as an Atlantic. Mrs. -Southey, born to be happy herself, and to make others happy, had always -heretofore met her son with a smile; now he found her weeping in her -chamber; with an effort, such as Southey, man and boy, always knew how to -make on like occasions, he gulped down his own rising sob, and tried to -brighten her sorrow with a smile. - -A boy’s first night at school is usually not a time of mirth. The heart -of the solitary little lad at Corston sank within him. A melancholy hung -about the decayed mansion which had once known better days; the broken -gateways, the summer-houses falling in ruins, the grass-grown court, -the bleakness of the schoolroom, ill-disguised by its faded tapestry, -depressed the spirits. Southey’s pillow was wet with tears before he -fell asleep. The master was at one with his surroundings; he, too, was -a piece of worthy old humanity now decayed; he, too, was falling in -untimely ruins. From the memory of happier days, from the troubles of -his broken fortune, from the vexations of the drunken maid-servant who -was now his wife, he took refuge in contemplating the order and motions -of the stars. “When he came into his desk, even there he was thinking of -the stars, and looked as if he were out of humour, not from ill-nature, -but because his calculations were interrupted.” Naturally the work of -the school, such as it was, fell, for the most part, into the hands -of Charley, Thomas Flower’s son. Both father and son knew the mystery -of that flamboyant penmanship admired by our ancestors, but Southey’s -handwriting had not yet advanced from the early rounded to the decorated -style. His spelling he could look back upon with pride: on one occasion -a grand spelling tournament between the boys took place; and little -Southey can hardly have failed to overthrow his taller adversaries with -the posers, “crystallization” and “coterie.” The household arrangements -at Corston, as may be supposed, were not of the most perfect kind; Mrs. -Flower had so deep an interest in her bottle, and poor Thomas Flower in -his planets. The boys each morning washed themselves, or did not, in -the brook ankle-deep which ran through the yard. In autumn the brook -grew deeper and more swift, and after a gale it would bring within -bounds a tribute of floating apples from the neighbouring orchard. That -was a merry day, also in autumn, when the boys were employed to pelt -the master’s walnut-trees; Southey, too small to bear his part in the -battery, would glean among the fallen leaves and twigs, inhaling the -penetrating fragrance which ever after called up a vision of the brook, -the hillside, and its trees. One schoolboy sport—that of “conquering” -with snail-shells—seems to have been the special invention of Corston. -The snail-shells, not tenantless, were pressed point against point -until one was broken in. A great conqueror was prodigiously prized, was -treated with honourable distinction, and was not exposed to danger save -in great emergencies. One who had slain his hundreds might rank with -Rodney, to see whom the boys had marched down to the Globe inn, and for -whom they had cheered and waved their Sunday cocked hats as he passed -by. So, on the whole, life at Corston had its pleasures. Chief among -its pains was the misery of Sunday evenings in winter; then the pupils -were assembled in the hall to hear the master read a sermon, or a portion -of Stackhouse’s _History of the Bible_. “Here,” writes Southey, “I sat -at the end of a long form, in sight but not within feeling of the fire, -my feet cold, my eyelids heavy as lead, and yet not daring to close -them—kept awake by fear alone, in total inaction, and under the operation -of a lecture more soporific than the strongest sleeping dose.” While the -boys’ souls were thus provided for, there was a certain negligence in -matters unspiritual; an alarm got abroad that infection was among them. -This hastened the downfall of the school. One night disputing was heard -between Charley and his father; in the morning poor Flower was not to be -seen, and Charley appeared with a black eye. So came to an end the year -at Corston. Southey, aged eight, was brought home, and underwent “a three -days’ purgatory in brimstone.”[1] - -What Southey had gained of book-lore by his two years’ schooling was -as little as could be; but he was already a lover of literature after -a fashion of his own. A friend of Miss Tyler had presented him, as -soon as he could read, with a series of Newbery’s sixpenny books for -children—_Goody Twoshoes_, _Giles Gingerbread_, and the rest—delectable -histories, resplendent in Dutch-gilt paper. The true masters of his -imagination, however, were the players and playwrights who provided -amusement for the pleasure-loving people of Bath. Miss Tyler was -acquainted with Colman, and Sheridan, and Cumberland, and Holcroft; her -talk was of actors and authors, and her nephew soon perceived that, -honoured as were both classes, the authors were awarded the higher place. -His first dreams of literary fame, accordingly, were connected with the -drama. “‘It is the easiest thing in the world to write a play,’ said I -to Miss Palmer (a friend of Aunt Tyler’s), as we were in a carriage on -Redcliffe Hill one day, returning from Bristol to Bedminster. ‘Is it, my -dear?’ was her reply. ‘Yes,’ I continued, ‘for you know you have only to -think what you would say if you were in the place of the characters, and -to make them say it.’” With such a canon of dramatic authorship Southey -began a play on the continence of Scipio, and actually completed an act -and a half. Shakespeare he read and read again; Beaumont and Fletcher -he had gone through before he was eight years old. Were they not great -theatrical names, Miss Tyler reasoned, and therefore improving writers -for her nephew? and Southey had read them unharmed. When he visited his -aunt from Corston, she was a guest with Miss Palmer at Bath; a covered -passage led to the playhouse, and every evening the delighted child, -seated between the two lady-patronesses of the stage, saw the pageantry -and heard the poetry. A little later he persuaded a schoolfellow to write -a tragedy; Ballard liked the suggestion, but could not invent a plot. -Southey gave him a story; Ballard approved, but found a difficulty in -devising names for the _dramatis personæ_. Southey supplied a list of -heroic names: they were just what Ballard wanted—but he was at a loss to -know what the characters should say. “I made the same attempt,” continued -Southey, “with another schoolfellow, and with no better success. It -seemed to me very odd that they should not be able to write plays as well -as to do their lessons.” - -The ingenious Ballard was an ornament of the school of William Williams, -whither Southey was sent as a day-boarder after the catastrophe of -Corston. Under the care of this kindly, irascible, little, bewigged old -Welshman, Southey remained during four years. Williams was not a model -schoolmaster, but he was a man of character and of a certain humorous -originality. In two things he believed with all the energy of his -nature—in his own spelling-book printed for his own school, and in the -Church Catechism. Latin was left to the curate; when Southey reached -Virgil, old Williams, delighted with classical attainments rare among -his pupils, thought of taking the boy into his own hands, but his little -Latin had faded from his brain; and the curate himself seemed to have -reached his term in the _Tityre tu patulæ recubans sub tegmine fagi_, -so that to Southey, driven round and round the pastoral paddock, the -names of Tityrus and Melibœus became for ever after symbols of _ennui_. -No prosody was taught: “I am,” said Southey, “at this day as liable to -make a false quantity as any Scotchman.” The credit, however, is due -to Williams of having discovered in his favourite pupil a writer of -English prose. One day each boy of a certain standing was called upon -to write a letter on any subject he pleased: never had Southey written -a letter except the formal one dictated at Corston which began with -“Honoured Parents.” He cried for perplexity and vexation; but Williams -encouraged him, and presently a description of Stonehenge filled his -slate. The old man was surprised and delighted. A less amiable feeling -possessed Southey’s schoolfellows: a plan was forthwith laid for his -humiliation—could he tell them, fine scholar that he was, what the -letters _i. e._ stand for? Southey, never lacking in courage, drew a bow -at a venture: for John the Evangelist. - -The old Welshman, an original himself, had an odd following of friends -and poor retainers. There was the crazy rhymester known as “Dr. Jones;” -tradition darkly related that a dose of cantharides administered by -waggish boys of a former generation had robbed him of his wits. “The most -celebrated _improvisatore_ was never half so vain of his talent as this -queer creature, whose little figure of some five-feet-two I can perfectly -call to mind, with his suit of rusty black, his more rusty wig, and his -old cocked hat. Whenever he entered the schoolroom he was greeted with a -shout of welcome.” There was also Pullen, the breeches-maker—a glorious -fellow, brimful of vulgarity, prosperity, and boisterous good-nature; -above all, an excellent hand at demanding a half-holiday. A more graceful -presence, but a more fleeting, was that of Mrs. Estan, the actress, who -came to learn from the dancing-master her _minuet de la cour_ in _The -Belle’s Stratagem_. Southey himself had to submit to lessons in dancing. -Tom Madge, his constant partner, had limbs that went every way; Southey’s -limbs would go no way: the spectacle presented by their joint endeavours -was one designed for the pencil of Cruikshank. In the art of reading -aloud Miss Tyler had herself instructed her nephew, probably after the -manner of the most approved tragedy queens. The grand style did not -please honest Williams. “Who taught you to read?” he asked, scornfully. -“My aunt,” answered Southey. “Then give my compliments to your aunt, and -tell her that my old horse, that has been dead these twenty years, could -have taught you as well”—a message which her nephew, with the appalling -frankness of youth, delivered, and which was never forgotten. - -While Southey was at Corston, his grandmother died; the old lady with the -large, clear, brown, bright eyes, seated in her garden, was no more to be -seen, and the Bedminster house, after a brief occupation by Miss Tyler, -was sold. Miss Tyler spoke of Bristol society with a disdainful sniff; -it was her choice to wander for a while from one genteel watering-place -to another. When Williams gave Southey his first summer holidays, he -visited his aunt at Weymouth. The hours spent there upon the beach were -the most spiritual hours of Southey’s boyhood; he was for the first -time in face of the sea—the sea vast, voiceful, and mysterious. Another -epoch-making event occurred about the same time; good Mrs. Dolignon, his -aunt’s friend, gave him a book—the first which became his very own since -that present of the toy-books of Newbery. It was Hoole’s translation of -Tasso’s _Gerusalemme Liberata_; in it a world of poetical adventure was -opened to the boy. The notes to Tasso made frequent reference to Ariosto; -Bull’s Circulating Library at Bath—a Bodleian to Southey—supplied him -with the version, also by Hoole, of the _Orlando Furioso_; here was a -forest of old romance in which to lose himself. But a greater discovery -was to come; searching the notes again, Southey found mention made of -Spenser, and certain stanzas of Spenser’s chief poem were quoted. “Was -the _Faerie Queene_ on Bull’s shelves?” “Yes,” was the answer; “they -had it, but it was in obsolete language, and the young gentleman would -not understand it.” The young gentleman, who had already gone through -Beaumont and Fletcher, was not daunted; he fell to with the keenest -relish, feeling in Spenser the presence of something which was lacking in -the monotonous couplets of Hoole, and charming himself unaware with the -music of the stanza. Spenser, “not more sweet than pure, and not more -pure than wise,” - - “High-priest of all the Muses’ mysteries,”[2] - -was henceforth accepted by Southey as his master. - -When Miss Tyler had exhausted her friends’ hospitality, and had grown -tired of lodgings, she settled in a pleasant suburban nook at Bristol; -but having a standing quarrel with Thomas Southey, her sister’s -brother-in-law, she would never set foot in the house in Wine Street, -and she tried to estrange her nephew, as far as possible, from his -natural home. Her own brother William, a half-witted creature, she -brought to live with her. “The Squire,” as he was called, was hardly -a responsible being, yet he had a sort of _half-saved_ shrewdness, -and a memory stored with old saws, which, says Southey, “would have -qualified him, had he been born two centuries earlier, to have worn -motley, and figured with a cap and bells and a bauble in some baron’s -hall.” A saying of his, “Curses are like young chickens, they always -come home to roost,” was remembered by Southey in after-years; and when -it was turned into Greek by Coleridge, to serve as motto to _The Curse -of Kehama_, a mysterious reference was given—Αποφθ. Ανεκ. του Γυλίελ. -του Μητ. With much beer-swilling and tobacco-chewing, premature old age -came upon him. He would sit for hours by the kitchen fire, or, on warm -days, in the summer-house, his eyes intently following the movements of -the neighbours. He loved to play at marbles with his nephew, and at loo -with Miss Tyler; most of all, he loved to be taken to the theatre. The -poor Squire had an affectionate heart; he would fondle children with -tenderness, and at his mother’s funeral his grief was overwhelming. -A companion of his own age Southey found in Shadrach Weekes, the boy -of all work, a brother of Miss Tyler’s maid. Shad and his young master -would scour the country in search of violet and cowslip roots, and the -bee and fly orchis, until wood and rock by the side of the Avon had -grown familiar and had grown dear; and now, instead of solitary pricking -of play-bills, Southey set to work, with the help of Shad, to make and -fit up such a theatre for puppets as would have been the pride even of -Wilhelm Meister. - -But fate had already pronounced that Southey was to be poet, and not -player. Tasso and Ariosto and Spenser claimed him, or so he dreamed. By -this time he had added to his epic cycle Pope’s _Homer_ and Mickle’s -_Lusiad_. That prose romance, embroidered with sixteenth-century -affectations, but with a true chivalric sentiment at its heart, Sidney’s -_Arcadia_, was also known to him. He had read Arabian and mock-Arabian -tales; he had spent the pocket-money of many weeks on a Josephus, and he -had picked up from Goldsmith something of Greek and Roman history. So -breathed upon by poetry, and so furnished with erudition, Southey, at -twelve years old, found it the most natural thing in the world to become -an epic poet. His removal from the old Welshman’s school having been -hastened by that terrible message which Miss Tyler could not forgive, -Southey, before proceeding to Westminster, was placed for a year under a -clergyman, believed to be competent to carry his pupils beyond Tityrus -and Melibœus. But, except some skill in writing English themes, little -was gained from this new tutor. The year, however, was not lost. “I do -not remember,” Southey writes, “in any part of my life to have been so -conscious of intellectual improvement ... an improvement derived not -from books or instruction, but from constantly exercising myself in -English verse.” “Arcadia” was the title of his first dream-poem; it was -to be grafted upon the _Orlando Furioso_, with a new hero, and in a new -scene; this dated from his ninth or tenth year, and some verses were -actually composed. The epic of the Trojan Brutus and that of King Richard -III. were soon laid aside, but several folio sheets of an _Egbert_ came -to be written. The boy’s pride and ambition were solitary and shy. One -day he found a lady, a visitor of Miss Tyler’s, with the sacred sheets of -_Egbert_ in her hand; her compliments on his poem were deeply resented; -and he determined henceforth to write his epics in a private cipher. -Heroic epistles, translations from Latin poetry, satires, descriptive and -moral pieces, a poem in dialogue exhibiting the story of the Trojan war, -followed in rapid succession; last, a “Cassibelan,” of which three books -were completed. Southey, looking back on these attempts, notices their -deficiency in plan, in construction. “It was long before I acquired this -power—not fairly, indeed, till I was about five or six and thirty; and -it was gained by practice, in the course of which I learnt to perceive -wherein I was deficient.” - -One day in February, 1788, a carriage rumbled out of Bath, containing -Miss Palmer, Miss Tyler, and Robert Southey, now a tall, lank boy -with high-poised head, brown curling hair, bright hazel eyes, and an -expression of ardour and energy about the lips and chin. The ladies were -on their way to London for some weeks’ diversion, and Robert Southey -was on his way to school at Westminster. For a while he remained an -inconvenient appendage of his aunt’s, wearying of the great city, longing -for Shad and the carpentry, and the Gloucester meadows and the Avon -cliffs, and the honest eyes and joyous bark of poor Phillis. April the -first—ominous morning—arrived; Southey was driven to Dean’s Yard; his -name was duly entered; his boarding-house determined; his tutor chosen; -farewells were said, and he found himself in a strange world, alone. - - - - -CHAPTER II. - -WESTMINSTER, OXFORD, PANTISOCRACY, AND MARRIAGE. - - -Of Southey during his four years at Westminster we know little; his -fragment of autobiography, having brought him to the school, soon comes -to an untimely close; and for this period we possess no letters. But we -know that these were years which contributed much to form his intellect -and character; we know that they were years of ardour and of toil; and -it is certain that now, as heretofore, his advance was less dependent on -what pastors and masters did for him than on what he did for himself. -The highest scholarship—that which unites precision with breadth, and -linguistic science with literary feeling—Southey never attained in -any foreign tongue, except perhaps in the Portuguese and the Spanish. -Whenever the choice lay between pausing to trace out a law of language, -or pushing forward to secure a good armful of miscellaneous facts, -Southey preferred the latter. With so many huge structures of his own -in contemplation, he could not gather too much material, nor gather it -too quickly. Such fortitude as goes to make great scholars he possessed; -his store of patience was inexhaustible; but he could be patient only in -pursuit of his proper objects. He could never learn a language in regular -fashion; the best grammar, he said, was always the shortest. Southey’s -acquaintance with Greek never goes beyond that stage at which Greek, -like fairy gold, is apt to slip away of a sudden unless kept steadfastly -in view, nearly all the Greek he had learnt at Westminster he forgot -at Oxford. A monkish legend in Latin of the Church or a mediæval Latin -chronicle he could follow with the run of the eye; but had he at any -season of his manhood been called on to write a page of Latin prose, it -would probably have resembled the French in which he sometimes sportively -addressed his friends by letter, and in which he uttered himself -valiantly while travelling abroad. - -Southey brought to Westminster an imagination stored with the marvels -and the beauty of old romance. He left it skilled in the new sentiment -of the time—a sentiment which found in Werther and Eloisa its dialect, -high-pitched self-conscious, rhapsodical, and not wholly real. His bias -for history was already marked before he entered the school; but his -knowledge consisted of a few clusters of historical facts grouped around -the subjects of various projected epics, and dotting at wide distances -and almost at random the vast expanse of time. Now he made acquaintance -with that book which, more than any other, displays the breadth, the -variety, and the independence of the visible lives of nations. Gibbon’s -_Decline and Fall_ leaves a reader cold who cares only to quicken his own -inmost being by contact with what is most precious in man’s spiritual -history; one chapter of Augustine’s _Confessions_, one sentence of the -_Imitation_—each a live coal from off the altar—will be of more worth to -such an one than all the mass and laboured majesty of Gibbon. But one who -can gaze with a certain impersonal regard on the spectacle of the world -will find the _Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_, more than almost -any other single book, replenish and dilate the mind. In it Southey -viewed for the first time the sweep, the splendour, the coils, the mighty -movement, of the stream of human affairs. - -Southey’s ambition on entering Westminster was to have the friendship of -the youths who had acted in the last Westminster play, and whose names -he had seen in the newspaper. Vain hope! for they, already preparing to -tie their hair in tails, were looking onward to the great world, and -had no glance to cast on the unnoted figures of the under-fourth. The -new-comer, according to a custom of the school, was for a time effaced, -ceasing to exist as an individual entity, and being known only as -“shadow” of the senior boy chosen to be “substance” to him during his -noviciate. Southey accepted his effacement the more willingly because -George Strachey, his substance, had a good face and a kindly heart; -unluckily—Strachey boarding at home—they were parted each night. A mild -young aristocrat, joining little with the others, was head of the house; -and Southey, unprotected by his chief, stood exposed to the tyranny of a -fellow-boarder bigger and brawnier than himself, who would souse the ears -of his sleeping victim with water, or on occasions let fly the porter-pot -or the poker at his head. Aspiring beyond these sallies to a larger and -freer style of humour, he attempted one day to hang Southey out of an -upper window by the leg; the pleasantry was taken ill by the smaller boy, -who offered an effectual resistance, and soon obtained his remove to -another chamber. Southey’s mature judgment of boarding-school life was -not, on the whole, favourable; yet to Westminster he owed two of his best -and dearest possessions—the friendship of C. W. W. Wynn, whose generous -loyalty alone made it possible for Southey to pursue literature as his -profession, and the friendship, no less precious, of Grosvenor Bedford, -lasting green and fresh from boyhood until both were white-haired, -venerable men. - -Southey’s interest in boyish sports was too slight to beguile him from -the solitude needful for the growth of a poet’s mind. He had thoughts -of continuing Ovid’s Metamorphoses; he planned six books to complete -the Faery Queen, and actually wrote some cantos; already the subject -of _Madoc_ was chosen. And now a gigantic conception, which at a later -time was to bear fruit in such poems as _Thalaba_ and _Kehama_, formed -itself in his mind “When I was a schoolboy at Westminster,” he writes “I -frequented the house of a schoolfellow who has continued till this day -to be one of my most intimate and dearest friends. The house was so near -Dean’s Yard that it was hardly considered as being out of our prescribed -bounds; and I had free access to the library, a well-stored and pleasant -room ... looking over the river. There many of my truant hours were -delightfully spent in reading Picart’s _Religious Ceremonies_. The book -impressed my imagination strongly; and before I left school I had formed -the intention of exhibiting all the more prominent and poetical forms of -mythology, which have at any time obtained among mankind, by making each -the groundwork of an heroic poem.” Southey’s huge design was begotten -upon his _pia mater_ by a folio in a library. A few years earlier -Wordsworth, a boy of fourteen, walking between Hawkshead and Ambleside, -noticed the boughs and leaves of an oak-tree intensely outlined in black -against a bright western sky. “That moment,” he says, “was important in -my poetical history, for I date from it my consciousness of the infinite -variety of natural appearances which had been unnoticed by the poets of -any age or country, so far as I was acquainted with them; and I made -a resolution to supply in some degree the deficiency.” Two remarkable -incidents in the history of English poetry, and each with something in it -of a typical character. - -At Westminster Southey obtained his first literary profits—the guerdon -of the silver penny to which Cowper alludes in his _Table-Talk_. -Southey’s penny—exchanged for current coin in the proportion of six -to one by the mistress of the boarding-house—was always awarded for -English composition. But his fame among his schoolfellows was not of an -early or sudden growth. In the year of Southey’s entrance, some of the -senior boys commenced a weekly paper called _The Trifler_. It imitates, -with some skill, the periodical essay of the post-Johnsonian period: -there is the wide-ranging discussion on the Influence of Liberty on -Genius; there is the sprightly sketch of Amelia, a learned Lady; there -is the moral diatribe on Deists, a Sect of Infidels most dangerous to -Mankind; there are the letters from Numa and from Infelix; there is the -Eastern apologue, beginning, “In the city of Bassora lived Zaydor, the -son of Al-Zored.” Southey lost no time in sending to the editor his -latest verses; a baby sister, Margaretta, had just died, and Southey -expressed in elegy a grief which was real and keen. “The Elegy signed -B. is received”—so Mr. Timothy Touchstone announced on the Saturday -after the manuscript had been dropped into the penny post. The following -Saturday—anxiously expected—brought no poem, but another announcement: -“The Elegy by B. must undergo some Alterations; a Liberty I must request -all my Correspondents to permit me to take.” “After this,” says Southey, -“I looked for its appearance anxiously, but in vain.” Happily no one -sought to discover B., or supposed that he was one with the curly-headed -boy of the under-fourth. - -If authorship has its hours of disappointment, it has compensating -moments of glory and of joy. _The Trifler_, having lived to the age of -ten months, deceased. In 1792 Southey, now a great boy, with Strachey, -his sometime “substance,” and his friends Wynn and Bedford, planned a -new periodical of ill-omened name, _The Flagellant_. “I well remember -my feelings,” he writes, “when the first number appeared.... It was -Bedford’s writing, but that circumstance did not prevent me from feeling -that I was that day borne into the world as an author; and if ever my -head touched the stars while I walked upon the earth, it was then.... In -all London there was not so vain, so happy, so elated a creature as I -was that day.” From that starry altitude he soon descended. The subject -of an early number of _The Flagellant_ was flogging; the writer was -Robert Southey. He was full of Gibbon at the time, and had caught some of -Voltaire’s manner of poignant irony. Rather for disport of his wits than -in the character of a reformer, the writer of number five undertook to -prove from the ancients and the Fathers that flogging was an invention of -the devil. During Southey’s life the devil received many insults at his -hands; his horns, his hoofs, his teeth, his tail, his moral character, -were painfully referred to; and the devil took it, like a sensible -fiend, in good part. Not so Dr. Vincent; the preceptorial dignity was -impugned by some unmannerly brat; a bulwark of the British Constitution -was at stake. Dr. Vincent made haste to prosecute the publisher for -libel. Matters having taken unexpectedly so serious a turn, Southey -came forward, avowed himself the writer, and, with some sense of shame -in yielding to resentment so unwarranted and so dull, he offered his -apology. The head-master’s wrath still held on its way, and Southey was -privately expelled. - -All Southey’s truant hours were not passed among folios adorned with -strange sculptures. In those days even St. Peter’s College, Westminster, -could be no little landlocked bay—silent, secure, and dull. To be in -London was to be among the tides and breakers of the world. Every post -brought news of some startling or significant event. Now it was that -George Washington had been elected first President of the American -Republic; now that the States-General were assembled at Versailles; now -that Paris, delivered from her nightmare towers of the Bastille, breathed -free; now that Brissot was petitioning for dethronement. The main issues -of the time were such as to try the spirits. Southey, who was aspiring, -hopeful, and courageous, did not hesitate in choosing a side; a new dawn -was opening for the world, and should not his heart have its portion in -that dawn? - -The love of our own household which surrounds us like the air, and -which seems inevitable as our daily meat and drink, acquires a strange -preciousness when we find that the world can be harsh. The expelled -Westminster boy returned to Bristol, and faithful Aunt Tyler welcomed him -home; Shad did not avert his face, and Phillis looked up at him with her -soft spaniel eyes. But Bristol also had its troubles; the world had been -too strong for the poor linen-draper in Wine Street; he had struggled to -maintain his business, but without success; his fortune was now broken, -and his heart broke with it. In some respects it was well for Southey -that his father’s affairs gave him definite realities to attend to; for, -in the quiet and vacancy of the days in Miss Tyler’s house, his heart -took unusual heats and chills, and even his eager verse-writing could -not allay the excitement nor avert the despondent fit. When Michaelmas -came, Southey went up to Oxford to matriculate; it was intended that he -should enter at Christ Church, but the dean had heard of the escapade at -Westminster; there was a laying of big-wigs together over that adventure, -and the young rebel was rejected; to be received, however, by Balliol -College. But to Southey it mattered little at the time whether he were of -this college or of that; a summons had reached him to hasten to Bristol -that he might follow his father’s body to the grave, and now his thoughts -could not but cling to his mother in her sorrow and her need. - -“I left Westminster,” says Southey, “in a perilous state—a heart full of -poetry and feeling, a head full of Rousseau and Werther, and my religious -principles shaken by Gibbon: many circumstances tended to give me a wrong -bias, none to lead me right, except adversity, the wholesomest of all -discipline.” The young republican went up to chambers in Rat Castle—since -departed—near the head of Balliol Grove, prepared to find in Oxford the -seat of pedantry, prejudice, and aristocracy; an airy sense of his own -enlightenment and emancipation possessed him. He has to learn to pay -respect to men “remarkable only for great wigs and little wisdom.” He -finds it “rather disgraceful at the moment when Europe is on fire with -freedom—when man and monarch are contending—to sit and study Euclid -and Hugo Grotius.” Beside the enthusiasm proper in Southey’s nature, -there was at this time an enthusiasm prepense. He had learnt from his -foreign masters the language of hyper-sensibility; his temperament was -nervous and easily wrought upon; his spirit was generous and ardent. -Like other youths with a facile literary talent before finding his true -self, he created a number of artificial selves, who uttered for him -his moralizings and philosophizings, who declaimed for him on liberty, -who dictated long letters of sentimental platitudes, and who built up -dream-fabrics of social and political reforms, chiefly for the pleasure -of seeing how things might look in “the brilliant colours of fancy, -nature, and Rousseau.” In this there was no insincerity, though there -was some unreality. “For life,” he says, “I have really a very strong -predilection,” and the buoyant energy within him delayed the discovery -of the bare facts of existence; it was so easy and enjoyable to become -in turn sage, reformer, and enthusiast. Or perhaps we ought to say that -all this time there was a real Robert Southey, strong, upright, ardent, -simple; and although this was quite too plain a person to serve the -purposes of epistolary literature, it was he who gave their cues to the -various ideal personages. This, at least, may be affirmed—all Southey’s -unrealities were of a pure and generous cast; never was his life emptied -of truth and meaning, and made in the deepest degree phantasmal by a -secret shame lurking under a fair show. The youth Milton, with his -grave upbringing, was happily not in the way of catching the trick of -sentimental phrases; but even Milton at Cambridge, the lady of his -College, was not more clean from spot or blemish than was Southey amid -the vulgar riot and animalisms of young Oxford. - -Two influences came to the aid of Southey’s instinctive modesty, and -confirmed him in all that was good. One was his friendship with Edmund -Seward, too soon taken from him by death. The other was his discipleship -to a great master of conduct. One in our own day has acknowledged the -largeness of his debt to - - “That halting slave, who in Nicopolis - Taught Arrian, when Vespasian’s brutal son - Clear’d Rome of what most shamed him.” - -Epictetus came to Southey precisely when such a master was needed; other -writers had affected him through his imagination, through his nervous -sensibility; they had raised around him a luminous haze; they had plunged -him deeper in illusion. Now was heard the voice of a conscience speaking -to a conscience; the manner of speech was grave, unfigured, calm; above -all, it was real, and the words bore in upon the hearer’s soul with -a quiet resistlessness. He had allowed his sensitiveness to set up -what excitements it might please in his whole moral frame; he had been -squandering his emotions; he had been indulging in a luxury and waste of -passion. Here was a tonic and a styptic. Had Southey been declamatory -about freedom? The bondsman Epictetus spoke of freedom also, and of how -it might be obtained. Epictetus, like Rousseau, told of a life according -to nature; he commended simplicity of manners. But Rousseau’s simplicity, -notwithstanding that homage which he paid to the will, seemed to heat the -atmosphere with strange passion, seemed to give rise to new curiosities -and refinements of self-conscious emotion. Epictetus showed how life -could be simplified, indeed, by bringing it into obedience to a perfect -law. Instead of a quietism haunted by feverish dreams—duty, action, -co-operation with God. “Twelve years ago,” wrote Southey in 1806, “I -carried Epictetus in my pocket till my very heart was ingrained with it, -as a pig’s bones become red by feeding him upon madder. And the longer -I live, and the more I learn, the more am I convinced that Stoicism, -properly understood, is the best and noblest of systems.” Much that -Southey gained from Stoicism he kept throughout his whole life, tempered, -indeed, by the influences of a Christian faith, but not lost. He was no -metaphysician, and a master who had placed metaphysics first and morals -after would hardly have won him for a disciple; but a lofty ethical -doctrine spoke to what was deepest and most real in his nature. To trust -in an over-ruling Providence, to accept the disposal of events not in our -own power with a strenuous loyalty to our Supreme Ruler, to hold loose by -all earthly possessions even the dearest, to hold loose by life itself -while putting it to fullest use—these lessons he first learnt from the -Stoic slave, and he forgot none of them. But his chief lesson was the -large one of self-regulation, that it is a man’s prerogative to apply the -reason and the will to the government of conduct and to the formation of -character. - -By the routine of lectures and examinations Southey profited little; he -was not driven into active revolt, and that was all. His tutor, half a -democrat, surprised him by praising America, and asserting the right -of every country to model its own forms of government. He added, with -a pleasing frankness which deserves to be imitated, “Mr. Southey, you -won’t learn anything by my lectures, sir; so, if you have any studies of -your own, you had better pursue them.” Of all the months of his life, -those passed at Oxford, Southey declared, were the most unprofitable. -“All I learnt was a little swimming ... and a little boating.... I never -remember to have dreamt of Oxford—a sure proof how little it entered -into my moral being; of school, on the contrary, I dream perpetually.” -The miscellaneous society of workers, idlers, dunces, bucks, men of -muscle and men of money, did not please him; he lacked what Wordsworth -calls “the congregating temper that pervades our unripe years.” One -or two friends he chose, and grappled them to his heart; above all, -Seward, who abridged his hours of sleep for sake of study—whose drink was -water, whose breakfast was dry bread; then, Wynn and Lightfoot. With -Seward he sallied forth, in the Easter vacation, 1793, for a holiday -excursion; passed, with “the stupidity of a democratic philosopher,” the -very walls of Blenheim, without turning from the road to view the ducal -palace; lingered at Evesham, and wandered through its ruined Abbey, -indulging in some passable mediæval romancing; reached Worcester and -Kidderminster. “We returned by Bewdley. There is an old mansion, once -Lord Herbert’s, now mouldering away, in so romantic a situation, that -I soon lost myself in dreams of days of yore: the tapestried room—the -listed fight—the vassal-filled hall—the hospitable fire—the old baron -and his young daughter—these formed a most delightful day-dream.” The -youthful democrat did not suspect that such day-dreams were treasonable—a -hazardous caressing of the wily enchantress of the past; in his pocket he -carried Milton’s _Defence_, which may have been his amulet of salvation. -Many and various elements could mingle in young brains a-seethe with -revolution and romanticism. The fresh air and quickened blood at least -put Southey into excellent spirits. “We must walk over Scotland; it will -be an adventure to delight us all the remainder of our lives: we will -wander over the hills of Morven, and mark the driving blast, perchance -bestrodden by the spirit of Ossian!” - -Among visitors to the Wye, in July, 1793, were William Wordsworth, -recently returned from France, and Robert Southey, holiday-making from -Oxford; they were probably unacquainted with each other at that time even -by name. Wordsworth has left an undying memorial of his tour in the poem -written near Tintern Abbey, five years later. Southey was drawing a long -breath before he uttered himself in some thousands of blank verses. The -father of his friend Bedford resided at Brixton Causeway, about four -miles on the Surrey side of London; the smoke of the great city hung -heavily beyond an intervening breadth of country; shady lanes led to the -neighbouring villages; the garden was a sunny solitude where flowers -opened and fruit grew mellow, and bees and birds were happy. Here Southey -visited his friend; his nineteenth birthday came; on the following -morning he planted himself at the desk in the garden summer-house; -morning after morning quickly passed; and by the end of six weeks _Joan -of Arc_, an epic poem in twelve books, was written. To the subject -Southey was attracted primarily by the exalted character of his heroine; -but apart from this it possessed a twofold interest for him: England, -in 1793, was engaged in a war against France—a war hateful to all who -sympathized with the Republic; Southey’s epic was a celebration of the -glories of French patriotism, a narrative of victory over the invader. -It was also chivalric and mediæval; the sentiment which was transforming -the word Gothic, from a term of reproach to a word of vague yet mastering -fascination, found expression in the young poet’s treatment of the story -of Joan of Arc. Knight and hermit, prince and prelate, doctors seraphic -and irrefragable with their pupils, meet in it; the castle and the -cathedral confront one another: windows gleam with many-coloured light -streaming through the rich robes of saint and prophet; a miracle of -carven tracery branches overhead; upon the altar burns the mystic lamp. - -The rough draft of _Joan_ was hardly laid aside when Southey’s sympathies -with the revolutionary movement in France, strained already to the utmost -point of tension, were fatally rent. All his faith, all his hope, were -given to the Girondin party; and from the Girondins he had singled out -Brissot as his ideal of political courage, purity and wisdom. Brissot, -like himself, was a disciple of Jean Jacques; his life was austere; he -had suffered on behalf of freedom. On the day when the Bastille was -stormed its keys were placed in Brissot’s hands; it was Brissot who had -determined that war should be declared against the foreign foes of the -Republic. But now the Girondins—following hard upon Marie Antoinette—were -in the death-carts; they chanted their last hymn of liberty, ever growing -fainter while the axe lopped head after head; and Brissot was among the -martyrs (October 31, 1793). Probably no other public event so deeply -affected Southey. “I am sick of the world,” he writes, “and discontented -with every one in it. The murder of Brissot has completely harrowed up -my faculties.... I look round the world, and everywhere find the same -spectacle—the strong tyrannizing over the weak, man and beast.... There -is no place for virtue.” - -After this, though Southey did not lose faith in democratic principles, -he averted his eyes for a time from France: how could he look to -butchers who had shed blood which was the very life of liberty, for the -realization of his dreams? And whither should he look? Had he but ten -thousand republicans like himself, they might repeople Greece and expel -the Turk. Being but one, might not Cowley’s fancy, a cottage in America, -be transformed into a fact: “three rooms ... and my only companion some -poor negro whom I have bought on purpose to emancipate?” Meanwhile he -occupied a room in Aunt Tyler’s house, and, instead of swinging the axe -in some forest primeval, amused himself with splitting a wedge of oak in -company with Shad, who might, perhaps, serve for the emancipated negro. -Moreover, he was very diligently driving his quill: “I have finished -transcribing _Joan_, and have bound her in marble paper with green -ribbons, and am now copying all my remainables to carry to Oxford. Then -once more a clear field, and then another epic poem, and then another.” -Appalling announcement! “I have accomplished a most arduous task, -transcribing all my verses that appear worth the trouble, except letters. -Of these I took one list—another of my pile of stuff and nonsense—and a -third of what I have burnt and lost; upon an average 10,000 verses are -burnt and lost; the same number preserved, and 15,000 worthless.” Such -sad mechanic exercise dulled the ache in Southey’s heart; still “the -visions of futurity,” he finds, “are dark and gloomy, and the only ray -that enlivens the scene beams on America.” - -To Balliol Southey returned; and if the future of the world seemed -perplexing, so also did his individual future. His school and college -expenses were borne by Mrs. Southey’s brother, the Rev. Herbert Hill, -chaplain to the British Factory at Lisbon. In him the fatherless youth -found one who was both a friend and a father. Holbein’s portrait of Sir -Thomas More in his best years might have passed for that of Mr. Hill; -there was the same benign thoughtfulness in his aspect, the same earnest -calm, the same brightness and quietness, the same serene and cheerful -strength. He was generous and judicious, learned and modest, and his -goodness carried authority with it. Uncle Hill’s plan had been that -Southey, like himself, should become an English clergyman. But though -he might have preached from an Unitarian pulpit, Southey could not take -upon himself the vows of a minister of the Church of England. It would -have instantly relieved his mother had he entered into orders. He longed -that this were possible, and went through many conflicts of mind, and -not a little anguish. “God knows I would exchange every intellectual gift -which He has blessed me with, for implicit faith to have been able to do -this;” but it could not be. To bear the reproaches, gentle yet grave, of -his uncle was hard; to grieve his mother was harder. Southey resolved to -go to the anatomy school, and fit himself to be a doctor. But he could -not overcome his strong repugnance to the dissecting-room; it expelled -him whether he would or no; and all the time literature, with still yet -audible voice, was summoning him. Might he not obtain some official -employment in London, and also pursue his true calling? Beside the desire -of pleasing his uncle and of aiding his mother, the Stoic of twenty had -now a stronger motive for seeking some immediate livelihood. “I shall -joyfully bid adieu to Oxford,” he writes, “ ... and, when I know my -situation, unite myself to a woman whom I have long esteemed as a sister, -and for whom I now indulge a warmer sentiment.” But Southey’s reputation -as a dangerous Jacobin stood in his way; how could his Oxford overseers -answer for the good behaviour of a youth who spoke scornfully of Pitt? - -The shuttles of the fates now began to fly faster, and the threads to -twist and twine. It was June of the year 1794. A visitor from Cambridge -was one day introduced to Southey; he seemed to be of an age near his -own; his hair, parted in the middle, fell wavy upon his neck; his face, -when the brooding cloud was not upon him, was bright with an abundant -promise—a promise vaguely told in lines of the sweet full lips, in the -luminous eyes, and the forehead that was like a god’s. This meeting of -Southey and Coleridge was an event which decided much in the careers of -both. In the summer days and in youth, the meeting-time of spirits, -they were drawn close to one another. Both had confessions to make, -with many points in common; both were poets; both were democrats; both -had hoped largely from France, and the hopes of both had been darkened; -both were uncertain what part to take in life. We do not know whether -Coleridge quickly grew so confidential as to tell of his recent adventure -as Silas Titus Comberbatch of the 15th Light Dragoons. But we know that -Coleridge had a lively admiration for the tall Oxford student—a person -of distinction, so dignified, so courteous, so quick of apprehension, so -full of knowledge, with a glance so rapid and piercing, with a smile so -good and kind. And we know that Coleridge lost no time in communicating -to Southey the hopes that were nearest to his heart. - -Pantisocracy, word of magic, summed up these hopes. Was it not possible -for a number of men like themselves, whose way of thinking was liberal, -whose characters were tried and incorruptible, to join together and leave -this old world of falling thrones and rival anarchies, for the woods and -wilds of the young republic? One could wield an axe, another could guide -a plough. Their wants would be simple and natural; their toil need not -be such as the slaves of luxury endure; where possessions were held in -common, each would work for all; in their cottages the best books would -have a place; literature and science, bathed anew in the invigorating -stream of life and nature, could not but rise reanimated and purified. -Each young man should take to himself a mild and lovely woman for his -wife; it would be her part to prepare their innocent food, and tend -their hardy and beautiful race. So they would bring back the patriarchal -age, and in the sober evening of life they would behold “colonies of -independence in the undivided dale of industry.” All the arguments -in favour of such a scheme could not be set forth in a conversation, -but Coleridge, to silence objectors, would publish a quarto volume on -Pantisocracy and Aspheterism. - -Southey heartily assented; his own thoughts had, with a vague -forefeeling, been pointing to America; the unpublished epic would serve -to buy a spade, a plough, a few acres of ground; he could assuredly split -timber; he knew a mild and lovely woman for whom he indulged a warmer -sentiment than that of a brother. Robert Lovell, a Quaker, an enthusiast, -a poet, married to the sister of Southey’s Edith, would surely join them; -so would Burnett, his college friend; so, perhaps, would the admirable -Seward. The long vacation was at hand. Being unable to take orders or to -endure the horrors of the dissecting-room, Southey must no longer remain -a burden upon his uncle; he would quit the university and prepare for the -voyage. - -Coleridge departed to tramp it through the romantic valleys and mountains -of Wales. Southey joined his mother, who now lived at Bath, and her he -soon persuaded—as a handsome and eloquent son can persuade a loving -mother—that the plan of emigration was feasible; she even consented to -accompany her boy. But his aunt—an _esprit borné_—was not to hear a -breath of Pantisocracy; still less would it be prudent to confess to -her his engagement to Miss Edith Fricker. His Edith was penniless and -therefore all the dearer to Southey; her father had been an unsuccessful -manufacturer of sugar-pans. What would Miss Tyler, the friend of Lady -Bateman, feel? What words, what gestures, what acts, would give her -feelings relief? - -When Coleridge, after his Welsh wanderings, arrived in Bristol, he was -introduced to Lovell, to Mrs. Lovell, to Mrs. Lovell’s sisters, Edith -and Sarah, and Martha and Elizabeth. Mrs. Lovell was doubtless already -a pantisocrat; Southey had probably not found it difficult to convert -Edith; Sarah, the elder sister, who was wont to look a mild reproof on -over-daring speculations, seriously inclined to hear of pantisocracy from -the lips of Coleridge. All members of the community were to be married. -Coleridge now more than ever saw the propriety of that rule; he was -prepared to yield obedience to it with the least possible delay. Burnett, -also a pantisocrat, must also marry. Would Miss Martha Fricker join the -community as Mrs. George Burnett? The lively little woman refused him -scornfully; if he wanted a wife in a hurry, let him go elsewhere. The -prospects of the reformers, this misadventure notwithstanding, from day -to day grew brighter. “This Pantisocratic scheme,” so writes Southey, -“has given me new life, new hope, new energy; all the faculties of my -mind are dilated.” Coleridge met a friend of Priestley’s. But a few days -since he had toasted the great doctor at Bala, thereby calling forth a -sentiment from the loyal parish apothecary: “I gives a sentiment, gemmen! -May all republicans be gulloteened!” The friend of Priestley’s said -that without doubt the doctor would join them. An American land-agent -told them that for twelve men 2000_l._ would do. “He recommends the -Susquehanna, from its excessive beauty and its security from hostile -Indians.” The very name—Susquehanna—sounded as if it were the sweetest of -rippling rivers. Money, it is true, as Southey admits, “is a huge evil;” -but now they are twenty-seven, and by resolute men this difficulty can be -overcome. - -It was evening of the 17th of October, a dark and gusty evening of -falling rain and miry ways. Within Aunt Tyler’s house in College -Green, Bristol, a storm was bursting; she had heard it all at -last—Pantisocracy, America, Miss Fricker. Out of the house he must march; -there was the door; let her never see his face again. Southey took his -hat, looked for the last time in his life at his aunt then stepped out -into the darkness and the rain. “Why sir, you ben’t going to Bath at -this time of night and in this weather?” remonstrated poor Shadrach. -Even so; and with a friendly whisper master and man parted. Southey had -not a penny in his pocket, and was lightly clad. At Lovell’s he luckily -found his father’s great-coat; he swallowed a glass of brandy and set off -on foot. Misery makes one acquainted with strange road-fellows. On the -way he came upon an old man, drunk, and hardly able to stumble forward -through the night: the young pantisocrat, mindful of his fellow-man, -dragged him along nine miles amid rain and mire. Then, with weary feet, -he reached Bath and there was his mother to greet him with surprise, and -to ask for explanations. “Oh, Patience, Patience, thou hast often helped -poor Robert Southey, but never didst thou stand him in more need than on -Friday, the 17th of October, 1794.” - -For a little longer the bow of hope shone in the West somewhere over -the Susquehanna, and then it gradually grew faint and faded. Money, -that huge evil, sneered its cold negations. The chiefs consulted, and -Southey proposed that a house and farm should be taken in Wales where -their principles might be acted out until better days enabled them to -start upon their voyage. One pantisocrat at least, could be happy with -Edith, brown bread, and wild Welsh raspberries. But Coleridge objected; -their principles could not be fairly tested under the disadvantage of an -effete and adverse social state surrounding them; besides, where was the -purchase-money to come from? how were they to live until the gathering -of their first crops? It became clear that the realization of their plan -must be postponed. The immediate problem was, How to raise 150_l._? With -such a sum they might both qualify by marriage for membership in the -pantisocratical community. After that, the rest would somehow follow. - -How, then, to raise 150_l._? Might they not start a new magazine and -become joint editors? The _Telegraph_ had offered employment to Southey. -“Hireling writer to a newspaper! ’Sdeath! ’tis an ugly title; but -_n’importe_. I shall write truth, and only truth.” The offer, however, -turned out to be that of a reporter’s place; and his troublesome guest, -honesty, prevented his contributing to _The True Briton_. But he and -Coleridge could at least write poetry, and perhaps publish it with -advantage to themselves; and they could lecture to a Bristol audience. -With some skirmishing lectures on various political subjects of immediate -interest, Coleridge began; many came to hear them, and the applause -was loud. Thus encouraged, he announced and delivered two remarkable -courses of lectures—one, _A Comparative View of the English Rebellion -under Charles I. and the French Revolution_; the other, _On Revealed -Religion: its Corruptions and its Political Views_. Southey did not feel -tempted to discuss the origin of evil or the principles of revolution. -He chose as his subject a view of the course of European history from -Solon and Lycurgus to the American War. His hearers were pleased by the -graceful delivery and unassuming self-possession of the young lecturer, -and were quick to recognize the unusual range of his knowledge, his just -perception of facts, his ardour and energy of conviction. One lecture -Coleridge begged permission to deliver in Southey’s place—that on the -Rise, Progress, and Decline of the Roman Empire. Southey consented, and -the room was thronged but no lecturer appeared; they waited; still no -lecturer. Southey offered an apology, and the crowd dispersed in no happy -temper. It is likely, adds that good old gossip Cottle, who tells the -story, “that at this very moment Mr. Coleridge might have been found at -No. 48 College Street, composedly smoking his pipe, and lost in profound -musing on his divine Susquehanna.” - -The good Cottle—young in 1795, a publisher, and unhappily a poet—rendered -more important service to the two young men than that of smoothing down -their ruffled tempers after this incident. Southey, in conjunction with -Lovell, had already published a slender volume of verse. The pieces by -Southey recall his schoolboy joys and sorrows, and tell of his mother’s -tears, his father’s death, his friendship with “Urban,” his love of -“Ariste,” lovely maid! his delight in old romance, his discipleship -to Rousseau. They are chiefly of interest as exhibiting the diverse -literary influences to which a young writer of genius was exposed in -the last quarter of the eighteenth century. Here the couplet of Pope -reappears, and hard by the irregular ode as practised by Akenside, the -elegy as written by Gray, the unrhymed stanza which Collins’s _Evening_ -made a fashion, the sonnet to which Bowles had lent a meditative -grace and the rhymeless measures imitated by Southey from Sayers, and -afterwards made popular by his _Thalaba_. On the last page of this -volume appear “Proposals for publishing by subscription _Joan of Arc_;” -but subscriptions came slowly in. One evening Southey read for Cottle -some books of _Joan_. “It can rarely happen,” he writes “that a young -author should meet with a bookseller as inexperienced and as ardent as -himself.” Cottle offered to publish the poem in quarto, to make it the -handsomest book ever printed in Bristol, to give the author fifty copies -for his subscribers, and fifty pounds to put forthwith into his purse. -Some dramatic attempts had recently been made by Southey, _Wat Tyler_, of -which we shall hear more at a later date, and the _Fall of Robespierre_, -undertaken by Coleridge, Lovell, and Southey, half in sport—each being -pledged to produce an act in twenty-four hours. These were now forgotten, -and all his energies were given to revising and in part recasting _Joan_. -In six weeks his epic had been written; its revision occupied six months. - -With summer came a great sorrow, and in the end of autumn a measureless -joy. “He is dead,” Southey writes, “my dear Edmund Seward! after six -weeks’ suffering.... You know not, Grosvenor, how I loved poor Edmund: -he taught me all that I have of good.... There is a strange vacancy -in my heart.... I have lost a friend, and such a one!” And then -characteristically come the words: “I will try, by assiduous employment, -to get rid of very melancholy thoughts.” Another consolation Southey -possessed: during his whole life he steadfastly believed that death is -but the removal of a spirit from earth to heaven; and heaven for him -meant a place where cheerful familiarity was natural, where, perhaps, -he himself would write more epics and purchase more folios. As Baxter -expected to meet among the saints above Mr. Hampden and Mr. Pym, so -Southey counted upon the pleasure of having long talks with friends, -of obtaining introductions to eminent strangers; above all, he looked -forward to the joy of again embracing his beloved ones: - - “Often together have we talked of death; - How sweet it were to see - All doubtful things made clear; - How sweet it were with powers - Such as the Cherubim - To view the depth of Heaven! - O Edmund! thou hast first - Begun the travel of eternity.” - -Autumn brought its happiness pure and deep. Mr. Hill had arrived from -Lisbon; once again he urged his nephew to enter the church; but for one -of Southey’s opinions the church-gate “is perjury,” nor does he even find -church-going the best mode of spending his Sunday. He proposed to choose -the law as his profession. But his uncle had heard of Pantisocracy, -Aspheterism, and Miss Fricker, and said the law could wait; he should -go abroad for six months, see Spain and Portugal, learn foreign -languages, read foreign poetry and history, rummage among the books and -manuscripts his uncle had collected in Lisbon, and afterwards return to -his Blackstone. Southey, straightforward in all else, in love became -a Machiavel. To Spain and Portugal he would go; his mother wished it; -Cottle expected from him a volume of travels; his uncle had but to name -the day. Then he sought Edith, and asked her to promise that before he -departed she would become his wife: she wept to think that he was going, -and yet persuaded him to go; consented, finally, to all that he proposed. -But how was he to pay the marriage fees and buy the wedding-ring? Often -this autumn he had walked the streets dinnerless, no pence in his pocket, -no bread and cheese at his lodgings, thinking little, however, of dinner, -for his head was full of poetry and his heart of love. Cottle lent him -money for the ring and the license—and Southey in after-years never -forgot the kindness of his honest friend. He was to accompany his uncle, -but Edith was first to be his own; so she may honourably accept from -him whatever means he can furnish for her support. It was arranged with -Cottle’s sisters that she should live with them, and still call herself -by her maiden name. On the morning of the 14th of November, 1795—a day -sad, yet with happiness underlying all sadness—Robert Southey was married -in Redcliffe Church, Bristol, to Edith Fricker. At the church door there -was a pressure of hands, and they parted with full hearts, silently—Mrs. -Southey to take up her abode in Bristol, with the wedding-ring upon her -breast, her husband to cross the sea. Never did woman put her happiness -in more loyal keeping. - -So by love and by poetry, by Edith Fricker and by Joan of Arc, Southey’s -life was being shaped. Powers most benign leaned forward to brood over -the coming years and to bless them. It was decreed that his heart should -be no homeless wanderer; that, as seasons went by, children should be in -his arms and upon his knees: it was also decreed that he should become -a strong toiler among books. Now Pantisocracy looked faint and far; the -facts plain and enduring of the actual world took hold of his adult -spirit. And Coleridge complained of this, and did not come to bid his -friend farewell. - - - - -CHAPTER III. - -WANDERINGS, 1795-1803. - - -Through pastoral Somerset, through Devon amid falling leaves, then -over rough Cornish roads, the coach brought Southey—cold, hungry, and -dispirited—to Falmouth. No packet there for Corunna; no packet starting -before December 1st. The gap of time looked colourless and dreary, nor -could even the philosophy of Epictetus lift him quite above “the things -independent of the will.” After a comfortless and stormy voyage, on the -fifth morning the sun shone, and through a mist the barren cliffs of -Galicia, with breakers tumbling at their feet, rose in sight. Who has -not experienced, when first he has touched a foreign soil, how nature -purges the visual nerve with lucky euphrasy? The shadowy streets, the -latticed houses, the fountains, the fragments of Moorish architecture, -the Jewish faces of the men, the lustrous eyes of girls, the children -gaily bedizened, the old witch-like women with brown shrivelled parchment -for skin, told Southey that he was far from home. Nor at night was he -permitted to forget his whereabouts; out of doors cats were uttering soft -things in most vile Spanish; beneath his blanket, familiars, bloodthirsty -as those of the Inquisition, made him their own. He was not sorry when -the crazy coach, drawn by six mules, received him and his uncle, and the -journey eastward began to the shout of the muleteers and the clink of a -hundred bells. - -Some eighteen days were spent upon the road to Madrid. Had Southey not -left half his life behind him in Bristol, those December days would -have been almost wholly pleasurable. As it was, they yielded a large -possession for the inner eye, and gave his heart a hold upon this new -land which, in a certain sense, became for ever after the land of -his adoption. It was pleasant when, having gone forward on foot, he -reached the crest of some mountain road, to look down on broken waters -in the glen, and across to the little white-walled convent amid its -chestnuts, and back to the dim ocean; there, on the summit, to rest with -the odour of furze blossoms and the tinkle of goats in the air, and, -while the mules wound up the long ascent, to turn all this into hasty -rhymes, ending with the thought of peace, and love, and Edith. Then the -bells audibly approaching, and the loud-voiced muleteer consigning his -struggling team to Saint Michael and three hundred devils; and then on to -remoter hills, or moor and swamp, or the bridge flung across a ravine, -or the path above a precipice, with mist and moonlight below. And next -day some walled city, with its decaying towers and dim piazza; some -church, with its balcony of ghastly skulls; some abandoned castle, or -jasper-pillared Moorish gateway and gallery. Nor were the little inns and -baiting-houses without compensations for their manifold discomforts. The -Spanish country-folk were dirty and ignorant, but they had a courtesy -unknown to English peasants; Southey would join the group around the -kitchen fire, and be, as far as his imperfect speech allowed, one with -the rustics, the carriers, the hostess, the children, the village barber, -the familiar priest, and the familiar pigs. When chambermaid Josepha -took hold of his hair and gravely advised him never to tie it or to -wear powder, she meant simple friendliness, no more. In his recoil from -the dream of human perfectibility, Southey allowed himself at times to -square accounts with common-sense by a cynical outbreak; but, in truth, -he was a warm-hearted lover of his kind. Even feudalism and Catholicism -had not utterly degraded the Spaniard. Southey thanks God that the pride -of chivalry is extinguished; his Protestant zeal becomes deep-dyed in -presence of our Lady of Seven Sorrows and the Holy Napkin. “Here, in -the words of Mary Wollstonecraft,” he writes, “‘the serious folly of -Superstition stares every man of sense in the face.’” Yet Spain has -inherited tender and glorious memories; by the river Ezla he recalls -Montemayor’s wooing of his Diana; at Tordesillas he muses on the spot -where Queen Joanna watched by her husband’s corpse, and where Padilla, -Martyr of Freedom, triumphed and endured. At length the travellers, -accompanied by Manuel, the most vivacious and accomplished of barbers, -drew near Madrid, passed the miles of kneeling washerwomen and outspread -clothes on the river banks, entered the city, put up at the Cruz de -Malta, and were not ill-content to procure once more a well-cooked supper -and a clean bed. - -Southey pursued with ardour his study of the Spanish language, and could -soon talk learnedly of its great writers. The national theatres, and -the sorry spectacle of bullock-teasing, made a slighter impression upon -him than did the cloisters of the new Franciscan Convent. He had been -meditating his design of a series of poems to illustrate the mythologies -of the world; here the whole portentous history of St. Francis was -displayed upon the walls. “Do they believe all this, sir?” he asked Mr. -Hill. “Yes, and a great deal more of the same kind,” was the reply. “My -first thought was ... here is a mythology not less wild and fanciful -than any of those upon which my imagination was employed, and one which -ought to be included in my ambitious design.” Thus Southey’s attention -was drawn for the first time to the legendary and monastic history of the -Church. - -His Majesty of Spain, with his courtesans and his courtiers, possibly -also with the Queen and her gallants, had gone westward to meet the -Portuguese court upon the borders. As a matter of course, therefore, -no traveller could hope to leave Madrid, every carriage, cart, horse, -mule, and ass being embargoed for the royal service. The followers of -the father of his people numbered seven thousand, and they advanced, -devouring all before them, neither paying nor promising to pay, leaving a -broad track behind as bare as that stripped by an army of locusts, with -here a weeping cottager, and there a smoking cork-tree, for a memorial of -their march. Ten days after the king’s departure, Mr. Hill and his nephew -succeeded in finding a buggy with two mules, and made their escape, -taking with them their own larder. Their destination was Lisbon, and -as they drew towards the royal party, the risk of embargo added a zest -to travel hardly less piquant than that imparted by the neighbourhood -of bandits. It was mid-January; the mountains shone with snow; but -olive-gathering had begun in the plains; violets were in blossom, and in -the air was a genial warmth. As they drove south and west, the younger -traveller noted for his diary the first appearance of orange-trees, the -first myrtle, the first fence of aloes. A pressure was on their spirits -till Lisbon should be reached; they would not linger to watch the sad -procession attending a body uncovered upon its bier; they left behind -the pilgrims to our Lady’s Shrine, pious bacchanals half naked and half -drunk, advancing to the tune of bagpipe and drum; then the gleam of -waters before them, a rough two hours’ passage, and the weary heads were -on their pillows, to be roused before morning by an earthquake, with its -sudden trembling and cracking. - -Life at Lisbon was not altogether after Southey’s heart. His uncle’s -books and manuscripts were indeed a treasure to explore, but Mr. Hill -lived in society as well as in his study, and thought it right to give -his nephew the advantage of new acquaintances. What had the author of -_Joan of Arc_, the husband of Edith Southey, the disciple of Rousseau, of -Godwin, the Stoic, the tall, dark-eyed young man with a certain wildness -of expression in his face, standing alone or discoursing earnestly on -Industrial Communities of Women—what had he to do with the _inania -regna_ of the drawing-room? He cared not for cards nor for dancing; he -possessed no gift for turning the leaves on the harpsichord, and saying -the happy word at the right moment. Southey, indeed, knew as little as -possible of music; and all through his life acted on the principle that -the worthiest use of sound without sense had been long ago discovered -by schoolboys let loose from their tasks; he loved to create a chaos of -sheer noise after those hours during which silence had been interrupted -only by the scraping of his pen. For the rest, the sallies of glee from a -mountain brook, the piping of a thrush from the orchard-bough, would have -delighted him more than all the trills of Sontag or the finest rapture -of Malibran. It was with some of the superiority and seriousness of a -philosopher just out of his teens that he unbent to the frivolities of -the Lisbon drawing-rooms. - -But if Lisbon had its vexations, the country, the climate, the mountains -with their streams and coolness, the odorous gardens, Tagus flashing -in the sunlight, the rough bar glittering with white breakers, and the -Atlantic, made amends. When April came, Mr. Hill moved to his house at -Cintra, and the memories and sensations “felt in the blood and felt -along the heart,” which Southey brought with him to England, were -especially associated with this delightful retreat. “Never was a house -more completely secluded than my uncle’s: it is so surrounded with -lemon-trees and laurels as nowhere to be visible at the distance of ten -yards.... A little stream of water runs down the hill before the door, -another door opens into a lemon-garden, and from the sitting-room we have -just such a prospect over lemon-trees and laurels to an opposite hill -as, by promising a better, invites us to walk.... On one of the mountain -eminences stands the Penha Convent, visible from the hills near Lisbon. -On another are the ruins of a Moorish castle, and a cistern, within its -boundaries, kept always full by a spring of purest water that rises in -it. From this elevation the eye stretches over a bare and melancholy -country to Lisbon on the one side, and on the other to the distant -Convent of Mafra, the Atlantic bounding the greater part of the prospect. -I never beheld a view that so effectually checked the wish of wandering.” - -“Lisbon, from which God grant me a speedy deliverance,” is the heading of -one of Southey’s letters; but when the day came to look on Lisbon perhaps -for the last time, his heart grew heavy with happy recollection. It was -with no regretful feeling, however, that he leaped ashore, glad, after -all, to exchange the sparkling Tagus and the lemon groves of Portugal for -the mud-encumbered tide of Avon and a glimpse of British smoke. “I intend -to write a hymn,” he says, “to the Dii Penates.” His joy in reunion -with his wife was made more rare and tender by finding her in sorrow; -the grief was also peculiarly his own—Lovell was dead. He had been taken -ill at Salisbury, and by his haste to reach his fireside had heightened -the fever which hung upon him. Coleridge, writing to his friend Poole -at this time, expresses himself with amiable but inactive piety: “The -widow is calm, and amused with her beautiful infant. We are all become -more religious than we were. God be ever praised for all things.” Southey -also writes characteristically: “Poor Lovell! I am in hopes of raising -something for his widow by publishing his best pieces, if only enough -to buy her a harpsichord.... Will you procure me some subscribers?” No -idle conceit of serving her; for Mrs. Lovell with her child, as well -as Mrs. Coleridge with her children, at a later time became members of -the Southey household. Already—though Coleridge might resent it—Southey -was willing to part with some vague enthusiasms which wandered in the -inane of a young man’s fancy, for the sake of simple loyalties and manly -tendernesses. No one was more boyish-hearted than Southey at fifty; but -even at twenty-two it would not have been surprising to find grey hairs -sprinkling the dark. “How does time mellow down our opinions! Little -of that ardent enthusiasm which so lately fevered my whole character -remains. I have contracted my sphere of action within the little circle -of my own friends, and even my wishes seldom stray beyond it.... I want -a little room to arrange my books in, and some Lares of my own.” This -domestic feeling was not a besotted contentment in narrow interests; no -man was more deeply moved by the political changes in his own country, -by the national uprising in the Spanish peninsula, than Southey. While -seated at his desk, his intellect ranged through dim centuries of the -past. But his heart needed an abiding-place, and he yielded to the -bonds—strict and dear—of duty and of love which bound his own life to the -lives of others. - -The ambitious quarto on which Cottle prided himself not a little was now -published (1796). To assign its true place to _Joan of Arc_, we must -remember that narrative poetry in the eighteenth century was of the -slenderest dimensions and the most modest temper. Poems of description -and sentiment seemed to leave no place for poems of action and passion. -Delicately finished cabinet pictures, like Shenstone’s _Schoolmistress_ -and Goldsmith’s _Deserted Village_, had superseded fresco. The only -great English epic of that century is the prose Odyssey of which Mr. -Tom Jones is the hero. That estimable London merchant, Glover, had -indeed written an heroic poem containing the correct number of Books; -its subject was a lofty one; the sentiments were generous, the language -dignified; and inasmuch as Leonidas was a patriot and a Whig, true Whigs -and patriots bought and praised the poem. But Glover’s poetry lacks the -informing breath of life. His second poem, _The Athenaid_, appeared -after his death, and its thirty books fell plumb into the water of -oblivion. It looked as if the narrative poem _à longue haleine_ was dead -in English literature. Cowper had given breadth, with a mingled gaiety -and gravity, to the poetry of description and sentiment; Burns had made -the air tremulous with snatches of pure and thrilling song; the _Lyrical -Ballads_ were not yet. At this moment, from a provincial press, _Joan -of Arc_ was issued. As a piece of romantic narrative it belongs to the -new age of poetry; in sentiment it is revolutionary and republican; its -garment of style is of the eighteenth century. Nowhere, except it be in -the verses which hail “Inoculation, lovely Maid!” does the personified -abstraction, galvanized into life by printer’s type and poet’s epithet, -stalk more at large than in the unfortunate ninth book, the Vision of the -Maid, which William Taylor, of Norwich, pronounced worthy of Dante. The -critical reviews of the time were liberal in politics, and the poem was -praised and bought. “Brissot murdered” was good, and “the blameless wife -of Roland” atoned for some offences against taste; there was also that -notable reference to the “Almighty people” who “from their tyrant’s hand -dashed down the iron rod.” The delegated maid is a creature overflowing -with Rousseauish sensibility; virtue, innocence, the peaceful cot, -stand over against the wars and tyranny of kings, and the superstition -and cruelty of prelates. Southey himself soon disrelished the youthful -heats and violences of the poem; he valued it as the work which first -lifted him into public view; and, partly out of a kind of gratitude, he -rehandled the _Joan_ again and again. It would furnish an instructive -lesson to a young writer to note how its asperities were softened, its -spasm subdued, its swelling words abated. Yet its chief interest will -be perceived only by readers of the earlier text. To the second book -Coleridge contributed some four hundred lines, where Platonic philosophy -and protests against the Newtonian hypothesis of æther are not very -appropriately brought into connexion with the shepherd-girl of Domremi. -These lines disappeared from all editions after the first.[3] - -The neighbourhood of Bristol was for the present Southey’s home. The -quickening of his blood by the beauty, the air and sun, of Southern -Europe, the sense of power imparted by his achievement in poetry, the -joy of reunion with his young wife, the joy, also, of solitude among -rocks and woods, combined to throw him into a vivid and creative mood. -His head was full of designs for tragedies, epics, novels, romances, -tales—among the rest, “My Oriental poem of The Destruction of the Dom -Daniel.” He has a “Helicon kind of dropsy” upon him; he had rather leave -off eating than poetizing. He was also engaged in making the promised -book of travel for Cottle; in what leisure time remained after these -employments he scribbled for _The Monthly Magazine_, and to good purpose, -for in eight months he had earned no less than “seven pounds and two pair -of breeches,” which, as he observes to his brother Tom, “is not amiss.” -He was resolved to be happy, and he was happy. Now, too, the foolish -estrangement on Coleridge’s part was brought to an end. Southey had -been making some acquaintance with German literature at second hand. He -had read Taylor’s rendering of Bürger’s _Lenore_, and wondered who this -William Taylor was; he had read Schiller’s _Cabal and Love_ in a wretched -translation, finding the fifth act dreadfully affecting; he had also read -Schiller’s _Fiesco_. Coleridge was just back after a visit to Birmingham, -but still held off from his brother-in-law and former friend. A sentence -from Schiller, copied on a slip of paper by Southey, with a word or -two of conciliation, was sent to the offended Abdiel of Pantisocracy: -“Fiesco! Fiesco! thou leavest a void in my bosom, which the human race, -thrice told, will never fill up.” It did not take much to melt the faint -resentment of Coleridge, and to open his liberal heart. An interview -followed, and in an hour’s time, as the story is told by Coleridge’s -nephew, “these two extraordinary youths were arm in arm again.” - -Seven pounds and two pair of breeches are not amiss but pounds take -to themselves wings, and fly away: a poet’s wealth is commonly in the -_paulo-post-futurum_ tense; it therefore behoved Southey to proceed with -his intended study of the law. By Christmas he would receive the first -instalment of an annual allowance of 160_l._ promised by his generous -friend Wynn upon coming of age; but Southey, who had just written his -_Hymn to the Penates_—a poem of grave tenderness and sober beauty—knew -that those deities are exact in their demand for the dues of fire and -salt, for the firstlings of fruits, and for offerings of fine flour. A -hundred and sixty pounds would not appease them. To London, therefore, -he must go, and Blackstone must become his counsellor. But never did -Sindbad suffer from the tyrannous old man between his shoulders as Robert -Southey suffered from Blackstone. London in itself meant deprivation -of all that he most cared for; he loved to shape his life in large and -simple lines, and London seemed to scribble over his consciousness with -distractions and intricacies. “My spirits always sink when I approach it. -Green fields are my delight. I am not only better in health, but even in -heart, in the country.” Some of his father’s love of rural sights and -sounds was in him, though hare-hunting was not an amusement of Southey -the younger; he was as little of a sportsman as his friend Sir Thomas -More: the only murderous sport, indeed, which Southey ever engaged in -was that of pistol-shooting, with sand for ammunition, at the wasps in -Bedford’s garden, when he needed a diversion from the wars of Talbot and -the “missioned Maid.” Two pleasures of a rare kind London offered—the -presence of old friends, and the pursuit of old books upon the stalls. -But not even for these best lures proposed by the Demon of the place -would Southey renounce - - “The genial influences - And thoughts and feelings to be found where’er - We breathe beneath the open sky, and see - Earth’s liberal bosom.” - -To London, however, he would go, and would read nine hours a day at law. -Although he pleaded at times against his intended profession, Southey -really made a strenuous effort to overcome his repugnance to legal -studies, and for a while Blackstone and _Madoc_ seemed to advance side -by side. But the bent of his nature was strong. “I commit wilful murder -on my own intellect,” he writes, two years later, “by drudging at law.” -And the worst or the best of it was that all his drudgery was useless. -Southey’s memory was of that serviceable, sieve-like kind which regains -everything needful to its possessor, and drops everything which is mere -incumbrance. Every circumstance in the remotest degree connected with -the seminary of magicians in the Dom Daniel under the roots of the -sea adhered to his memory, but how to proceed in the Court of Common -Pleas was always just forgotten since yesterday. “I am not indolent; I -loathe indolence; but, indeed, reading law is laborious indolence—it is -thrashing straw.... I have given all possible attention, and attempted -to command volition; ... close the book and all was gone.” In 1801 there -was a chance of Southey’s visiting Sicily as secretary to some Italian -Legation. “It is unfortunate,” he writes to Bedford, “that you cannot -come to the sacrifice of one law-book—my whole proper stock—whom I design -to take up to the top of Mount Etna, for the express purpose of throwing -him straight to the devil. Huzza, Grosvenor! I was once afraid that I -should have a deadly deal of law to forget whenever I had done with it; -but my brains, God bless them, never received any, and I am as ignorant -as heart could wish. The tares would not grow.” - -As spring advanced, impatience quickened within him; the craving for a -lonely place in sight of something green became too strong. Why might not -law be read in Hampshire under blue skies, and also poetry be written? -Southey longed to fill his eyesight with the sea, and with sunsets over -the sea; he longed to renew that delicious shock of plunging in salt -waves which he had last enjoyed in the Atlantic at the foot of the -glorious Arrabida mountain. Lodgings were found at Burton, near Christ -Church (1797); and here took place a little Southey family-gathering, -for his mother joined them, and his brother Tom, the midshipman, just -released from a French prison. Here, too, came Cottle, and there were -talks about the new volume of shorter poems. Here came Lloyd, the friend -of Coleridge, himself a writer of verse; and with Lloyd came Lamb, -the play of whose letters show that he found in Southey not only a -fellow-lover of quaint books, but also a ready smiler at quips and cranks -and twinklings of sly absurdity. And here he found John Rickman, “the -sturdiest of jovial companions,” whose clear head and stout heart were -at Southey’s service whenever they were needed through all the future -years. - -When the holiday at Burton was at an end Southey had for a time no fixed -abode. He is now to be seen roaming over the cliffs by the Avon, and now -casting a glance across some book-stall near Gray’s Inn. In these and -subsequent visits to London he was wistful for home, and eager to hasten -back. “At last, my dear Edith, I sit down to write to you in quiet and -something like comfort.... My morning has been spent pleasantly, for it -has been spent alone in the library; the hours so employed pass rapidly -enough, but I grow more and more homesick, like a spoilt child. On the -29th you may expect me. Term opens on the 26th. After eating my third -dinner, I can drive to the mail, and thirteen shillings will be well -bestowed in bringing me home four-and-twenty hours earlier: it is not -above sixpence an hour, Edith, and I would gladly purchase an hour at -home now at a much higher price.” - -A visit to Norwich (1798) was pleasant and useful, as widening the circle -of his literary friends. Here Southey obtained an introduction to William -Taylor, whose translations from the German had previously attracted his -notice. Norwich, at the end of the last century and the beginning of -the present, was a little Academe among provincial cities, where the -_belles-lettres_ and mutual admiration were assiduously cultivated. -Southey saw Norwich at its best. Among its “superior people” were several -who really deserved something better than that vague distinction. Chief -among them was Dr. Sayers, whom the German critics compared to Gray, -who had handled the Norse mythology in poetry, who created the English -monodrame, and introduced the rhymeless measures followed by Southey. -He rested too soon upon his well-earned reputation, contented himself -with touching and retouching his verses; and possessing singularly -pleasing manners, abounding information and genial wit, embellished -and enjoyed society.[4] William Taylor, the biographer of Sayers, was -a few years his junior. He was versed in Goethe, in Schiller, in the -great Kotzebue—Shakspeare’s immediate successor, in Klopstock, in -the fantastic ballad, in the new criticism, and all this at a time -when German characters were as undecipherable to most Englishmen as -Assyrian arrow-heads. The whirligig of time brought an odd revenge when -Carlyle, thirty years later, hailed in Taylor the first example of “the -natural-born English Philistine.” In Norwich he was known as a model -of filial virtue, a rising light of that illuminated city, a man whose -extraordinary range pointed him out as the fit and proper person to be -interrogated by any blue-stocking lady upon topics as remote as the -domestic arrangements of the Chinese Emperor, Chim-Cham-Chow. William -Taylor had a command of new and mysterious words: he shone in paradox, -and would make ladies aghast by “defences of suicide, avowals that snuff -alone had rescued him from it; information, given as certain, that ‘God -save the King’ was sung by Jeremiah in the Temple of Solomon;”[5] with -other blasphemies borrowed from the German, and too startling even for -rationalistic Norwich. Dr. Enfield, from whose _Speaker_ our fathers -learnt to recite “My name is Norval,” was no longer living; he had just -departed in the odour of dilettantism. But solemn Dr. Alderson was here, -and was now engaged in giving away his daughter Amelia to a divorced -bridegroom, the painter Opie. Just now Elizabeth Gurney was listening -in the Friends’ Meeting-House to that discourse which transformed her -from a gay haunter of country ball-rooms to the sister and servant -of Newgate prisoners. The Martineaus also were of Norwich, and upon -subsequent visits the author of _Thalaba_ and _Kehama_ was scrutinized -by the keen eyes of a little girl—not born at the date of his first -visit—who smiled somewhat too early and somewhat too maliciously at the -airs and affectations of her native town, and whose pleasure in pricking -a windbag, literary, political, or religious, was only over-exquisite. -But Harriet Martineau, who honoured courage, purity, faithfulness, and -strength wherever they were found, reverenced the Tory Churchman, Robert -Southey.[6] - -Soon after his return from Norwich, a small house was taken at Westbury -(1797), a village two miles distant from Bristol. During twelve happy -months this continued to be Southey’s home. “I never before or since,” -he says in one of the prefaces to his collected poems, “produced so much -poetry in the same space of time.” William Taylor, by talks about Voss -and the German idylls, had set Southey thinking of a series of English -Eclogues; Taylor also expressed his wonder that some one of our poets -had not undertaken what the French and Germans so long supported—an -Almanack of the Muses, or Annual Anthology of minor poems by various -writers. The suggestion was well received by Southey, who became editor -of such annual volumes for the years 1799 and 1800. At this period were -produced many of the ballads and short pieces which are perhaps more -generally known than any other of Southey’s writings. He had served his -apprenticeship to the craft and mystery of such verse-making in the -_Morning Post_, earning thereby a guinea a week, but it was not until -_Bishop Bruno_ was written at Westbury that he had the luck to hit off -the right tone, as he conceived it, of the modern ballad. The popularity -of his _Mary the Maid of the Inn_, which unhappy children got by heart, -and which some one even dramatized, was an affliction to its author, for -he would rather have been remembered as a ballad writer in connexion with -_Rudiger_ and _Lord William_. What he has written in this kind certainly -does not move the heart as with a trumpet; it does not bring with it -the dim burden of sorrow which is laid upon the spirit by songs like -those of Yarrow crooning of “old, unhappy, far-off things.” But to tell -a tale of fantasy briefly, clearly, brightly, and at the same time with -a certain heightening of imaginative touches, is no common achievement. -The spectre of the murdered boy in _Lord William_ shone upon by a -sudden moonbeam, and surrounded by the welter of waves, is more than a -picturesque apparition; readers of good-will may find him a very genuine -little ghost, a stern and sad justicer. What has been named “the lyrical -cry” is hard to find in any of Southey’s shorter poems. In _Roderick_ and -elsewhere he takes delight in representing great moments of life when -fates are decided; but such moments are usually represented as eminences -on which will and passion wrestle in a mortal embrace, and if the cry -of passion be heard, it is often a half-stifled death cry. The best of -Southey’s shorter poems, expressing personal feelings, are those which -sum up the virtue spread over seasons of life and long habitual moods. -Sometimes he is simply sportive, as a serious man released from thought -and toil may be, and at such times the sportiveness, while genuine as a -schoolboy’s, is, like a schoolboy’s, the reverse of keen-edged; on other -occasions he expresses simply a strong man’s endurance of sorrow; but -more often an undertone of gravity appears through his glee, and in his -sorrow there is something of solemn joy. - -All this year (1799) _Madoc_ was steadily advancing, and _The Destruction -of the Dom Daniel_ had been already sketched in outline. Southey was -fortunate in finding an admirable listener. The Pneumatic Institution, -established in Bristol by Dr. Beddoes, was now under the care of a youth -lately an apothecary’s apprentice at Penzance, a poet, but still more -a philosopher, “a miraculous young man.” “He is not yet twenty-one, -nor has he applied to chemistry more than eighteen months, but he has -advanced with such seven-leagued strides as to overtake everybody. His -name is Davy”—Humphry Davy—“the young chemist, the young everything, -the man least ostentatious, of first talent that I have ever known.” -Southey would walk across from Westbury, an easy walk over beautiful -ground, to breathe Davy’s wonder-working gas, “which excites all possible -mental and muscular energy, and induces almost a delirium of pleasurable -sensations without any subsequent dejection.” Pleased to find scientific -proof that he possessed a poet’s fine susceptibility, he records that -the nitrous oxide wrought upon him more readily than upon any other of -its votaries. “Oh, Tom!” he exclaims, gasping and ebullient—“oh, Tom! -such a gas has Davy discovered, the gaseous oxyde!... Davy has actually -invented a new pleasure for which language has no name. I am going for -more this evening; it makes one strong, and so happy! so gloriously -happy!... Oh, excellent air-bag!” If Southey drew inspiration from Davy’s -air-bag, could Davy do less than lend his ear to Southey’s epic? They -would stroll back to Martin Hall—so christened because the birds who -love delicate air built under its eaves their “pendant beds”—and in the -large sitting-room, its recesses stored with books, or seated near the -currant-bushes in the garden, the tenant of Martin Hall would read aloud -of Urien and Madoc and Cadwallon. When Davy had said good-bye, Southey -would sit long in the window open to the west, poring on the fading -glories of sunset, while about him the dew was cool, and the swallows’ -tiny shrieks of glee grew less frequent, until all was hushed and another -day was done. And sometimes he would muse how all things that he needed -for utter happiness were here—all things—and then would rise an ardent -desire—except a child. - -Martin Hall was unhappily held on no long lease; its owner now required -possession, and the Southeys, with their household gods, had reluctantly -to bid it farewell. Another trouble, and a more formidable one, at the -same time threatened. What with Annual Anthologies, Madoc in Wales, Madoc -in Aztlan, the design for a great poem on the Deluge, for a Greek drama, -for a Portuguese tragedy, for a martyrdom play of the reign of Queen -Mary—what with reading Spanish, learning Dutch, translating and reviewing -for the booksellers—Southey had been too closely at work. His heart began -to take fits of sudden and violent pulsation; his sleep, ordinarily as -sound as a child’s, became broken and unrefreshing. Unless the disease -were thrown off by regular exercise, Beddoes assured him, it would fasten -upon him, and could not be overcome. Two years previously they had spent -a summer at Burton, in Hampshire; why should they not go there again? In -June, 1799, unaccompanied by his wife, whose health seemed also to be -impaired, Southey went to seek a house. Two cottages, convertible into -one, with a garden, a fish-pond, and a pigeon-house, promised a term of -quiet and comfort in “Southey Palace that is to be.” Possession was -not to be had until Michaelmas, and part of the intervening time was -very enjoyably spent in roaming among the vales and woods, the coombes -and cliffs of Devon. It was in some measure a renewal of the open-air -delight which had been his at the Arrabida and Cintra. “I have seen the -Valley of Stones,” he writes: “Imagine a narrow vale between two ridges -of hills somewhat steep; the southern hill turfed; the vale which runs -from east to west covered with huge stones and fragments of stones among -the fern that fills it; the northern ridge completely bare, excoriated -of all turf and all soil, the very bones and skeleton of the earth; rock -reclining upon rock, stone piled upon stone, a huge and terrific mass. A -palace of the Preadamite kings, a city of the Anakim, must have appeared -so shapeless and yet so like the ruins of what had been shaped, after -the waters of the flood subsided. I ascended with some toil the highest -point; two large stones inclining on each other formed a rude portal on -the summit: here I sat down; a little level platform about two yards long -lay before me, and then the eye fell immediately upon the sea, far, very -far below. I never felt the sublimity of solitude before.” - -But Southey could not rest. “I had rather leave off eating than -poetizing,” he had said; and now the words seemed coming true, for he -still poetized, and had almost ceased to eat. “Yesterday I finished -_Madoc_, thank God! and thoroughly to my own satisfaction; but I have -resolved on one great, laborious, and radical alteration. It was my -design to identify Madoc with Mango Capac, the legislator of Peru: in -this I have totally failed; therefore Mango Capac is to be the hero of -another poem.” There is something charming in the logic of Southey’s -“therefore;” so excellent an epic hero must not go to waste; but when, -on the following morning, he rose early, it was to put on paper the first -hundred lines, not of Mango Capac, but of the Dom Daniel poem which we -know as _Thalaba_. A _Mohammed_, to be written in hexameters, was also -on the stocks; and Coleridge had promised the half of this. Southey, -who remembered a certain quarto volume on Pantisocracy and other great -unwritten works, including the last—a Life of Lessing, by Samuel Taylor -Coleridge—knew the worth of his collaborateur’s promises. However, it -matters little; “the only inconvenience that his dereliction can occasion -will be that I shall write the poem in fragments, and have to seam them -together at last.” “My Mohammed will be what I believe the Arabian was in -the beginning of his career—sincere in enthusiasm; and it would puzzle -a casuist to distinguish between the belief of inspiration and actual -enthusiasm.” A short fragment of the _Mohammed_ was actually written by -Coleridge, and a short fragment by Southey, which, dating from 1799, have -an interest in connexion with the history of the English hexameter. Last -among these many projects, Southey has made up his mind to undertake one -great historical work—the History of Portugal. This was no dream-project; -Mango Capac never descended from his father the Sun to appear in -Southey’s poem; Mohammed never emerged from the cavern where the spider -had spread his net; but the work which was meant to rival Gibbon’s great -history was in part achieved. It is a fact more pathetic than many others -which make appeal for tears, that this most ambitious and most cherished -design of Southey’s life, conceived at the age of twenty-six, and kept -constantly in view through all his days of toil, was not yet half wrought -out when, forty years later, the pen dropped from his hand, and the -worn-out brain could think no more. - -The deal shavings had hardly been cleared out of the twin cottages at -Burton, when Southey was prostrated by a nervous fever; on recovering, -he moved to Bristol, still weak, with strange pains about the heart, and -sudden seizures of the head. An entire change of scene was obviously -desirable. The sound of the brook that ran beside his uncle’s door at -Cintra, the scent of the lemon-groves, the grandeur of the Arrabida, -haunted his memory; there were books and manuscripts to be found in -Portugal which were essential in the preparation of his great history -of that country. Mr. Hill invited him; his good friend Elmsley, an old -schoolfellow, offered him a hundred pounds. From every point of view it -seemed right and prudent to go. Ailing and unsettled as he was, he yet -found strength and time to put his hand to a good work before leaving -Bristol. Chatterton always interested Southey deeply; they had this much -at least in common, that both had often listened to the chimes of St. -Mary Redcliffe, that both were lovers of antiquity, both were rich in -store of verse, and lacked all other riches. Chatterton’s sister, Mrs. -Newton, and her child were needy and neglected. It occurred to Southey -and Cottle that an edition of her brother’s poems might be published for -her benefit. Subscribers came in slowly, and the plan underwent some -alterations; but in the end the charitable thought bore fruit, and the -sister and niece of the great unhappy boy were lifted into security and -comfort. To have done something to appease the moody and indignant spirit -of a dead poet, was well; to have rescued from want a poor woman and her -daughter, was perhaps even better. - -Early in April, 1800, Southey was once more on his way from Bristol, -by Falmouth, to the Continent, accompanied by his wife, now about to be -welcomed to Portugal by the fatherly uncle whose prudence she had once -alarmed. The wind was adverse, and while the travellers were detained -Southey strolled along the beach, caught soldier-crabs, and observed -those sea-anemones which blossom anew in the verse of Thalaba. For -reading on the voyage, he had brought Burns, Coleridge’s poems, the -Lyrical Ballads, and a poem, with “miraculous beauties,” called _Gebir_, -“written by God knows who.” But when the ship lost sight of England, -Southey, with swimming head, had little spirit left for wrestling with -the intractable thews of Landor’s early verse; he could just grunt out -some crooked pun or quaint phrase in answer to inquiries as to how he -did. Suddenly, on the fourth morning, came the announcement that a French -cutter was bearing down upon them. Southey leaped to his feet, hurriedly -removed his wife to a place of safety, and, musket in hand, took his -post upon the quarter-deck. The smoke from the enemy’s matches could be -seen. She was hailed, answered in broken English, and passed on. A moment -more, and the suspense was over; she was English, manned from Guernsey. -“You will easily imagine,” says Southey, “that my sensations at the -ending of the business were very definable—one honest, simple joy that -I was in a whole skin!” Two mornings more, and the sun rose behind the -Berlings; the heights of Cintra became visible, and nearer, the silver -dust of the breakers, with sea-gulls sporting over them; a pilot’s boat, -with puffed and flapping sail, ran out; they passed thankfully our Lady -of the Guide, and soon dropped anchor in the Tagus. An absence of four -years had freshened every object to Southey’s sense of seeing, and now he -had the joy of viewing all familiar things as strange through so dear a -companion’s eyes. - -Mr. Hill was presently on board with kindly greeting; he had hired a -tiny house for them, perched well above the river, its little rooms cool -with many doors and windows. Manuel the barber, brisk as Figaro, would -be their factotum, and Mrs. Southey could also see a new maid—Maria -Rosa. Maria by-and-by came to be looked at, in powder, straw-coloured -gloves, fan, pink-ribands, muslin petticoat, green satin sleeves; she -was “not one of the folk who sleep on straw mattresses;” withal she was -young and clean. Mrs. Southey, who had liked little the prospect of -being thrown abroad upon the world, was beginning to be reconciled to -Portugal; roses and oranges and green peas in early May were pleasant -things. Then the streets were an unending spectacle; now a negro going -by with Christ in a glass case, to be kissed for a petty alms; now some -picturesque, venerable beggar; now the little Emperor of the Holy Ghost, -strutting it from Easter till Whitsuntide, a six-year-old mannikin with -silk stockings, buckles, cocked hat, and sword, his gentlemen ushers -attending, and his servants receiving donations on silver salvers. News -of an assassination, from time to time, did not much disturb the tranquil -tenor of ordinary life. There were old gardens to loiter in along -vine-trellised walks, or in sunshine where the grey lizards glanced and -gleamed. And eastward from the city were lovely by-lanes amid blossoming -olive-trees or market-gardens, veined by tiny aqueducts and musical with -the creak of water-wheels, which told of cool refreshment. There was also -the vast public aqueduct to visit; Edith Southey, holding her husband’s -hand, looked down, hardly discovering the diminished figures below of -women washing in the brook of Alcantara. If the sultry noon in Lisbon -was hard to endure, evening made amends; then strong sea-winds swept the -narrowest alley, and rolled their current down every avenue. And later, -it was pure content to look down upon the moonlighted river, with Almada -stretching its black isthmus into the waters that shone like midnight -snow. - -Before moving to Cintra, they wished to witness the procession of the -Body of God—Southey likes the English words as exposing “the naked -nonsense of the blasphemy”—those of St. Anthony, and the Heart of Jesus, -and the first bull-fight. Everything had grown into one insufferable -glare; the very dust was bleached; the light was like the quivering of -a furnace fire. Every man and beast was asleep; the stone-cutter slept -with his head upon the stone; the dog slept under the very cart-wheels; -the bells alone slept not, nor ceased from their importunate clamour. -At length—it was near mid-June—a marvellous cleaning of streets took -place, the houses were hung with crimson damask, soldiers came and lined -the ways, windows and balconies filled with impatient watchers—not a -jewel in Lisbon but was on show. With blare of music the procession -began; first, the banners of the city and its trades, the clumsy bearers -crab-sidling along; an armed champion carrying a flag; wooden St. George -held painfully on horseback; led horses, their saddles covered with rich -escutcheons; all the brotherhoods, an immense train of men in red or grey -cloaks; the knights of the orders superbly dressed; the whole patriarchal -church in glorious robes; and then, amid a shower of rose-leaves -fluttering from the windows, the Pix, and after the Pix, the Prince. On a -broiling Sunday, the amusement being cool and devout, was celebrated the -bull-feast. The first wound sickened Edith; Southey himself, not without -an effort, looked on and saw “the death-sweat darkening the dun hide”—a -circumstance borne in mind for his _Thalaba_. “I am not quite sure,” he -writes, “that my curiosity in once going was perfectly justifiable, but -the pain inflicted by the sight was expiation enough.” - -After this it was high time to take refuge from the sun among the -lemon-groves at Cintra. Here, if ever in his life, Southey for a brief -season believed that the grasshopper is wiser than the ant; a true -Portuguese indolence overpowered him. “I have spent my mornings half -naked in a wet room dozing upon the bed, my right hand not daring to -touch my left.” Such glorious indolence could only be a brief possession -with Southey. More often he would wander by the streams to those spots -where purple crocuses carpeted the ground, and there rest and read. -Sometimes seated sideways on one of the sure-footed _burros_, with a boy -to beat and guide the brute, he would jog lazily on, while Edith, now -skilled in “ass-womanship,” would jog along on a brother donkey. Once and -again a fog—not unwelcome—came rolling in from the ocean, one huge mass -of mist, marching through the valley like a victorious army, approaching, -blotting the brightness, but leaving all dank and fresh. And always the -evenings were delightful, when fireflies sparkled under the trees, or in -July and August, as their light went out, when the grillo began his song. -“I eat oranges, figs, and delicious pears—drink Colares wine, a sort of -half-way excellence between port and claret—read all I can lay my hands -on—dream of poem after poem, and play after play—take a siesta of two -hours, and am as happy as if life were but one everlasting today, and -that tomorrow was not to be provided for.” - -But Southey’s second visit to Portugal was, on the whole, no season of -repose. A week in the southern climate seemed to have restored him to -health, and he assailed folio after folio in his uncle’s library, rising -each morning at five, “to lay in bricks for the great Pyramid of my -history.” The chronicles, the laws, the poetry of Portugal, were among -these bricks. Nor did he slacken in his ardour as a writer of verse. Six -books of _Thalaba_ were in his trunk in manuscript when he sailed from -Falmouth; the remaining six were of a southern birth. “I am busy,” he -says, “in correcting _Thalaba_ for the press.... It is a good job done, -and so I have thought of another, and another, and another.” As with -_Joan of Arc_, so with this maturer poem the correction was a rehandling -which doubled the writer’s work. To draw the pen across six hundred lines -did not cost him a pang. At length the manuscript was despatched to his -friend Rickman, with instructions to make as good a bargain as he could -for the first thousand copies. By _Joan_ and the miscellaneous _Poems_ -of 1797, Southey had gained not far from a hundred and fifty pounds; he -might fairly expect a hundred guineas for _Thalaba_. It would buy the -furniture of his long-expected house. But he was concerned about the -prospects of Harry, his younger brother; and now William Taylor wrote -that some provincial surgeon of eminence would board and instruct the lad -during four or five years for precisely a hundred guineas. “A hundred -guineas!” Southey exclaims; “well, but, thank God, there is _Thalaba_ -ready, for which I ask this sum.” “_Thalaba_ finished, all my poetry,” -he writes, “instead of being wasted in rivulets and ditches, shall flow -into the great Madoc Mississippi river.” One epic poem, however, he -finds too little to content him; already _The Curse of Kehama_ is in -his head, and another of the mythological series which never saw the -light. “I have some distant view of manufacturing a Hindoo romance, -wild as _Thalaba_; and a nearer one of a Persian story, of which I -see the germ of vitality. I take the system of the Zendavesta for my -mythology, and introduce the powers of darkness persecuting a Persian, -one of the hundred and fifty sons of the great king; an Athenian captive -is a prominent character, and the whole warfare of the evil power ends -in exalting a Persian prince into a citizen of Athens.” From which -catastrophe we may infer that Southey had still something republican -about his heart. - -Before quitting Portugal, the Southeys, with their friend Waterhouse and -a party of ladies, travelled northwards, encountering very gallantly -the trials of the way; Mafra, its convent and library, had been -already visited by Southey. “Do you love reading?” asked the friar -who accompanied them, overhearing some remark about the books. “Yes.” -“And I,” said the honest Franciscan, “love eating and drinking.” At -Coimbra—that central point from which radiates the history and literature -of Portugal—Southey would have agreed feelingly with the good brother of -the Mafra convent; he had looked forward to precious moments of emotion -in that venerable city; but air and exercise had given him a cruel -appetite; if truth must be told, the ducks of the monastic poultry-yard -were more to him than the precious finger of St. Anthony. “I _did_ long,” -he confesses, “to buy, beg, or steal a dinner.” The dinner must somehow -have been secured before he could approach in a worthy spirit that most -affecting monument at Coimbra—the Fountain of Tears. “It is the spot -where Inez de Castro was accustomed to meet her husband Pedro, and weep -for him in his absence. Certainly her dwelling-house was in the adjoining -garden; and from there she was dragged, to be murdered at the feet of the -king, her father-in-law.... I, who have long planned a tragedy upon the -subject, stood upon my own scene.” While Southey and his companions gazed -at the fountains and their shadowing cedar-trees, the gownsmen gathered -round; the visitors were travel-stained and bronzed by the sun; perhaps -the witty youths cheered for the lady with the squaw tint; whatever -offence may have been given, the ladies’ protectors found them “impudent -blackguards,” and with difficulty suppressed pugilistic risings. - -After an excursion southwards to Algarve, Southey made ready for his -return to England (1801). His wife desired it, and he had attained the -main objects of his sojourn abroad. His health had never been more -perfect; he had read widely; he had gathered large material for his -History; he knew where to put his hand on this or that which might -prove needful, whenever he should return to complete his work among the -libraries of Portugal. On arriving at Bristol, a letter from Coleridge -met him. It was dated from Greta Hall, Keswick; and after reminding -Southey that Bristol had recently lost the miraculous young man, Davy, -and adding that he, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, had experiences, sufferings, -hopes, projects to impart, which would beguile much time, “were you on a -desert island and I your _Friday_,” it went on to present the attractions -of Keswick, and in particular of Greta Hall, in a way which could not be -resisted. Taking all in all—the beauty of the prospect, the roominess -of the house, the lowness of the rent, the unparalleled merits of the -landlord, the neighbourhood of noble libraries—it united advantages not -to be found together elsewhere. “In short”—the appeal wound up—“for -situation and convenience—and when I mention the name of Wordsworth, for -society of men of intellect—I know no place in which you and Edith would -find yourselves so well suited.” - -Meanwhile Drummond, an M.P. and a translator of Persius, who was going -as ambassador, first to Palermo and then to Constantinople, was on the -look-out for a secretary. The post would be obtained for Southey by his -friend Wynn, if possible; this might lead to a consulship; why not to the -consulship at Lisbon, with 1000_l._ a year? Such possibilities, however, -could not prevent him from speedily visiting Coleridge and Keswick. -“Time and absence make strange work with our affections,” so writes -Southey; “but mine are ever returning to rest upon you. I have other and -dear friends, but none with whom the whole of my being is intimate.... -Oh! I have yet such dreams. Is it quite clear that you and I were not -meant for some better star, and dropped by mistake into this world of -pounds, shillings, and pence?” So for the first time Southey set foot in -Keswick, and looked upon the lake and the hills which were to become a -portion of his being, and which have taken him so closely, so tenderly, -to themselves. His first feeling was one not precisely of disappointment, -but certainly of remoteness from this northern landscape; he had not -yet come out from the glow and the noble _abandon_ of the South. “These -lakes,” he says, “are like rivers; but oh for the Mondego and the Tagus! -And these mountains, beautifully indeed are they shaped and grouped; but -oh for the grand Monchique! and for Cintra, my paradise!” - -Time alone was needed to calm and temper his sense of seeing; for -when, leaving Mrs. Southey with her sister and Coleridge, he visited -his friend Wynn at Llangedwin, and breathed the mountain air of his -own Prince Madoc, all the loveliness of Welsh streams and rivers sank -into his soul. “The Dee is broad and shallow, and its dark waters -shiver into white and silver and hues of amber brown. No mud upon the -shore—no bushes—no marsh plants—anywhere a child might stand dry-footed -and dip his hand into the water.” And again a contrasted picture: “The -mountain-side was stony, and a few trees grew among its stones; the other -side was more wooded, and had grass on the top, and a huge waterfall -thundered into the bottom, and thundered down the bottom. When it had -nearly passed these rocky straits, it met another stream. The width of -water then became considerable, and twice it formed a large black pool, -to the eye absolutely stagnant, the froth of the waters that entered -there sleeping upon the surface; it had the deadness of enchantment; yet -was not the pool wider than the river above it and below it, where it -foamed over and fell.” Such free delight as Southey had among the hills -of Wales came quickly to an end. A letter was received offering him the -position of private secretary to Mr. Corry, Chancellor of the Exchequer -for Ireland, with a salary of four hundred pounds a year. Rickman was -in Dublin, and this was Rickman’s doing. Southey, as he was in prudence -bound to do, accepted the appointment, hastened back to Keswick, bade -farewell for a little while to his wife, and started for Dublin in no -cheerful frame of mind. - -At a later time, Southey possessed Irish friends whom he honoured and -loved; he has written wise and humane words about the Irish people. But -all through his career Ireland was to Southey somewhat too much that -ideal country—of late to be found only in the region of humorous-pathetic -melodrama—in which the business of life is carried on mainly by the -agency of bulls and blunder-busses; and it required a distinct effort -on his part to conceive the average Teague or Patrick otherwise than -as a potato-devouring troglodyte, on occasions grotesquely amiable, -but more often with the rage of Popery working in his misproportioned -features. Those hours during which Southey waited for the packet were -among the heaviest of his existence. After weary tackings in a baffling -wind, the ship was caught into a gale, and was whirled away, fifteen -miles north of Dublin, to the fishing-town of Balbriggan. Then, a drive -across desolate country, which would have depressed the spirits had it -not been enlivened by the airs and humours of little Dr. Solomon, the -unique, the omniscient, the garrulous, next after Bonaparte the most -illustrious of mortals, inventor of the Cordial Balm of Gilead, and -possessor of a hundred puncheons of rum. When the new private secretary -arrived, the chancellor was absent; the secretary, therefore, set -to work on rebuilding a portion of his _Madoc_. Presently Mr. Corry -appeared, and there was a bow and a shake of hands; then he hurried away -to London, to be followed by Southey, who, going round by Keswick, was -there joined by his wife. From London Southey writes to Rickman, “The -chancellor and the scribe go on in the same way. The scribe hath made -out a catalogue of all books published since the commencement of ’97 -upon finance and scarcity; he hath also copied a paper written by J.R. -[John Rickman] containing some Irish alderman’s hints about oak-bark; -and nothing more hath the scribe done in his vocation. Duly he calls at -the chancellor’s door; sometimes he is admitted to immediate audience; -sometimes kicketh his heels in the antechamber; ... sometimes a gracious -message emancipates him for the day. Secrecy hath been enjoined him as to -these State proceedings. On three subjects he is directed to read and -research—corn-laws, finance, tythes, according to their written order.” -The independent journals meanwhile had compared Corry and Southey, the -two State conspirators, to Empson and Dudley; and delicately expressed a -hope that the poet would make no false _numbers_ in his new work. - -Southey, who had already worn an ass’s head in one of Gillray’s -caricatures, was not afflicted by the newspaper sarcasm; but the vacuity -of such a life was intolerable; and when it was proposed that he should -become tutor to Corry’s son, he brought his mind finally to the point of -resigning “a foolish office and a good salary.” His notions of competence -were moderate; the vagabondage between the Irish and English headquarters -entailed by his office was irksome. His books were accumulating, and -there was ample work to be done among them if he had but a quiet library -of his own. Then, too, there was another good reason for resigning. A new -future was opening for Southey. Early in the year (1802) his mother died. -She had come to London to be with her son; there she had been stricken -with mortal illness; true to her happy, self-forgetful instincts, she -remained calm, uncomplaining, considerate for others. “Go down, my dear; -I shall sleep presently,” she had said, knowing that death was at hand. -With his mother, the last friend of Southey’s infancy and childhood was -gone. “I calmed and curbed myself,” he writes, “and forced myself to -employment; but at night there was no sound of feet in her bedroom, to -which I had been used to listen, and in the morning it was not my first -business to see her.” The past was past indeed. But as the year opened, -it brought a happy promise; before summer would end, a child might be in -his arms. Here were sufficient reasons for his resignation; a library and -a nursery ought, he says, to be stationary. - -To Bristol husband and wife came, and there found a small furnished -house. After the roar of Fleet Street, and the gathering of distinguished -men—Fuseli, Flaxman, Barry, Lamb, Campbell, Bowles—there was a -strangeness in the great quiet of the place. But in that quiet Southey -could observe each day the growth of the pile of manuscript containing -his version of _Amadis of Gaul_, for which Longman and Rees promised -him a munificent sixty pounds. He toiled at his _History of Portugal_, -finding matter of special interest in that part which was concerned with -the religious orders. He received from his Lisbon collection precious -boxes folio-crammed. “My dear and noble books! Such folios of saints! -dull books enough for my patience to diet upon, till all my flock be -gathered together into one fold.” Sixteen volumes of Spanish poetry are -lying uncut in the next room; a folio yet untasted jogs his elbow; two -of the best and rarest chronicles coyly invite him. He had books enough -in England to employ three years of active industry. And underlying all -thoughts of the great Constable Nuño Alvares Pereyra, of the King D. -Joaõ I., and of the Cid, deeper than the sportsman pleasure of hunting -from their lair strange facts about the orders Cistercian, Franciscan, -Dominican, Jesuit, there was a thought of that new-comer whom, says -Southey, “I already feel disposed to call whelp and dog, and all those -vocables of vituperation by which a man loves to call those he loves -best.” - -In September, 1802, was born Southey’s first child, named Margaret -Edith, after her mother and her dead grandmother; a flat-nosed, -round-foreheaded, grey-eyed, good-humoured girl. “I call Margaret,” -he says, in a sober mood of fatherly happiness, “by way of avoiding -all commonplace phraseology of endearment, a worthy child and a most -excellent character. She loves me better than any one except her mother; -her eyes are as quick as thought; she is all life and spirit, and as -happy as the day is long; but that little brain of hers is never at rest, -and it is painful to see how dreams disturb her.” For Margery and her -mother and the folios a habitation must be found. Southey inclined now -towards settling in the neighbourhood of London—now towards Norwich, -where Dr. Sayers and William Taylor would welcome him—now towards -Keswick; but its horrid latitude, its incessant rains! On the whole, his -heart turned most fondly to Wales; and there, in one of the loveliest -spots of Great Britain, in the Vale of Neath, was a house to let, by name -Maes Gwyn. Southey gave his fancy the rein, and pictured himself “housed -and homed” in Maes Gwyn, working steadily at the _History of Portugal_, -and now and again glancing away from his work to have a look at Margery -seated in her little great chair. But it was never to be; a difference -with the landlord brought to an end his treaty for the house, and in -August the child lay dying. It was bitter to part with what had been so -long desired—during seven childless years—and what had grown so dear. -But Southey’s heart was strong; he drew himself together, returned to -his toil, now less joyous than before, and set himself to strengthen and -console his wife. - -Bristol was henceforth a place of mournful memories. “Edith,” writes -Southey, “will be nowhere so well as with her sister Coleridge. She has -a little girl some six months old, and I shall try and graft her into -the wound while it is yet fresh.” Thus Greta Hall received its guests -(September, 1803). At first the sight of little Sara Coleridge and her -baby cooings caused shootings of pain on which Southey had not counted. -Was the experiment of this removal to prove a failure? He still felt -as if he were a feather driven by the wind. “I have no symptoms of -root-striking here,” he said. But he spoke, not knowing what was before -him; the years of wandering were indeed over; here he had found his home. - - - - -CHAPTER IV. - -WAYS OF LIFE AT KESWICK, 1803-1839. - - -The best of life with Southey was yet to come; but in what remains there -are few outstanding events to chronicle; there is nowhere any splendour -of circumstance. Of some lives the virtue is distilled, as it were, into -a few exquisite moments—moments of rapture, of vision, of sudden and -shining achievement; all the days and years seem to exist only for the -sake of such faultless moments, and it matters little whether such a -life, of whose very essence it is to break the bounds of time and space, -be long or short as measured by the falling of sandgrains or the creeping -of a shadow. Southey’s life was not one of these; its excellence was -constant, uniform, perhaps somewhat too evenly distributed. He wrought in -his place day after day, season after season. He submitted to the good -laws of use and wont. He grew stronger, calmer, more full-fraught with -stores of knowledge, richer in treasure of the heart. Time laid its hand -upon him gently and unfalteringly: the bounding step became less light -and swift; the ringing voice lapsed into sadder fits of silence; the -raven hair changed to a snowy white; only still the indefatigable eye ran -down the long folio columns, and the indefatigable hand still held the -pen—until all true life had ceased. When it has been said that Southey -was appointed Pye’s successor in the laureateship, that he received an -honorary degree from his university, that now and again he visited the -Continent, that children were born to him from among whom death made -choice of the dearest; and then we add that he wrote and published books, -the leading facts of Southey’s life have been told. Had he been worse -or a weaker man, we might look to find mysteries, picturesque vices, -or engaging follies; as it is, everything is plain, straightforward, -substantial. What makes the life of Southey eminent and singular is -its unity of purpose, its persistent devotion to a chosen object, its -simplicity, purity, loyalty, fortitude, kindliness, truth. - -The river Greta, before passing under the bridge at the end of Main -Street, Keswick, winds about the little hill on which stands Greta Hall; -its murmur may be heard when all is still beyond the garden and orchard; -to the west it catches the evening light. “In front,” Coleridge wrote -when first inviting his friend to settle with him, “we have a giants’ -camp—an encamped army of tent-like mountains, which by an inverted arch -gives a view of another vale. On our right the lovely vale and the -wedge-shaped lake of Bassenthwaite; and on our left Derwentwater and -Lodore full in view, and the fantastic mountains of Borrowdale. Behind us -the massy Skiddaw, smooth, green, high, with two chasms and a tent-like -ridge in the larger.” Southey’s house belongs in a peculiar degree to -his life: in it were stored the treasures upon which his intellect drew -for sustenance; in it his affections found their earthly abiding-place; -all the most mirthful, all the most mournful, recollections of Southey -hang about it; to it in every little wandering his heart reverted like -an exile’s; it was at once his workshop and his playground; and for a -time, while he endured a living death, it became his antechamber to the -tomb. The rambling tenement consisted of two houses under one roof, the -larger part being occupied by the Coleridges and Southeys, the smaller -for a time by Mr. Jackson, their landlord. On the ground-floor was the -parlour which served as dining-room and general sitting-room, a pleasant -chamber looking upon the green in front; here also were Aunt Lovell’s -sitting-room, and the mangling-room, in which stood ranged in a row the -long array of clogs, from the greatest even unto the least, figuring in a -symbol the various stages of human life. The stairs to the right of the -kitchen led to a landing-place filled with bookcases; a few steps more -led to the little bedroom occupied by Mrs. Coleridge and her daughter. -“A few steps farther,” writes Sara Coleridge, whose description is here -given in abridgment, “was a little wing bedroom—then the study, where -my uncle sat all day occupied with literary labours and researches, but -which was used as a drawing-room for company. Here all the tea-visiting -guests were received. The room had three windows, a large one looking -down upon the green with the wide flower-border, and over to Keswick Lake -and mountains beyond. There were two smaller windows looking towards -the lower part of the town seen beyond the nursery-garden. The room was -lined with books in fine bindings; there were books also in brackets, -elegantly lettered vellum-covered volumes lying on their sides in a heap. -The walls were hung with pictures, mostly portraits.... At the back of -the room was a comfortable sofa, and there were sundry tables, beside -my uncle’s library table, his screen, desk, etc. Altogether, with its -internal fittings up, its noble outlook, and something pleasing in its -proportions, this was a charming room.” Hard by the study was Southey’s -bedroom. We need not ramble farther through passages lined with books, -and up and down flights of stairs to Mr. Jackson’s organ-room, and Mrs. -Lovell’s room, and Hartley’s parlour, and the nurseries, and one dark -apple-room supposed to be the abode of a bogle. Without, greensward, -flowers, shrubs, strawberry-beds, fruit-trees, encircled the house; -to the back, beyond the orchard, a little wood stretched down to the -river-side. A rough path ran along the bottom of the wood; here, on a -covered seat, Southey often read or planned future work, and here his -little niece loved to play in sight of the dimpling water. “Dear Greta -Hall!” she exclaims; “and oh, that rough path beside the Greta! How much -of my childhood, of my girlhood, of my youth, were spent there!” - -Southey’s attachment to his mountain town and its lakes was of no sudden -growth. He came to them as one not born under their influence; that -power of hills to which Wordsworth owed fealty, had not brooded upon -Southey during boyhood; the rich southern meadows, the wooded cliffs of -Avon, the breezy downs, had nurtured his imagination, and to these he -was still bound by pieties of the heart. In the churchyard at Ashton, -where lay his father and his kinsfolk, the beneficent cloud of mingled -love and sorrow most overshadowed his spirit. His imagination did not -soar, as did Wordsworth’s, in naked solitudes; he did not commune with -a Presence immanent in external nature: the world, as he viewed it, was -an admirable habitation for mankind—a habitation with a history. Even -after he had grown a mountaineer, he loved a humanized landscape, one -in which the gains of man’s courage, toil, and endurance are apparent. -Flanders, where the spade has wrought its miracles of diligence, where -the slow canal-boat glides, where the _carillons_ ripple from old spires, -where sturdy burghers fought for freedom, and where vellum-bound quartos -might be sought and found, Flanders, on the whole gave Southey deeper -and stronger feelings than did Switzerland. The ideal land of his dreams -was always Spain: the earthly paradise for him was Cintra, with its -glory of sun, and a glow even in its depths of shadow. But as the years -went by, Spain became more and more a memory, less and less a hope; and -the realities of life in his home were of more worth every day. When, -in 1807, it grew clear that Greta Hall was to be his life-long place of -abode, Southey’s heart closed upon it with a tenacious grasp. He set -the plasterer and carpenter to work; he planted shrubs; he enclosed the -garden; he gathered his books about him, and thought that here were -materials for the industry of many years; he held in his arms children -who were born in this new home; and he looked to Crosthwaite Churchyard, -expecting, with quiet satisfaction, that when toil was ended he should -there take his rest. - -“I don’t talk much about these things,” Southey writes; “but these lakes -and mountains give me a deep joy for which I suspect nothing elsewhere -can compensate, and this is a feeling which time strengthens instead -of weakening.” Some of the delights of southern counties he missed; -his earliest and deepest recollections were connected with flowers; -both flowers and fruits were now too few; there was not a cowslip to -be found near Keswick. “Here in Cumberland I miss the nightingale and -the violet—the most delightful bird and the sweetest flower.” But for -such losses there were compensations. A pastoral land will give amiable -pledges for the seasons and the months, and will perform its engagements -with a punctual observance; to this the mountains hardly condescend, but -they shower at their will a sudden largess of unimagined beauty. Southey -would sally out for a constitutional at his three-mile pace, the peaked -cap slightly shadowing his eyes, which were coursing over the pages of a -book held open as he walked; he had left his study to obtain exercise, -and so to preserve health; he was not a laker engaged in view-hunting; -he did not affect the contemplative mood which at the time was not and -could not be his. But when he raised his eyes, or when, quickening his -three-mile to a four-mile pace, he closed the book, the beauty which lay -around him liberated and soothed his spirit. This it did unfailingly; -and it might do more, for incalculable splendours, visionary glories, -exaltations, terrors, are momentarily possible where mountain, and -cloud, and wind, and sunshine meet. Southey, as he says, did not talk -much of these things, but they made life for him immeasurably better -than it would have been in city confinement; there were spaces, vistas, -an atmosphere around his sphere of work, which lightened and relieved -it. The engagements in his study were always so numerous and so full of -interest that it needed an effort to leave the table piled with books and -papers. But a May morning would draw him forth into the sun in spite of -himself. Once abroad, Southey had a vigorous joy in the quickened blood, -and the muscles impatient with energy long pent up. The streams were his -especial delight; he never tired of their deep retirement, their shy -loveliness, and their melody; they could often beguile him into an hour -of idle meditation; their beauty has in an especial degree passed into -his verse. When his sailor brother Thomas came and settled in the Vale -of Newlands, Southey would quickly cover the ground from Keswick at his -four-mile pace, and in the beck at the bottom of Tom’s fields, on summer -days, he would plunge and re-plunge and act the river-god in the natural -seats of mossy stone. Or he would be overpowered some autumn morning by -the clamour of childish voices voting a holiday by acclamation. Their -father must accompany them; it would do him good, they knew it would; -they knew he did not take sufficient exercise, for they had heard him -say so. Where should the scramble be? To Skiddaw Dod, or Causey Pike, or -Watenlath, or, as a compromise between their exuberant activity and his -inclination for the chair and the fireside, to Walla Crag? And there, -while his young companions opened their baskets and took their noonday -meal, Southey would seat himself—as Westall has drawn him—upon the -bough of an ash-tree, the water flowing smooth and green at his feet, -but a little higher up broken, flashing, and whitening in its fall; and -there in the still autumn noon he would muse happily, placidly, not now -remembering with overkeen desire the gurgling tanks and fountains of -Cintra, his Paradise of early manhood.[7] - -On summer days, when the visits of friends, or strangers bearing letters -of introduction, compelled him to idleness, Southey’s more ambitious -excursions were taken. But he was well aware that those who form -acquaintance with a mountain region during a summer all blue and gold, -know little of its finer power. It is October that brings most often -those days faultless, pearl-pure, of affecting influence, - - “In the long year set - Like captain jewels in the carcanet.” - -Then, as Wordsworth has said, the atmosphere seems refined, and the sky -rendered more crystalline, as the vivifying heat of the year abates; -the lights and shadows are more delicate; the colouring is richer and -more finely harmonized; and, in this season of stillness, the ear being -unoccupied, or only gently excited, the sense of vision becomes more -susceptible of its appropriate enjoyments. Even December is a better -month than July for perceiving the special greatness of a mountainous -country. When the snow lies on the fells soft and smooth, Grisedale Pike -and Skiddaw drink in tints at morning and evening marvellous as those -seen upon Mont Blanc or the Jungfrau for purity and richness. - -“Summer,” writes Southey, “is not the season for this country. Coleridge -says, and says well, that then it is like a theatre at noon. There are -no _goings on_ under a clear sky; but at other seasons there is such -shifting of shades, such islands of light, such columns and buttresses -of sunshine, as might almost make a painter burn his brushes, as the -sorcerers did their books of magic when they saw the divinity which -rested upon the apostles. The very snow, which you would perhaps think -must monotonize the mountains, gives new varieties; it brings out their -recesses and designates all their inequalities; it impresses a better -feeling of their height; and it reflects such tints of saffron, or fawn, -or rose-colour to the evening sun. _O Maria Santissima!_ Mount Horeb, -with the glory upon its summit, might have been more glorious, but not -more beautiful than old Skiddaw in his winter pelisse. I will not quarrel -with frost, though the fellow has the impudence to take me by the nose. -The lake-side has such ten thousand charms: a fleece of snow or of the -hoar-frost lies on the fallen trees or large stones; the grass-points, -that just peer above the water, are powdered with diamonds; the ice on -the margin with chains of crystal, and such veins and wavy lines of -beauty as mock all art; and, to crown all, Coleridge and I have found out -that stones thrown upon the lake when frozen make a noise like singing -birds, and when you whirl on it a large flake of ice, away the shivers -slide, chirping and warbling like a flight of finches.” This tells of -a February at Keswick; the following describes the _goings on_ under -an autumn sky:—“The mountains on Thursday evening, before the sun was -quite down or the moon bright, were all of one dead-blue colour; their -rifts and rocks and swells and scars had all disappeared—the surface -was perfectly uniform, nothing but the outline distinct; and this even -surface of dead blue, from its unnatural uniformity, made them, though -not transparent, appear transvious—as though they were of some soft or -cloudy texture through which you could have passed. I never saw any -appearance so perfectly unreal. Sometimes a blazing sunset seems to steep -them through and through with red light; or it is a cloudy morning, and -the sunshine slants down through a rift in the clouds, and the pillar of -light makes the spot whereon it falls so emerald green, that it looks -like a little field of Paradise. At night you lose the mountains, and the -wind so stirs up the lake that it looks like the sea by moonlight.” - -If Southey had not a companion by his side, the solitude of his ramble -was unbroken; he never had the knack of forgathering with chance -acquaintance. With intellectual and moral boldness, and with high -spirits, he united a constitutional bashfulness and reserve. His retired -life, his habits of constant study, and, in later years, his shortness of -sight, fell in with this infirmity. He would not patronize his humbler -neighbours; he had a kind of imaginative jealousy on behalf of their -rights as independent persons; and he could not be sure of straightway -discovering, by any genius or instinct of good-fellowship, that common -ground whereon strangers are at home with one another. Hence—and Southey -himself wished that it had been otherwise—long as he resided at Keswick, -there were perhaps not twenty persons of the lower ranks whom he knew -by sight. “After slightly returning the salutation of some passer-by,” -says his son, “he would again mechanically lift his cap as he heard some -well-known name in reply to his inquiries, and look back with regret that -the greeting had not been more cordial.” - -If the ice were fairly broken, he found it natural to be easy and -familiar, and by those whom he employed he was regarded with affectionate -reverence. Mrs. Wilson—kind and generous creature—remained in Greta -Hall tending the children as they grew up, until she died, grieved -for by the whole household. Joseph Glover, who created the scarecrow -“Statues” for the garden—male and female created he them, as the reader -may see them figured toward the close of _The Doctor_—Glover, the artist -who set up Edith’s fantastic chimney-piece (“Well, Miss Southey,” -cried honest Joseph, “I’ve done my Devils”), was employed by Southey -during five-and-twenty years, ever since he was a ’prentice-boy. If -any warm-hearted neighbour, known or unknown to him, came forward with -a demand on Southey’s sympathies, he was sure to meet a neighbourly -response. When the miller, who had never spoken to him before, invited -the laureate to rejoice with him over the pig he had killed—the finest -ever fattened—and when Southey was led to the place where that which had -ceased to be pig and was not yet bacon, was hung up by the hind feet, he -filled up the measure of the good man’s joy by hearty appreciation of a -porker’s points. But Cumberland enthusiasm seldom flames abroad with so -prodigal a blaze as that of the worthy miller’s heart. - -Within the charmed circle of home, Southey’s temper and manners were -full of a strong and sweet hilarity; and the home circle was in itself a -considerable group of persons. The Pantisocratic scheme of a community -was, after all, near finding a fulfilment, only that the Greta ran by in -place of the Susquehanna, and that Southey took upon his own shoulders -the work of the dead Lovell, and of Coleridge, who lay in weakness -and dejection, whelmed under the tide of dreams. For some little time -Coleridge continued to reside at Keswick, an admirable companion in -almost all moods of mind, for all kinds of wisdom, and all kinds of -nonsense. When he was driven abroad in search of health, it seemed as if -a brightness were gone out of the air, and the horizon of life had grown -definite and contracted. “It is now almost ten years,” Southey writes, -“since he and I first met in my rooms at Oxford, which meeting decided -the destiny of both.... I am perpetually pained at thinking what he ought -to be, ... but the tidings of his death would come upon me more like a -stroke of lightning than any evil I have ever yet endured.” - -Mrs. Coleridge, with her children, remained at Greta Hall. That quaint -little metaphysician, Hartley—now answering to the name of Moses, now to -that of Job, the oddest of all God’s creatures—was an unceasing wonder -and delight to his uncle: “a strange, strange boy, ‘exquisitely wild,’ an -utter visionary, like the moon among thin clouds, he moves in a circle -of his own making. He alone is a light of his own. Of all human beings -I never saw one so utterly naked of self.” When his father expressed -surprise that Hartley should take his pleasure of wheel-barrow-riding so -sadly, “The pity is”—explained little Job—“the pity is, _I’se_ always -thinking of my thoughts.” “‘I’m a boy of a very religious turn,’ he says; -for he always talks of himself and examines his own character, just as -if he were speaking of another person, and as impartially. Every night -he makes an extempore prayer aloud; but it is always in bed, and not -till he is comfortable there and got into the mood. When he is ready, he -touches Mrs. Wilson, who sleeps with him, and says, ‘Now listen!’ and off -he sets like a preacher.” Younger than Hartley was Derwent Coleridge, a -fair, broad-chested boy, with merry eye and roguish lips, now grown out -of that yellow frock in which he had earned his name of Stumpy Canary. -Sara Coleridge, when her uncle came to Keswick after the death of his own -Margery, was a little grand-lama at that worshipful age of seven months. -A fall into the Greta, a year and a half later, helped to change her to -the delicate creature whose large blue eyes would look up timidly from -under her lace border and mufflings of muslin. No feeling towards their -father save a reverent loyalty did the Coleridge children ever learn -under Southey’s roof. But when the pale-faced wanderer returned from -Italy, he surprised and froze his daughter by a sudden revelation of that -jealousy which is the fond injustice of an unsatisfied heart, and which a -child who has freely given and taken love finds it hard to comprehend. “I -think my dear father,” writes Sara Coleridge, “was anxious that I should -learn to love him and the Wordsworths and their children, and not cling -so exclusively to my mother and all around me at home.” Love him and -revere his memory she did; to Wordsworth she was conscious of owing more -than to any other teacher or inspirer in matters of the intellect and -imagination. But in matters of the heart and conscience the daily life of -Southey was the book in which she read; he was, she would emphatically -declare, “upon the whole, the best man she had ever known.” - -But the nepotism of the most “nepotious” uncle is not a perfect -substitute for fatherhood with its hopes and fears. May-morning of the -year 1804 saw “an Edithling very, very ugly, with no more beauty than a -young dodo,” nestling by Edith Southey’s side. A trembling thankfulness -possessed the little one’s father; but when the Arctic weather changed -suddenly to days of genial sunshine, and groves and gardens burst into -living greenery, and rang with song, his heart was caught into the -general joy. Southey was not without a presentiment that his young dodo -would improve. Soon her premature activity of eye and spirits troubled -him, and he tried, while cherishing her, to put a guard upon his heart. -“I did not mean to trust my affections again on so frail a foundation—and -yet the young one takes me from my desk and makes me talk nonsense as -fluently as you perhaps can imagine.” When Sara Coleridge—not yet five -years old, but already, as she half believed, promised in marriage to -Mr. De Quincey—returned after a short absence to Greta Hall, she saw her -baby cousin, sixteen months younger, and therefore not yet marriageable, -grown into a little girl very fair, with thick golden hair, and round, -rosy cheeks. Edith Southey inherited something of her father’s looks and -of his swift intelligence; with her growing beauty of face and limbs a -growing excellence of inward nature kept pace. At twenty she was the -“elegant cygnet” of Amelia Opie’s album verses, - - “’Twas pleasant to meet - And see thee, famed Swan of the Derwent’s fair tide, - With that elegant cygnet that floats by thy side”— - -a compliment her father mischievously would not let her Elegancy forget. -Those who would know her in the loveliness of youthful womanhood may turn -to Wordsworth’s poem, _The Triad_, where she appears first of the three -“sister nymphs” of Keswick and Rydal; or, Hartley Coleridge’s exquisite -sonnet, _To a lofty beauty, from her poor kinsman_: - - “Methinks thy scornful mood, - And bearing high of stately womanhood— - Thy brow where Beauty sits to tyrannize - O’er humble love, had made me sadly fear thee: - For never sure was seen a royal bride, - Whose gentleness gave grace to so much pride— - My very thoughts would tremble to be near thee, - But when I see thee by thy father’s side - Old times unqueen thee, and old loves endear thee.” - -But it is best of all to remember Southey’s daughter in connexion with -one letter of her father’s. In 1805 he visited Scotland alone; he had -looked forward to carrying on the most cherished purpose of his life—the -_History of Portugal_—among the libraries of Lisbon. But it would be -difficult to induce Mrs. Southey to travel with the Edithling. Could he -go alone? The short absence in Scotland served to test his heart, and so -to make his future clear:— - - “I need not tell you, my own dear Edith, not to read my letters - aloud till you have first of all seen what is written only - for yourself. What I have now to say to you is, that having - been eight days from home, with as little discomfort, and as - little reason for discomfort, as a man can reasonably expect, - I have yet felt so little comfortable, so great sense of - solitariness, and so many homeward yearnings, that certainly I - will not go to Lisbon without you; a resolution which, if your - feelings be at all like mine, will not displease you. If, on - mature consideration, you think the inconvenience of a voyage - more than you ought to submit to, I must be content to stay - in England, as on my part it certainly is not worth while to - sacrifice a year’s happiness; for though not unhappy (my mind - is too active and too well disciplined to yield to any such - criminal weakness), still, without you I am not happy. But - for your sake as well as my own, and for little Edith’s sake, - I will not consent to any separation; the growth of a year’s - love between her and me, if it please God that she should live, - is a thing too delightful in itself, and too valuable in its - consequences, both to her and me, to be given up for any light - inconvenience either on your part or mine. An absence of a year - would make her effectually forget me.... But of these things we - will talk at leisure; only, dear, dear Edith, we must not part.” - -Such wisdom of the heart was justified; the year of growing love bore -precious fruit. When Edith May was ten years old her father dedicated to -her, in verses laden with a father’s tenderest thoughts and feelings, his -_Tale of Paraguay_. He recalls the day of her birth, the preceding sorrow -for his first child, whose infant features have faded from him like a -passing cloud; the gladness of that singing month of May; the seasons -that followed during which he observed the dawning of the divine light in -her eyes; the playful guiles by which he won from her repeated kisses: -to him these ten years seem like yesterday; but to her they have brought -discourse of reason, with the sense of time and change:— - - “And I have seen thine eyes suffused in grief - When I have said that with autumnal grey - The touch of old hath mark’d thy father’s head; - That even the longest day of life is brief, - And mine is falling fast into the yellow leaf.” - -Other children followed, until a happy stir of life filled the house. -Emma, the quietest of infants, whose voice was seldom heard, and whose -dark-grey eyes too seldom shone in her father’s study, slipped quietly -out of the world after a hand’s-breadth of existence; but to Southey she -was no more really lost than the buried brother and sister were to the -cottage girl of Wordsworth’s _We are seven_. “I have five children,” he -says in 1809; “three of them at home, and two under my mother’s care -in heaven.” Of all, the most radiantly beautiful was Isabel; the most -passionately loved was Herbert. “My other two are the most perfect -contrast you ever saw. Bertha, whom I call Queen Henry the Eighth, from -her likeness to King Bluebeard, grows like Jonah’s gourd, and is the very -picture of robust health; and little Kate hardly seems to grow at all, -though perfectly well—she is round as a mushroom-button. Bertha, the -bluff queen, is just as grave as Kate is garrulous; they are inseparable -playfellows, and go about the house hand in hand.” - -Among the inmates of Greta Hall, to overlook Lord Nelson and Bona -Marietta, with their numerous successors, would be a grave delinquency. -To be a cat, was to be a privileged member of the little republic to -which Southey gave laws. Among the fragments at the end of _The Doctor_ -will be found a Chronicle History of the Cattery of Cat’s Eden; and some -of Southey’s frolic letters are written as if his whole business in -life were that of secretary for feline affairs in Greta Hall. A house, -he declared, is never perfectly furnished for enjoyment unless there -is in it a child rising three years old and a kitten rising six weeks; -“kitten is in the animal world what the rosebud is in the garden.” Lord -Nelson, an ugly specimen of the streaked-carroty or Judas-coloured -kind, yet withal a good cat, affectionate, vigilant, and brave, was -succeeded by Madame Bianchi, a beautiful and singular creature, white, -with a fine tabby tail; “her wild eyes were bright, and green as the -Duchess de Cadaval’s emerald necklace.” She fled away with her niece -Pulcheria on the day when good old Mrs. Wilson died; nor could any -allurements induce the pair to domesticate themselves again. For some -time a cloud of doom seemed to hang over Cat’s Eden. Ovid and Virgil, -Othello the Moor, and Pope Joan perished miserably. At last Fortune, -as if to make amends for her unkindness, sent to Greta Hall almost -together the never-to-be-enough-praised Rumpelstilzchen (afterwards -raised for services against rats to be His Serene Highness the Archduke -Rumpelstilzchen), and the equally-to-be-praised Hurly-burlybuss. With -whom too soon we must close the catalogue. - -The revenue to maintain this household was in the main won by Southey’s -pen. “It is a difficult as well as a delicate task,” he wrote in the -_Quarterly Review_, “to advise a youth of ardent mind and aspiring -thoughts in the choice of a profession; but a wise man will have no -hesitation in exhorting him to choose anything rather than literature. -Better that he should seek his fortune before the mast, or with a musket -on his shoulder and a knapsack on his back; better that he should follow -the plough, or work at the loom or the lathe, or sweat over the anvil, -than trust to literature as the only means of his support.” Southey’s -own bent towards literature was too strong to be altered. But, while -he accepted loyally the burdens of his profession as a man of letters, -he knew how stout a back is needed to bear them month after month and -year after year. Absolutely dependent on his pen he was at no time. His -generous friend Wynn, upon coming of age, allowed him annually 160_l._, -until, in 1807, he was able to procure for Southey a Government pension -for literary services amounting, clear of taxes, to nearly the same -sum. Southey had as truly as any man the pride of independence, but he -had none of its vanity; there was no humiliation in accepting a service -from one whom friendship had made as close as a brother. Men, he says, -are as much better for the good offices which they receive as for those -they bestow; and his own was no niggard hand. Knowing both to give and -to take, with him the remembrance that he owed much to others was among -the precious possessions of life which bind us to our kind with bonds -of sonship, not of slavery. Of the many kindnesses which he received he -never forgot one. “Had it not been for your aid,” he writes to Wynn, -forty years after their first meeting in Dean’s Yard, “I should have -been irretrievably wrecked when I ran upon the shoals, with all sail -set, in the very outset of my voyage.” And to another good old friend, -who from his own modest station applauded while Southey ran forward in -the race:—“Do you suppose, Cottle, that I have forgotten those true and -most essential acts of friendship which you showed me when I stood most -in need of them? Your house was my house when I had no other. The very -money with which I bought my wedding-ring and paid my marriage-fees was -supplied by you. It was with your sisters I left Edith during my six -months’ absence, and for the six months after my return it was from -you that I received, week by week, the little on which we lived, till -I was enabled to live by other means. It is not the settling of a cash -account that can cancel obligations like these. You are in the habit of -preserving your letters, and if you were not, I would entreat you to -preserve _this_, that it might be seen hereafter.... My head throbs and -my eyes burn with these recollections. Good-night! my dear old friend and -benefactor.” - -Anxiety about his worldly fortunes never cost Southey a sleepless night. -His disposition was always hopeful; relying on Providence, he says, I -could rely upon myself. When he had little, he lived upon little, never -spending when it was necessary to spare; and his means grew with his -expenses. Business habits he had none; never in his life did he cast up -an account; but in a general way he knew that money comes by honest toil -and grows by diligent husbandry. Upon Mrs. Southey, who had an eye to all -the household outgoings, the cares of this life fell more heavily. Sara -Coleridge calls to mind her aunt as she moved about Greta Hall intent on -house affairs, “with her fine figure and quietly commanding air.” Alas! -under this gracious dignity of manner the wear and tear of life were -doing their work surely. Still, it was honest wear and tear. “I never -knew her to do an unkind act,” says Southey, “nor say an unkind word;” -but when stroke followed upon stroke of sorrow, they found her without -that elastic temper which rises and recovers itself. Until the saddest -of afflictions made her helpless, everything was left to her management, -and was managed so quietly and well, that, except in times of sickness -and bereavement, “I had,” writes her husband, “literally no cares.” Thus -free from harass, Southey toiled in his library; he toiled not for bread -alone, but also for freedom. There were great designs before him which, -he was well aware, if ever realized, would make but a poor return to -the household coffer. To gain time and a vantage-ground for these, he -was content to yield much of his strength to work of temporary value, -always contriving, however, to strike a mean in this journeyman service -between what was most and least akin to his proper pursuits. When a -parcel of books arrived from the _Annual Review_, he groaned in spirit -over the sacrifice of time; but patience! it is, after all, better, he -would reflect, than pleading in a court of law; better than being called -up at midnight to a patient; better than calculating profit and loss at -a counter; better, in short, than anything but independence. “I am a -quiet, patient, easy-going hack of the mule breed”—he writes to Grosvenor -Bedford—“regular as clock-work in my pace, sure-footed, bearing the -burden which is laid on me, and only obstinate in choosing my own path. -If Gifford could see me by this fireside, where, like Nicodemus, one -candle suffices me in a large room, he would see a man in a coat ‘still -more threadbare than his own,’ when he wrote his ‘Imitation,’ working -hard and getting little—a bare maintenance, and hardly that; writing -poems and history for posterity with his whole heart and soul; one daily -progressive in learning, not so learned as he is poor, not so poor as -proud, not so proud as happy. Grosvenor, there is not a lighter-hearted -nor a happier man upon the face of this wide world.” When these words -were written, Herbert stood by his father’s side; it was sweet to work -that his boy might have his play-time glad and free. - -The public estimate of Southey’s works as expressed in pounds, shillings, -and pence, was lowest where he held that it ought to have been highest. -For the _History of Brazil_, a work of stupendous toil, which no one in -England could have produced save Southey himself, he had not received, -after eight years, as much as for a single article in the _Quarterly -Review_. _Madoc_, the pillar, as he supposed, on which his poetical fame -was to rest; _Madoc_, which he dismissed with an awed feeling, as if in -it he were parting with a great fragment of his life, brought its author, -after twelve months’ sales, the sum of 3_l._ 17_s._ 1_d._ On the other -hand, for his _Naval Biography_, which interested him less than most of -his works, and which was undertaken after hesitation, he was promised -five hundred guineas a volume. Notwithstanding his unwearied exertions, -his modest scale of expenditure, and his profitable connexion with the -_Quarterly Review_—for an important article he would receive 100_l._—he -never had a year’s income in advance until that year, late in his life, -in which Sir Robert Peel offered him a baronetcy. In 1818, the lucky -payment of a bad debt enabled him to buy 300_l._ in the Three-per-cents. -“I have 100_l._ already there,” he writes “and shall then be worth 12_l._ -per annum.” By 1821 this sum had grown to 625_l._, the gatherings of -half a life-time. In that year his friend John May, whose acquaintance -he had made in Portugal, and to whose kindness he was a debtor, suffered -the loss of his fortune. As soon as Southey had heard the state of -affairs, his decision was formed. “By this post,” he tells his friend, “I -write to Bedford, desiring that he will transfer to you 625_l._ in the -Three-per-cents. I wish it was more, and that I had more at my command in -any way. I shall in the spring, if I am paid for the first volume of my -History as soon as it is finished. One hundred I should, at all events, -have sent you then. It shall be as much more as I receive.” And he goes -on in cheery words to invite John May to break away from business and -come to Keswick, there to lay in “a pleasant store of recollections which -in all moods of mind are wholesome.” One rejoices that Southey, poor of -worldly goods, knew the happiness of being so simply and nobly generous. - -Blue and white china, mediæval ivories, engravings by the Little Masters, -Chippendale cabinets, did not excite pining desire in Southey’s breast; -yet in one direction he indulged the passion of a collector. If, with -respect to any of “the things independent of the will,” he showed a want -of moderation unworthy of his discipleship to Epictetus, it was assuredly -with respect to books. Before he possessed a fixed home, he was already -moored to his folios; and when once he was fairly settled at Keswick, -many a time the carriers on the London road found their riding the larger -by a weighty packet on its way to Greta Hall. Never did he run north or -south for a holiday, but the inevitable parcel preceded or followed his -return. Never did he cross to the Continent but a bulkier bale arrived -in its own good time, enclosing precious things. His morality, in all -else void of offence, here yielded to the seducer. It is thought that -Southey was in the main honest; but if Dirk Hatteraick had run ashore -a hundred-weight of the Acta Sanctorum duty-free, the king’s laureate -was not the man to set the sharks upon him; and it is to be feared that -the pattern of probity, the virtuous Southey himself, might in such -circumstances be found, under cover of night, lugging his prize landwards -from its retreat beneath the rocks. Unquestionably, at one time certain -parcels from Portugal—only of such a size as could be carried under the -arm—were silently brought ashore to the defrauding of the revenue, and -somehow found their way, by-and-by, to Greta Hall. “We maintain a trade,” -says the Governor of the Strangers’ House in Bacon’s philosophical -romance, “not for gold, silver, or jewels, nor for silks, nor for spices, -nor any other commodity of matter, but only for God’s first creature, -which was _light_.” Such, too, was Southey’s trade, and he held that -God’s first creature is free to travel unchallenged by revenue-cutter. - -“Why, Montesinos,” asks the ghostly Sir Thomas More in one of Southey’s -_Colloquies_, “with these books and the delight you take in their -constant society, what have you to covet or desire?” “Nothing,” is the -answer, “ ... except more books.” When Southey, in 1805, went to see -Walter Scott, it occurred to him in Edinburgh that, having had neither -new coat nor hat since little Edith was born, he must surely be in want -of both; and here, in the metropolis of the North, was an opportunity of -arraying himself to his desire. “Howbeit,” he says, “on considering the -really respectable appearance which my old ones made for a traveller—and -considering, moreover, that as learning was better than house or land, -it certainly must be much better than fine clothes—I laid out all my -money in books, and came home to wear out my old wardrobe in the winter.” -De Quincey called Southey’s library his wife, and in a certain sense -it was wife and mistress and mother to him. The presence and enjoying -of his books was not the sole delight they afforded; there was also -the pursuit, the surprisal, the love-making or wooing. And at last, in -his hours of weakness, once more a little child, he would walk slowly -round his library, looking at his cherished volumes, taking them down -mechanically, and when he could no longer read, pressing them to his -lips. In happier days the book-stalls of London knew the tall figure, the -rapid stride, the quick-seeing eye, the eager fingers. Lisbon, Paris, -Milan, Amsterdam, contributed to the rich confusion that, from time to -time, burdened the floors of library and bedrooms and passages in Greta -Hall. Above all, he was remembered at Brussels by that best of bookmen, -Verbeyst. What mattered it that Verbeyst was a sloven, now receiving his -clients with gaping shirt and now with stockingless feet? Did he not duly -honour letters, and had he not 300,000 volumes from which to choose? -If in a moment of prudential weakness one failed to carry off such a -treasure as the _Monumenta Boica_ or Colgar’s _Irish Saints_, there was -a chance that in Verbeyst’s vast store-house the volume might lurk for -a year or two. And Verbeyst loved his books, only less than he loved -his handsome, good-natured wife, who for a liberal customer would fetch -the bread and burgundy. Henry Taylor dwelt in Robert Southey’s heart of -hearts; but let not Henry Taylor treasonably hint that Verbeyst, the -prince of booksellers, had not a prince’s politeness of punctuality. -If sundry books promised had not arrived, it was because they were not -easily procured; moreover, the good-natured wife had died—_bien des -malheurs_, and Verbeyst’s heart was fallen into a lethargy. “Think ill of -our fathers which are in the Row, think ill of John Murray, think ill of -Colburn, think ill of the whole race of bibliopoles, except Verbeyst, who -is always to be thought of with liking and respect.” And when the bill of -lading, coming slow but sure, announced that saints and chroniclers and -poets were on their way, “by this day month,” wrote Southey, “they will -probably be here; then shall I be happier than if his Majesty King George -the Fourth were to give orders that I should be clothed in purple, and -sleep upon gold, and have a chain upon my neck, and sit next him because -of my wisdom, and be called his cousin.” - -Thus the four thousand volumes, which lay piled about the library when -Southey first gathered his possessions together, grew and grew, year -after year, until the grand total mounted up to eight, to ten, to -fourteen thousand. Now Kirke White’s brother Neville sends him a gift of -Sir William Jones’s works, thirteen volumes, in binding of bewildering -loveliness. Now Landor ships from some Italian port a chest containing -treasures of less dubious value than the Raffaelles and Leonardos, with -which he liberally supplied his art-loving friends. Oh, the joy of -opening such a chest; of discovering the glorious folios; of glancing -with the shy amorousness of first desire at title-page and colophon; of -growing familiarity; of tracing out the history suggested by book-plate -or autograph; of finding a lover’s excuses for cropped margin, or -water-stain, or worm-hole! Then the calmer happiness of arranging his -favourites on new shelves; of taking them down again, after supper, in -the season of meditation and currant-rum; and of wondering for which -among his father’s books Herbert will care most when all of them shall -be his own. “It would please you,” Southey writes to his old comrade, -Bedford, “to see such a display of literary wealth, which is at once -the pride of my eye, and the joy of my heart, and the food of my mind; -indeed, more than metaphorically, meat, drink, and clothes for me and -mine. I verily believe that no one in my station was ever so rich before, -and I am very sure that no one in any station had ever a more thorough -enjoyment of riches of any kind or in any way.” - -Southey’s Spanish and Portuguese collection—if Heber’s great library -be set aside—was probably the most remarkable gathering of such books -in the possession of any private person in this country. It included -several manuscripts, some of which were displayed with due distinction -upon brackets. Books in white and gold—vellum or parchment bound, with -gilt lettering in the old English type which Southey loved—were arranged -in effective positions pyramid-wise. Southey himself had learned the -mystery of book-binding, and from him his daughters acquired that art; -the ragged volumes were decently clothed in coloured cotton prints; -these, presenting a strange patch-work of colours, quite filled one room, -which was known as the Cottonian Library. “Paul,” a book-room on the -ground-floor, had been so called because “Peter,” the organ-room, was -robbed to fit it with books. “Paul is a great comfort to us, and being -dressed up with Peter’s property, makes a most respectable appearance, -and receives that attention which is generally shown to the youngest -child. The study has not actually been Petered on Paul’s account, but -there has been an exchange negotiated which we think is for their mutual -advantage. Twenty gilt volumes, from under the ‘Beauties of England and -Wales,’ have been marched down-stairs rank and file, and their place -supplied by the long set of Lope de Vega with green backs.” - -Southey’s books, as he assures his ghostly monitor in the _Colloquies_, -were not drawn up on his shelves for display, however much the pride -of the eye might be gratified in beholding them; they were on actual -service. Generations might pass away before some of them would again find -a reader; in their mountain home they were prized and known as perhaps -they never had been known before. Not a few of the volumes had been cast -up from the wreck of family or convent libraries during the Revolution. -“Yonder Acta Sanctorum belonged to the Capuchines at Ghent. This book of -St. Bridget’s Revelations, in which not only all the initial letters are -illuminated, but every capital throughout the volume was coloured, came -from the Carmelite Nunnery at Bruges.... Here are books from Colbert’s -library; here others from the Lamoignon one.... Yonder Chronicle History -of King D. Manoel, by Damiam de Goes; and yonder General History of -Spain, by Esteban de Garibay, are signed by their respective authors.... -This Copy of Casaubon’s Epistles was sent to me from Florence by Walter -Landor. He had perused it carefully, and to that perusal we are indebted -for one of the most pleasing of his Conversations.... Here is a book -with which Lauderdale amused himself, when Cromwell kept him in prison -in Windsor Castle.... Here I possess these gathered treasures of time, -the harvest of many generations, laid up in my garners: and when I go to -the window, there is the lake, and the circle of the mountains, and the -illimitable sky.” - -Not a few of his books were dead, and to live among these was like living -among the tombs; “Behold, this also is vanity,” Southey makes confession. -But when Sir Thomas questions, “Has it proved to you ‘vexation of -spirit’ also?” the Cumberland mountain-dweller breaks forth: “Oh no! for -never can any man’s life have been passed more in accord with his own -inclinations, nor more answerably to his desires. Excepting that peace -which, through God’s infinite mercy, is derived from a higher source, -it is to literature, humanly speaking, that I am beholden, not only for -the means of subsistence, but for every blessing which I enjoy; health -of mind and activity of mind, contentment, cheerfulness, continual -employment, and therefore continual pleasure. _Suavissima vita indies -sentire se fieri meliorem_; and this, as Bacon has said and Clarendon -repeated, is the benefit that a studious man enjoys in retirement.” Such -a grave gladness underlay all Southey’s frolic moods, and in union with -a clear-sighted acceptance of the conditions of human happiness—its -inevitable shocks, its transitory nature as far as it belongs to man’s -life on earth—made up part of his habitual temper. - -Southey coursed from page to page with a greyhound’s speed; a tiny _s_ -pencilled in the margin served to indicate what might be required for -future use. Neatness he had learnt from Miss Tyler long ago; and by -experience he acquired his method. On a slip of paper which served as -marker he would note the pages to which he needed to return. In the -course of a few hours he had classified and arranged everything in a book -which it was likely he would ever want. A reference to the less important -passages sufficed; those of special interest were transcribed by his -wife, or one of his daughters, or more frequently by Southey himself; -finally, these transcripts were brought together in packets under such -headings as would make it easy to discover any portion of their contents. - -Such was his ordinary manner of eviscerating an author, but it was -otherwise with the writers of his affection. On some—such as Jackson -and Jeremy Taylor—“he _fed_,” as he expressed it, “slowly and -carefully, dwelling on the page, and taking in its contents, deeply -and deliberately, like an epicure with his wine ‘searching the subtle -flavour.’” Such chosen writers remained for all times and seasons -faithful and cherished friends:— - - “With them I take delight in weal, - And seek relief in woe; - And while I understand and feel - How much to them I owe, - My cheeks have often been bedewed - With tears of thankful gratitude.” - -“If I were confined to a score of English books,” says Southey, “Sir -Thomas Browne would, I think, be one of them; nay, probably it would be -one if the selection were cut down to twelve. My library, if reduced -to those bounds, would consist of Shakspeare, Chaucer, Spenser, and -Milton; Jackson, Jeremy Taylor, and South; Isaac Walton, Sidney’s -Arcadia, Fuller’s Church History, and Sir Thomas Browne; and what a -wealthy and well-stored mind would that man have, what an inexhaustible -reservoir, what a Bank of England to draw upon for profitable thoughts -and delightful associations, who should have fed upon them!” It must -have gone hard with Southey, in making out this list, to exclude -Clarendon, and doubtless if the choice were not limited to books written -in English, the Utopia would have urged its claim to admission. With -less difficulty he could skip the whole of the eighteenth century. From -_Samson Agonistes_ to _The Task_, there was no English poem which held -a foremost place in his esteem. Berkeley and Butler he valued highly; -but Robert South seemed to him the last of the race of the giants. An -ancestral connection with Locke was not a source of pride to Southey; he -respected neither the philosopher’s politics nor his metaphysics; still, -it is pleasant, he says, to hear of somebody between one’s self and Adam -who has left a name. - -Four volumes of what are called Southey’s _Commonplace Books_ have been -published, containing some three thousand double-column pages; and -these are but a selection from the total mass of his transcripts. It is -impossible to give a notion of a miscellany drawn from so wide-ranging -a survey of poetry, biography, history, travels, topography, divinity, -not in English alone, but also in Latin, French, Italian, Spanish, -Portuguese. Yet certain main lines can be traced which give some -meaning to this huge accumulation. It is easy to perceive that the -collector wrought under an historical bias, and that social, literary, -and ecclesiastical history were the directions in which the historical -tendency found its play. Such work of transcribing, though it did not -rest Southey’s hand, was a relief to his mind after the excitement of -composition, and some of it may pass for a kind of busy idleness; but -most of his transcripts were made with a definite purpose—that of -furnishing materials for work either actually accomplished or still in -prospect, when at last the brain grew dull and the fingers slack. “I -am for ever making collections,” he writes, “and storing up materials -which may not come into use till the Greek Calends. And this I have been -doing for five-and-twenty years! It is true that I draw daily upon my -hoards, and should be poor without them; but in prudence I ought now to -be working up those materials rather than adding to so much dead stock.” -When Ticknor visited him in 1819, Southey opened for the young American -his great bundles of manuscript materials for the _History of Portugal_, -and the _History of the Portuguese East Indies_. Southey had charmed him -by the kindness of his reception; by the air of culture and of goodness -in his home; by his talk, bright and eager, “for the quickness of his -mind expresses itself in the fluency of his utterance; and yet he is -ready upon almost any subject that can be proposed to him, from the -extent of his knowledge.” And now, when Ticknor saw spread before him -the evidence of such unexampled industry, a kind of bewilderment took -possession of him. “Southey,” he writes in his diary, “is certainly an -extraordinary man, one of those whose characters I find it difficult -to comprehend, because I hardly know how such elements can be brought -together, such rapidity of mind with such patient labour and wearisome -exactness, so mild a disposition with so much nervous excitability, and -a poetical talent so elevated with such an immense mass of minute, dull -learning.” - -If Ticknor had been told that this was due to Epictetus, it might have -puzzled him still more; but it is certain that only through the strenuous -appliance of will to the formation of character could Southey have -grown to be what he was. He had early been possessed by the belief -that he must not permit himself to become the slave or the victim of -sensibility, but that in the little world of man there are two powers -ruling by a Divine right—reason and conscience, in loyal obedience to -which lies our highest freedom. Then, too, the circumstances of his life -prompted him to self-mastery and self-management. That he should every -day overtake a vast amount of work, was not left to his choosing or -declining—it was a matter of necessity; to accomplish this, he must get -all possible advantage out of his rapidity of intellect and his energy -of feeling, and at the same time he must never put an injurious strain -on these. It would not do for Southey to burn away to-day in some white -flame of excitement the nerve which he needed for use to-morrow. He -could not afford to pass a sleepless night. If his face glowed or his -brain throbbed, it was a warning that he had gone far enough. His very -susceptibility to nervous excitement rendered caution the more requisite. -William Taylor had compared him to the mimosa. Hazlitt remembered him -with a quivering lip, a hectic flush upon his cheek, a roving fire in -his eye, a falcon glance, a look at once aspiring and dejected. Crabb -Robinson found in him a likeness to Shelley. Humphry Davy had proved -the fineness of his sensibility by that odd neurometer, the nitrous -oxide. “The truth is,” writes Southey, “that though some persons, whose -knowledge of me is scarcely skin-deep, suppose I have no nerves, because -I have great self-control as far as regards the surface, if it were not -for great self-management, and what may be called a strict intellectual -regimen, I should very soon be in a deplorable state of what is called -nervous disease, and this would have been the case any time during the -last twenty years.” And again: “A man had better break a bone, or even -lose a limb, than shake his nervous system. I, who never talk about my -nerves (and am supposed to have none by persons who see as far into me as -they do into a stone wall), know this.” Southey could not afford to play -away his health at hazard, and then win it back in the lounge of some -foreign watering-place. His plan, on the contrary, was to keep it, and to -think about it as little as possible. A single prescription sufficed for -a life-time—_In labore quies._ “I think I may lay claim,” he says, “to -the praise of self-management both in body and mind without paying too -much attention to either—exercising a diseased watchfulness, or playing -any tricks with either.” It would not have been difficult for Southey, -with such a temperament as his, to have wrecked himself at the outset -of his career. With beautiful foiled lives of young men Southey had a -peculiar sympathy. But the gods sometimes give white hairs as an aureole -to their favoured ones. Perhaps, on the whole, for him it was not only -more prudent but also more chivalrous to study to be quiet; to create a -home for those who looked to him for security; to guard the happiness of -tender women; to make smooth ways for the feet of little children; to -hold hands in old age with the friends of his youth; to store his mind -with treasures of knowledge; to strengthen and chasten his own heart; -to grow yearly in love for his country and her venerable heritage of -manners, virtue, laws; to add to her literature the outcome of an adult -intellect and character; and having fought a strenuous and skilful fight, -to fall as one whose sword an untimely stroke has shattered in his hand. - - - - -CHAPTER V. - -WAYS OF LIFE AT KESWICK, 1803-1839 (_continued_). - - -The texture of Southey’s life was so uniform, the round from morning -till night repeated itself with so much regularity, that one day may -stand as representative of a thousand. We possess his record of how the -waking hours went by when he was about thirty years old, and a similar -record written when he was twice that age. His surroundings had changed -in the mean time, and he himself had changed; the great bare room which -he used from the first as a study, fresh plastered in 1804, with the -trowel-lines on the ceiling pierced by the flaws of winter, containing -two chairs and a little table—“God help me!” he exclaims, “I look in -it like a cock-robin in a church”—this room had received, long before -1834, its lining of comely books, its white and gold pyramids, its -brackets, its cherished portraits. The occupant of the study had the -same spare frame, the same aspect of lightness and of strength, the -same full eyebrows shadowing the dark-brown eyes, the same variously -expressive muscular mouth; the youthful wildness in his countenance had -given place to a thoughtful expression, and the abundant hair still -clustering over his great brow was snowy white. Whatever had changed, -his habits—though never his tyrants—remained, with some variations in -detail, the same. “My actions,” he writes to a friend not very long -after his arrival in Keswick, “are as regular as those of St. Dunstan’s -quarter-boys. Three pages of history after breakfast (equivalent to five -in small quarto printing); then to transcribe and copy for the press, or -to make my selections and biographies, or what else suits my humour till -dinner-time; from dinner to tea I read, write letters, see the newspaper, -and very often indulge in a siesta—for sleep agrees with me.... After tea -I go to poetry, and correct, and rewrite, and copy till I am tired, and -then turn to anything else till supper; and this is my life—which, if it -be not a very merry one, is yet as happy as heart could wish.” “See how -the day is disposed of!” begins the later record; “I get out of bed as -the clock strikes six, and shut the house-door after me as it strikes -seven.[8] After two hours with Davies, home to breakfast, after which -Cuthbert engages me till about half-past ten, and when the post brings -no letters that either interest or trouble me (for of the latter I have -many), by eleven I have done with the newspaper, and can then set about -what is properly the business of the day. But letters are often to be -written, and I am liable to frequent interruptions; so that there are not -many mornings in which I can command from two to three unbroken hours at -the desk. At two I take my daily walk, be the weather what it may, and -when the weather permits, with a book in my hand; dinner at four, read -about half an hour; then take to the sofa with a different book, and -after a few pages get my soundest sleep, till summoned to tea at six. -My best time during the winter is by candle-light; twilight interferes -with it a little; and in the season of company I can never count upon an -evening’s work. Supper at half-past nine, after which I read an hour, and -then to bed. The greatest part of my miscellaneous work is done in the -odds and ends of time.” - -It was part of Southey’s regimen to carry on several works at once; -this he found to be economy of time, and he believed it necessary for -the preservation of his health. Whenever one object entirely occupied -his attention, it haunted him, oppressed him, troubled his dreams. The -remedy was simple—to do one thing in the morning, another in the evening. -To lay down poetry and presently to attack history seems feasible, and -no ill policy for one who is forced to take all he can out of himself; -but Southey would turn from one poetical theme to another, and could -day by day advance with a pair of epics. This was a source of unfailing -wonder to Landor. “When I write a poem,” he says, “my heart and all my -feelings are upon it.... High poems will not admit flirtation.” Little -by little was Southey’s way, and so he got on with many things. “Last -night,” he writes to Bedford, “I began the Preface [to _Specimens of -English Poets_]—huzza! And now, Grosvenor, let me tell you what I have to -do. I am writing—1. _The History of Portugal_; 2. _The Chronicle of the -Cid_; 3. _The Curse of Kehama_; 4. _Espriella’s Letters_. Look you, all -these _I am_ writing.... By way of interlude comes in this preface. Don’t -swear, and bid me do one thing at a time. I tell you I can’t afford to -do one thing at a time—no, nor two neither; and it is only by doing many -things that I contrive to do so much: for I cannot work long together -at anything without hurting myself, and so I do everything by heats; -then, by the time I am tired of one, my inclination for another is come -round.” A strong, deliberate energy, accordingly, is at the back of all -Southey’s work; but not that blind creative rapture which will have its -own way, and leaves its subject weak but appeased. “In the day-time -I laboured,” says Landor, “and at night unburdened my soul, shedding -many tears. My _Tiberius_ has so shaken me at last that the least thing -affects me violently.” Southey shrank back from such agitations. A great -Elizabethan poet is described by one of his contemporaries as one standing - - “Up to the chin in the Pierian flood.” - -Southey did not wade so far; he stepped down calmly until the smooth -waters touched his waist; dipped seven times, and returned to the bank. -It was a beautiful and an elevating rite; but the waves sing with lyric -lips only in the midmost stream; and he who sings with them, and is swift -as they, need not wonder if he sink after a time, faint, breathless, -delighted. - -Authorship, it must be remembered, was Southey’s trade, the business -of his life, and this, at least, he knew how to conduct well. To be a -prophet and call down flame from heaven, and disappear in a whirlwind -and a chariot of fire, is sublime; but prophets can go in the strength -of a single meal for more days and nights than one would choose to name -in this incredulous age, and, if they eat, there are ravens to bring -them food. No ravens brought loaves to Greta Hall; and Southey had an -unprophet-like craving for the creature comforts of beef and bread, for -wine if it might be had, and at supper for one meditative tumbler of -punch or black-currant rum. Besides, what ravens were ever pledged to -feed a prophet’s sisters-in-law, or his nephews and nieces? Let it be -praise enough for much of Southey’s performance that he did good work in -workmanlike fashion. To shift knowledge into more convenient positions -is to render no unimportant service to mankind. In the gathering of -facts, Southey was both swift and patient in an extraordinary degree; -he went often alone, and he went far; in the art of exposition he was -unsurpassed; and his fine moral feeling and profound sympathy with -elementary justice created, as De Quincey has observed, a soul under what -else might well be denominated, Miltonically, “the ribs of death.” From -the mending of his pens to the second reading aloud of his proof-sheets, -attending as he read to the fall of each word upon the ear, Southey -had a diligent care for everything that served to make his work right. -He wrote at a moderate pace; re-wrote; wrote a third time if it seemed -desirable; corrected with minute supervision. He accomplished so much, -not because he produced with unexampled rapidity, but because he worked -regularly, and never fell into a mood of apathy or ennui. No periods of -tempestuous vacancy lay between his periods of patient labour. One work -always overlapped another—thus, that first idle day, the begetter of so -many idle descendants, never came. But let us hear the craftsman giving a -lesson in the knack of authorship to his brother, Dr. Henry Southey, who -has a notion of writing something on the Crusades: - - “Now then, supposing that you will seriously set about the - _Crusades_, I will give you such directions in the art of - historical book-keeping as may save time and facilitate labour. - - “Make your writing-books in foolscap quarto, and write on - only one side of a leaf; draw a line down the margin, marking - off space enough for your references, which should be given - at the end of every paragraph; noting page, book, or chapter - of the author referred to. This minuteness is now demanded, - and you will yourself find it useful; for, in transcribing or - in correcting proofs, it is often requisite to turn to the - original authorities. Take the best author; that is to say, - the one that has written most at length of all the _original_ - authors, upon the particular point of time on which you are - employed, and draw up your account from him; then, on the - opposite page, correct and amplify this from every other who - has written on the same subject. This page should be divided - into two columns, one of about two-thirds of its breadth, the - other the remaining one. You are thus enabled to _add_ to your - _additions_. - - “One of these books you should have for your geography; that - is to say, for collecting descriptions of all the principal - scenes of action (which must be done from books of travels), - their situation, their strength, their previous history, and - in the notes, their present state. [Another book—he adds in a - subsequent letter—you must keep for the bibliography of your - subject.] - - “These descriptions you can insert in their proper places when - you transcribe. Thus, also, you should collect accounts of - the different tribes and dynasties which you have occasion to - mention. In this manner the information which is only to be got - at piecemeal, and oftentimes incidentally, when you are looking - for something else, is brought together with least trouble, and - almost imperceptibly. - - “All relative matter not absolutely essential to the subject - should go in the form of supplementary notes, and these you - may make as amusing as you please, the more so, and the more - curious, the better. Much trouble is saved by writing them - on separate bits of paper, each the half of a quarter of a - foolscap sheet—numbering them, and making an index of them; in - this manner they are ready for use when they are wanted. - - “It was some time before I fell unto this system of - book-keeping, and I believe no better can be desired. A Welsh - triad might comprehend all the rules of style. Say what you - have to say as _perspicuously_ as possible, as _briefly_ as - possible, and as _rememberably_ as possible, and take no other - thought about it. Omit none of those little circumstances which - give life to narration, and bring old manners, old feelings, - and old times before your eyes.” - -Winter was Southey’s harvest season. Then for weeks no visitor knocked at -Greta Hall, except perhaps Mr. Wordsworth, who had plodded all the way -from Rydal on his indefatigable legs. But in summer interruptions were -frequent, and Southey, who had time for everything, had time to spare not -only for friends but for strangers. The swarm of lakers was, indeed, not -what it is now-a-days, but to a studious man it was, perhaps, not less -formidable. By Gray’s time the secret of the lakes had been found out; -and if the visitors were fewer, they were less swift upon the wing, and -their rank or fame often entitled them to particular attention. Coroneted -coaches rolled into Keswick, luggage-laden; the American arrived -sometimes to make sure that Derwentwater would not be missed out of Lake -Michigan, sometimes to see King George’s laureate; and cultured Americans -were particularly welcome to Southey. Long-vacation reading-parties -from Oxford and Cambridge—known among the good Cumberland folk as the -“cathedrals”—made Keswick a resort. Well for them if, provided with an -introduction, they were invited to dine at Greta Hall, were permitted to -gaze on the choice old Spaniards, and to converse with the laureate’s -stately Edith and her learned cousin. Woe to them if, after the -entanglements of a Greek chorus or descriptions of the temperate man and -the magnanimous man, they sought to restore their tone by a cat-worrying -expedition among the cottages of Keswick. Southey’s cheek glowed, his -eye darkened and flashed, if he chanced to witness cruelty; some of the -Cambridge “cathedrals” who received a letter concerning cats in July, -1834, may still bear the mark of its leaded thong in their moral fibre, -and be the better for possessing Southey’s sign-manual. - -A young step-child of Oxford visited Keswick in the winter of 1811-12, -and sought the acquaintance of the author of _Thalaba_. Had Southey -been as intolerant or as unsympathetic as some have represented him, -he could not have endured the society of one so alien in opinion and -so outspoken as Shelley. But courtesy, if it were nothing more, was at -least part of Southey’s self-respect; his intolerance towards persons -was, in truth, towards a certain ideal, a certain group of opinions; -when hand touched hand and eye met eye, all intolerance vanished, and -he was open to every gracious attraction of character and manner. There -was much in Shelley that could not fail to interest Southey; both loved -poetry, and both felt the proud, secluded grandeur of Landor’s verse; -both loved men, and thought the world wants mending, though their plans -of reform might differ. That Shelley was a rebel expelled from Oxford did -not shock Southey, who himself had been expelled from Westminster and -rejected at Christ Church. Shelley’s opinions were crude and violent, -but their spirit was generous, and such opinions held by a youth in his -teens generally mean no more than that his brain is working and his heart -ardent. Shelley’s rash marriage reminded Southey of another marriage, -celebrated at Bristol some fifteen years ago, which proved that rashness -is not always folly. The young man’s admiration of _Thalaba_ spoke well -for him; and certainly during the earlier weeks of their intercourse -there was on Shelley’s part a becoming deference to one so much his -superior in years and in learning, deference to one who had achieved -much while Shelley still only dreamed of achievement. Southey thought -he saw in the revolutionary enthusiast an image of his former self. -“Here,” he says, “is a man at Keswick who acts upon me as my own ghost -would do. He is just what I was in 1794. His name is Shelley, son to the -member for Shoreham.... At present he has got to the Pantheistic stage of -philosophy, and in the course of a week I expect he will be a Berkeleyan, -for I have put him upon a course of Berkeley. It has surprised him a good -deal to meet, for the first time in his life, with a man who perfectly -understands him and does him full justice. I tell him that all the -difference between us is that he is nineteen and I am thirty-seven; and -I daresay it will not be very long before I shall succeed in convincing -him that he may be a true philosopher and do a great deal of good with -6000_l._ a year; the thought of which troubles him a great deal more at -present than ever the want of sixpence (for I have known such a want) -did me.” There were other differences between Robert Southey and the -inconstant star that passed by Greta Hall than that of years. Southey had -quickly learned to put a bound to his desires, and within that bound to -work out for himself a possession of measureless worth. It seemed to him -part of a man’s virtue to adhere loyally to the bond signed for each of -us when we enter life. Is our knowledge limited—then let us strive within -those limits. Can we never lay hands on the absolute good—then let us -cherish the good things that are ours. Do we hold our dearest possessions -on a limited tenure—that is hard, but is it not in the bond? How faint a -loyalty is his who merely yields obedience perforce! let us rather cast -in our will, unadulterated and whole, with that of our divine Leader; -_sursum corda_—there is a heaven above. But Shelley—the nympholept of -some radiant ante-natal sphere—fled through his brief years ever in -pursuit of his lost lady of light; and for him loyalty to the bond of -life seemed to mean a readiness to forget all things, however cherished, -so soon as they had fulfilled their service of speeding him on towards -the unattainable. It could not but be that men living under rules so -diverse should before long find themselves far asunder. But they parted -in 1812 in no spirit of ill-will. Southey was already a state-pensioner -and a champion of the party of order in the _Quarterly Review_; this did -not prevent the young apostle of liberty and fraternity from entering -his doors, and enjoying Mrs. Southey’s tea-cakes. Irish affairs were -earnestly discussed; but Southey, who had written generously of Emmett -both in his verse and in the _Quarterly_, could not be hostile to one -whose illusions were only over-sanguine; and while the veritable Southey -was before Shelley’s eyes, he could not discern the dull hireling, the -venomous apostate, the cold-blooded assassin, of freedom conjured up by -Byron and others to bear Southey’s name. - -Three years later Shelley presented his _Alastor_ to the laureate, -and Southey duly acknowledged the gift. The elder poet was never slow -to recognize genius in young men, but conduct was to him of higher -importance than genius; he deplored some acts in Shelley’s life which -seemed to result directly from opinions professed at Keswick in -1811—opinions then interpreted as no more than the disdain of checks -felt by every spirited boy. Southey heard no more from him until a -letter came from Pisa inquiring whether Shelley’s former entertainer at -Keswick were his recent critic of the _Quarterly Review_, with added -comments, courteous but severe, on Southey’s opinions. The reply was -that Southey had not written the paper, and had never in any of his -writings alluded to Shelley in any way. A second letter followed on each -side, the elder man pleading, exhorting, warning; the younger justifying -himself, and returning to the attack. “There the correspondence ended. -On Shelley’s part it was conducted with the courtesy which was natural -to him; on mine, in the spirit of one who was earnestly admonishing a -fellow-creature.” - -Much of Southey’s time—his most valued possession—was given to his -correspondents. Napoleon’s plan of answering letters, according to -Bourrienne, was to let them lie unopened for six weeks, by which time -nine out of ten had answered themselves, or had been answered by -history. Coleridge’s plan—says De Quincey—was shorter; he opened none, -and answered none. To answer all forthwith was the habit of Southey. -Thinking doubtless of their differences in such minor moralities of life, -Coleridge writes of his brother-in-law:—“Always employed, his friends -find him always at leisure. No less punctual in trifles than steadfast in -the performance of highest duties, he inflicts none of those small pains -which irregular men scatter about them, and which in the aggregate so -often become formidable obstacles both to happiness and utility; while, -on the contrary, he bestows all the pleasures and inspires all that ease -of mind on those around or connected with him, which perfect consistency -and (if such a word might be framed) absolute _reliability_, equally in -small as in great concerns, cannot but inspire and bestow; when this, -too, is softened without being weakened by kindness and gentleness.” -Odd indeed wore some of the communications for which the poet-laureate, -the Tory reformer, and the loyal son of the Church was the mark. Now -a clergyman writes to furnish him with Scriptural illustrations of -_Thalaba_; now another clergyman favours him with an ingenious parallel -between Kehama and Nebuchadnezzar; now some anonymous person seriously -urges on Southey his duty of making a new version of the Psalms, and -laying it before the King to be approved and appointed to be sung in -churches; now a lunatic poet desires his brother to procure for his -title-page the names of Messrs. Longman and Rees; now a poor woman, -wife to a blind Homer, would have him led carefully to the summit of -Parnassus; now a poor French devil volunteers to translate _Roderick_ if -the author will have the goodness to send him a copy—even a defective -copy—which he pledges himself religiously to return; now a Yankee, who -keeps an exhibition at Philadelphia, modestly asks for Southey’s painted -portrait, “which is very worthy a place in my collection;” now a herdsman -in the vale of Clwyd requests permission to send specimens of prose and -verse—his highest ambition is the acquaintance of learned men; now the -Rev. Peter Hall begs to inform Southey that he has done more harm to -the cause of religion than any writer of the age; now a lover requests -him to make an acrostic on the name of a young lady—the lover’s rival -has beaten him in writing verses; enclosed is the honorarium. Southey’s -amiability at this point gave way; he did not write the acrostic, and -the money he spent on blankets for poor women in Keswick. A society for -the suppression of albums was proposed by Southey; yet sometimes he was -captured in the gracious mood. Samuel Simpson, of Liverpool, begs for -a few lines in his handwriting “to fill a vacancy in his collection -of autographs, without which his series must remain for ever most -incomplete.” The laureate replies: - - “Inasmuch as you Sam, a descendant of Sim, - For collecting handwritings have taken a whim, - And to me, Robert Southey, petition have made, - In a civil and nicely-penned letter—post-paid— - That I to your album so gracious would be - As to fill up a page there appointed for me, - Five couplets I send you, by aid of the Nine— - They will cost you in postage a penny a line: - At Keswick, October the sixth, they were done, - One thousand eight hundred and twenty and one.” - -Some of Southey’s distractions were of his own inviting. Soon after his -arrival at Keswick, a tiny volume of poems entitled _Clifton Grove_, -attracted his attention; its author was an undergraduate of Cambridge. -The _Monthly Review_ having made the discovery that it rhymed in one -place _boy_ and _sky_, dismissed the book contemptuously. Southey could -not bear to think that the hopes of a lad of promise should be blasted, -and he wrote to Henry Kirke White, encouraging him, and offering him help -towards a future volume. The cruel dulness of the reviewer sat heavily -on the poor boy’s spirits, and these unexpected words of cheer came with -most grateful effect. It soon appeared, however, that Southey’s services -must be slight, for his new acquaintance was taken out of his hands by -Mr. Simeon, the nursing-father of Evangelicalism. At no time had Southey -any leanings towards the Clapham Sect; and so, while he tried to be of -use to Kirke White indirectly, their correspondence ceased. When the -lad, in every way lacking pith and substance, and ripening prematurely -in a heated atmosphere, drooped and died, Southey was not willing that -he should be altogether forgotten; he wrote offering to look over -whatever papers there might be, and to give an opinion on them. “Down -came a box-full,” he tells Duppa, “the sight of which literally made -my heart ache and my eyes overflow, for never did I behold such proofs -of human industry. To make short, I took the matter up with interest, -collected his letters, and have, at the expense of more time than such -a poor fellow as myself can very well afford, done what his family are -very grateful for, and what I think the world will thank me for too. Of -course I have done it gratuitously.... That I should become, and that -voluntarily too, an editor of Methodistical and Calvinistic letters, -is a thing which, when I think of, excites the same sort of smile that -the thought of my pension does.” A brief statement that his own views -on religion differed widely from those of Kirke White sufficed to save -Southey’s integrity. The genius of the dead poet he overrated; it was an -error which the world has since found time to correct. - -This was but one of a series of many instances in which Southey, stemming -the pressure of his own engagements, asserted the right to be generous of -his time and strength and substance to those who had need of such help -as a sound heart and a strong arm can give. William Roberts, a Bristol -bank-clerk, dying of consumption at nineteen, left his only possession, -some manuscript poems, in trust to be published for the benefit of a -sister whom he passionately loved. Southey was consulted, and at once -bestirred himself on behalf of the projected volume. Herbert Knowles, -an orphan lad at school in Yorkshire, had hoped to go as a sizar to St. -John’s; his relations were unable to send him; could he help himself by -publishing a poem? might he dedicate it to the laureate? The poem came to -Southey, who found it “brimful of power and of promise;” he represented -to Herbert the folly of publishing, promised ten pounds himself, and -procured from Rogers and Earl Spencer twenty more. Herbert Knowles, in -a wise and manly letter, begged that great things might not be expected -of him; he would not be idle, his University career should be at least -respectable:—“Suffice it, then, to say, _I thank you from my heart_; -let time and my future conduct tell the rest.” Death came to arbitrate -between his hopes and fears. James Dusautoy, another schoolboy, one of -ten children of a retired officer, sent specimens of his verse, asking -Southey’s opinion on certain poetical plans. His friends thought the -law the best profession for him; how could he make literature help him -forward in his profession? Southey again advised against publication, -but by a well-timed effort enabled him to enter Emanuel College. -Dusautoy, after a brilliant promise, took fever, died, and was buried, in -acknowledgment of his character and talents, in the college cloisters. -When at Harrogate in the summer of 1827, Southey received a letter, -written with much modesty and good feeling, from John Jones, an old -serving-man; he enclosed a poem on “The Redbreast,” and would take the -liberty, if permitted, to offer other manuscripts for inspection. Touches -of true observation and natural feeling in the verses on the little -bird with “look oblique and prying head and gentle affability” pleased -Southey, and he told his humble applicant to send his manuscript book, -warning him, however, not to expect that such poems would please the -public—“the time for them was gone by, and whether the public had grown -wiser in these matters or not, it had certainly become less tolerant -and less charitable.” By procuring subscribers and himself contributing -an Introductory Essay on the lives and works of our Uneducated Poets, -Southey secured a slender fortune for the worthy old man, who laid the -table none the less punctually because he loved Shakespeare and the -Psalter, or carried in his head some simple rhymes of his own. It pleased -Southey to show how much intellectual pleasure and moral improvement -connected with such pleasure are within reach of the humblest; thus a -lesson was afforded to those who would have the March of Intellect beaten -only to the tune of _Ça ira_. “Before I conclude”—so the Introduction -draws to an end—“I must, in my own behalf, give notice to all whom it may -concern that I, Robert Southey, Poet-laureate, being somewhat advanced -in years, and having business enough of my own fully to occupy as much -time as can be devoted to it, consistently with a due regard to health, -do hereby decline perusing or inspecting any manuscript from any person -whatsoever, and desire that no application on that score may be made -to me from this time forth; this resolution, which for most just cause -is taken and here notified, being, like the laws of the Medes and the -Persians, not to be changed.” - -It was some time after this public announcement that a hand, which may -have trembled while yet it was very brave and resolute, dropped into -the little post-office at Haworth, in Yorkshire, a packet for Robert -Southey. His bold truthfulness, his masculine self-control, his strong -heart, his domestic temper sweet and venerable, his purity of manners, a -certain sweet austerity, attracted to him women of fine sensibility and -genius who would fain escape from their own falterings and temerities -under the authority of a faithful director. Already Maria del Occidente, -“the most impassioned and most imaginative of all poetesses,” had -poured into his ear the tale of her slighted love. Newly come from -Paris, and full of enthusiasm for the Poles, she hastened to Keswick -to see in person her sympathetic adviser; she proved, says Southey, a -most interesting person of the mildest and gentlest manners. With him -she left, on returning to America, her _Zophiel_ in manuscript, the -publication of which he superintended. “_Zophiel_, Southey says, is by -some Yankee woman”—Charles Lamb breaks forth—“as if there ever had been -a woman capable of anything so great!” Now, in 1837, a woman of finer -spirit, and capable of higher things than _Zophiel_, addressed a letter -to Robert Southey, asking his judgment of her powers as disclosed in -the poems which she forwarded. For some weeks Charlotte Brontë waited, -until almost all hope of a reply was lost. At length the verdict came. -Charlotte Brontë’s verse was assuredly written with her left hand; her -passionate impulses, crossed and checked by fiery fiats of the will, -would not mould themselves into little stanzas; the little stanzas must -be correct, therefore they must reject such irregular heavings and swift -repressions of the heart. Southey’s delay in replying had been caused -by absence from home. A little personal knowledge of a poet in the -decline of life might have tempered her enthusiasm; yet he is neither a -disappointed nor a discontented man; she will never hear from him any -chilling sermons on the text. All is vanity; the faculty of verse she -possesses in no inconsiderable degree; but this, since the beginning of -the century, has grown to be no rare possession; let her beware of making -literature her profession, check day-dreams, and find her chief happiness -in her womanly duties; then she may write poetry for its own sake, not -in a spirit of emulation, not through a passion for celebrity; the -less celebrity is aimed at, the more it is likely to be deserved. “Mr. -Southey’s letter,” said Charlotte Brontë, many years later, “was kind -and admirable, a little stringent, but it did me good.” She wrote again, -striving to repress a palpitating joy and pride in the submission to her -director’s counsel, and the sacrifice of her cherished hopes; telling him -more of her daily life, of her obedience to the day’s duty, her efforts -to be sensible and sober: “I had not ventured,” she says, “to hope for -such a reply—so considerate in its tone, so noble in its spirit.” Once -more Southey wrote, hoping that she would let him see her at the Lakes: -“You would then think of me afterwards with the more good-will, because -you would perceive that there is neither severity nor moroseness in the -state of mind to which years and observation have brought me.... And now, -madam, God bless you. Farewell, and believe me to be your sincere friend, -Robert Southey.” It was during a visit to the Lakes that Charlotte -Brontë told her biographer of these letters. But Southey lay at rest in -Crosthwaite churchyard. - -“My days among the dead are past”—Southey wrote, but it is evident -that the living, and not those of his own household alone, claimed no -inconsiderable portion of his time. Indeed, it would not be untrue to -assert that few men have been more genuinely and consistently social, -that few men ever yielded themselves more constantly to the pleasures of -companionship. But the society he loved best was that of old and chosen -friends, or if new friends, one at a time, and only one. Next to romping -with my children, he said, I enjoy a _tête-à-tête_ conversation with -an _old_ friend or a _new_. “With one I can talk of familiar subjects -which we have discussed in former years, and with the other, if he have -any brains, I open what to me is a new mine of thought.” Miscellaneous -company to a certain extent disordered and intoxicated him. He felt no -temptation to say a great deal, but he would often say things strongly -and emphatically, which were better left unsaid. “In my hearty hatred of -assentation I commit faults of the opposite kind. Now I am sure to find -this out myself, and to get out of humour with myself; what prudence I -have is not ready on demand; and so it is that the society of any except -my friends, though it may be sweet in the mouth, is bitter in the belly.” -When Coleridge, in their arguments, allowed him a word, Southey made up -in weight for what was wanting in measure; he saw one fact quickly, and -darted at it like a greyhound. De Quincey has described his conversation -as less flowing and expansive than that of Wordsworth—more apt to clothe -itself in a keen, sparkling, aphoristic form; consequently sooner coming -to an abrupt close; “the style of his mind naturally prompts him to adopt -a trenchant, pungent, aculeated form of terse, glittering, stenographic -sentences—sayings which have the air of laying down the law without any -_locus penitentiæ_ or privilege of appeal, but are not meant to do so.” -The same manner, tempered and chastened by years, can be recognized in -the picture of Southey drawn by his friend Sir Henry Taylor:— - - “The characteristics of his manner, as of his appearance, - were lightness and strength, an easy and happy composure as - the accustomed mood, and much mobility at the same time, so - that he could be readily excited into any degree of animation - in discourse, speaking, if the subject moved him much, with - extraordinary fire and force, though always in light, laconic - sentences. When so moved, the fingers of his right hand - often rested against his mouth and quivered through nervous - susceptibility. But excitable as he was in conversation, he - was never angry or irritable; nor can there be any greater - mistake concerning him than that into which some persons have - fallen when they have inferred, from the fiery vehemence with - which he could give utterance to moral anger in verse or prose, - that he was personally ill-tempered or irascible. He was, in - truth, a man whom it was hardly possible to quarrel with or - offend personally, and face to face.... He was averse from - argumentation, and would commonly quit a subject, when it - was passing into that shape, with a quiet and good-humoured - indication of the view in which he rested. He talked most, - and with most interest, about books and about public affairs; - less, indeed hardly at all, about the characters and qualities - of men in private life, In the society of strangers or of - acquaintances, he seemed to take more interest in the subjects - spoken of than in the persons present, his manner being that of - natural courtesy and general benevolence without distinction of - individuals. Had there been some tincture of social vanity in - him, perhaps he would have been brought into closer relations - with those whom he met in society; but though invariably kind - and careful of their feelings, he was indifferent to the - manner in which they regarded him, or (as the phrase is) to - his _effect_ in society; and they might, perhaps, be conscious - that the kindness they received was what flowed naturally and - inevitably to all, that they had nothing to give in return - which was of value to him, and that no individual relations - were established.” - -How deep and rich Southey’s social nature was, his published -correspondence, some four or five thousand printed pages, tells -sufficiently. These letters, addressed, for the most part, to good old -friends, are indeed genial, liberal of sympathy, and expecting sympathy -in return; pleasantly egotistic, grave, playful, wise, pathetic, with -a kind of stringent pathos showing through checks imposed by the wiser -and stronger will. Southey did not squander abroad the treasures of his -affection. To lavish upon casual acquaintance the outward and visible -signs of friendship seemed to him a profaning of the mystery of manly -love. “Your feelings,” he writes to Coleridge, “go naked; I cover mine -with a bear-skin; I will not say that you harden yours by your mode, but -I am sure that mine are the warmer for their clothing.” With strangers a -certain neutral courtesy served to protect his inner self like the low -leaves of his own holly-tree: - - “Below, a circling fence, its leaves are seen - Wrinkled and keen; - No grazing cattle through their prickly round - Can reach to wound;” - -but to those of whose goodness and love he was well assured, there were -no protecting spines: - - “Gentle at home amid my friends I’d be, - Like the high leaves upon the Holly-tree.” - -“Old friends and old books,” he says, “are the best things that this -world affords (I like old wine also), and in these I am richer than -most men (the wine excepted).” In the group of Southey’s friends, what -first strikes one is, not that they are men of genius—although the group -includes Wordsworth, and Scott, and Henry Taylor—but that they are good -men. No one believed more thoroughly than Southey that goodness is a -better thing than genius; yet he required in his associates some high -excellence, extraordinary kindness of disposition or strength of moral -character, if not extraordinary intellect. To knit his friends in a -circle was his ardent desire; in the strength of his affections time -and distance made no change. An old College friend, Lightfoot, to visit -Southey, made the longest journey of his life; it was eight-and-twenty -years since they had met. When their hands touched, Lightfoot trembled -like an aspen-leaf. “I believe,” says Southey, “no men ever met more -cordially after so long a separation, or enjoyed each other’s society -more. I shall never forget the manner in which he first met me, nor -the tone in which he said ‘that, having now seen me, he should return -home and die in peace.’” But of all friends he was most at ease with -his dear Dapple, Grosvenor Bedford, who suited for every mood of mirth -and sorrow. When Mrs. Southey had fallen into her sad decay, and the -once joyous house was melancholy and silent, Southey turned for comfort -to Bedford. Still, some of their Rabelaisian humour remained, and all -their warmth of brotherly affection. “My father,” says Cuthbert Southey, -“was never tired of talking into Mr. Bedford’s trumpet.” And in more -joyous days, what noise and nonsense did they not make! “Oh! Grosvenor,” -exclaims Southey, “is it not a pity that two men who love nonsense so -cordially and naturally and _bonâfidically_ as you and I, should be three -hundred miles asunder? For my part, I insist upon it that there is no -sense so good as your honest, genuine nonsense.” - -A goodly company of friends becomes familiar to us as we read Southey’s -correspondence:—Wynn, wherever he was, “always doing something else,” yet -able, in the midst of politics and business, to find time to serve an -old schoolfellow; Rickman, full of practical suggestions, and accurate -knowledge and robust benevolence; John May, unfailing in kindness and -fidelity; Lamb for play and pathos, and subtle criticism glancing amid -the puns; William Taylor for culture and literary theory, and paradox and -polysyllables; Landor for generous admiration, and kindred enthusiasms -and kindred prejudices; Elmsley, and Lightfoot, and Danvers for love and -happy memories; Senhora Barker, the Bhow Begum, for frank familiarities, -and warm, womanly services; Caroline Bowles for rarer sympathy and -sacreder hopes and fears; Henry Taylor for spiritual sonship, as of a -son who is also an equal; and Grosvenor Bedford for everything great and -small, glad and sad, wise and foolish. - -No literary rivalries or jealousies ever interrupted for a moment any -friendship of Southey. Political and religious differences, which -in strangers were causes of grave offence, seemed to melt away when -the heretic or erring statist was a friend. But if success, fashion, -flattery, tested a man, and proved him wanting, as seemed to be the case -with Humphry Davy, his affection grew cold; and an habitual dereliction -of social duty, such as that of Coleridge, could not but transform -Southey’s feeling of love to one of condemning sorrow. To his great -contemporaries, Scott, Landor, Wordsworth, his admiration was freely -given. “Scott,” he writes, “is very ill. He suffers dreadfully, but -bears his sufferings with admirable equanimity.... God grant that he may -recover! He is a noble and generous-hearted creature, whose like we shall -not look upon again.” Of Wordsworth:—“A greater poet than Wordsworth -there never has been, nor ever will be.” “Two or three generations -must pass before the public affect to admire such poets as Milton and -Wordsworth. Of such men the world scarcely produces one in a millennium.” -With indignation crossed by a gleam of humour, he learnt that Ebenezer -Elliott, his pupil in the art of verse, had stepped forward as the lyrist -of radicalism; but the feeling could not be altogether anger with which -he remembered that earnest face, once seen by him at a Sheffield inn, -its pale grey eyes full of fire and meaning, its expression suiting well -with Elliott’s frankness of manner and simplicity of character. William -Taylor was one of the liberals of liberal Norwich, and dangled abroad -whatever happened to be the newest paradox in religion. But neither -his radicalism, nor his Pyrrhonism, nor his paradoxes, could estrange -Southey. The last time the oddly-assorted pair met was in Taylor’s house; -the student of German criticism had found some theological novelty, and -wished to draw his guest into argument; Southey parried the thrusts -good-humouredly, and at last put an end to them with the words, “Taylor, -come and see me at Keswick. We will ascend Skiddaw, where I shall have -you nearer heaven, and we will then discuss such questions as these.” - -In the year 1823 one of his oldest friends made a public attack on -Southey, and that friend the gentlest and sweetest-natured of them all. -In a _Quarterly_ article Southey had spoken of the Essays of Elia as a -book which wanted only a sounder religious feeling to be as delightful -as it was original. He had intended to alter the expression in the -proof-sheet, but no proof-sheet was ever sent. Lamb, already pained -by references to his writings in the _Quarterly_, some of which he -erroneously ascribed to Southey, was deeply wounded. “He might have -spared an old friend such a construction of a few careless flights that -meant no harm to religion.” A long expostulation addressed by Elia to -Robert Southey, Esq., appeared in the _London Magazine_ for October, only -a portion of which is retained in the Elia Essays under the title of “The -Tombs of the Abbey;” for though Lamb had playfully repented Coleridge’s -salutation, “my gentle-hearted Charles,” his heart was indeed gentle, -and could not endure the pain of its own wrath; among the memorials of -the dead in Westminster he finds his right mind, his truer self, once -more; he forgets the grave aspect with which Southey looked awful on his -poor friend, and spends his indignation harmless as summer lightning -over the heads of a Dean and Chapter. Southey, seeing the announcement -of letter addressed to him by Lamb, had expected a sheaf of friendly -pleasantries; with surprise he learnt what pain his words had caused. -He hastened to explain; had Lamb intimated his feelings in private, he -would have tried, by a passage in the ensuing _Quarterly_, to efface the -impression unhappily created; he ended with a declaration of unchanged -affection, and a proposal to call on Lamb. “On my part,” Southey said, -“there was not even a momentary feeling of anger;” he at once understood -the love, the error, the soreness, and the repentance awaiting a being so -composed of goodness as Elia. “Dear Southey”—runs the answer of Lamb—“the -kindness of your note has melted away the mist that was upon me. I have -been fighting against a shadow.... I wish both magazine and review were -at the bottom of the sea. I shall be ashamed to see you, and my sister -(though innocent) will be still more so, for this folly was done without -her knowledge, and has made her uneasy ever since. My guardian angel -was absent at the time. I will make up courage to see you, however, any -day next week. We shall hope that you will bring Edith with you. That -will be a second mortification; she will hate to see us; but come and -heap embers; we deserve it, I for what I have done, and she for being -my sister. Do come early in the day, by sunlight that you may see my -Milton.... Your penitent C. Lamb.” - -At Bristol, in 1808, Southey met for the first time the man of all others -whom he most desired to see, the only man living, he says, “of whose -praise I was ambitious, of whose censure would have humbled me.” This -was Walter Savage Landor. _Madoc_, on which Southey had build his hope -of renown as a poet, had been published, and had been coldly received; -_Kehama_, which had been begun consequently now stood still. Their -author could indeed, as he told Sir George Beaumont, be contented with -posthumous fame, but it was impossible to be contented with posthumous -bread and cheese. “St. Cecilia herself could not have played the organ -if there had been nobody to blow the bellows for her.” At this moment, -when he turned sadly and bravely from poetry to more profitable work, -he first looked on Landor. “I never saw any one more unlike myself,” -he writes, “in every prominent part of human character, nor any one -who so cordially and instinctively agreed with me on so many of the -most important subjects. I have often said before we met, that I would -walk forty miles to see him, and having seen him, I would gladly walk -fourscore to see him again. He talked of _Thalaba_, and I told him of -the series of mythological poems which I had planned, ... and also told -him for what reason they had been laid aside; in plain English, that I -could not afford to write them. Landor’s reply was, ‘Go on with them, -and I will pay for printing them, as many as you will write, and as -many copies as you please.’” The princely offer stung Southey, as he -says, to the very core; not that he thought of accepting that offer, -but the generous words were themselves a deed, and claimed a return. He -rose earlier each morning to carry on his _Kehama_, without abstracting -time from better-paid task-work; it advanced, and duly as each section -of this poem, and subsequently of his _Roderick_, came to be written, -it was transcribed for the friend whose sympathy and admiration were a -golden reward. To be praised by one’s peers is indeed happiness. Landor, -liberal of applause, was keen in suggestion and exact in censure. Both -friends were men of ardent feelings, though one had tamed himself, -while the other never could be tamed; both often gave their feelings a -vehement utterance. On many matters they thought, in the main, alike—on -the grand style in human conduct, on the principles of the poetic art, -on Spanish affairs, on Catholicism. The secret of Landor’s high-poised -dignity in verse had been discovered by Southey; he, like Landor, -aimed at a classical purity of diction; he, like Landor, loved, as a -shaper of imaginative forms, to embody in an act, or an incident, the -virtue of some eminent moment of human passion, and to give it fixity -by sculptured phrase; only the repression of a fiery spirit is more -apparent in Landor’s monumental lines than in Southey’s. With certain -organic resemblances, and much community of sentiment, there were large -differences between the two, so that when they were drawn together in -sympathy, each felt as if he had annexed a new province. Landor rejoiced -that the first persons who shared his turret at Llanthony were Southey -and his wife; again, in 1817, the two friends were together for three -days at Como, after Southey had endured his prime affliction—the death of -his son:— - - “Grief had swept over him; days darkened round; - Bellagio, Valintelvi smiled in vain, - And Monte Rosa from Helvetia far - Advanced to meet us, wild in majesty - Above the glittering crests of giant sons - Station’d around ... in vain too! all in vain.” - -Two years later the warm-hearted friend writes from Pistoia, rejoicing -in Southey’s joy: “Thank God! Tears came into my eyes on seeing that you -were blessed with a son.” To watch the happiness of children was Landor’s -highest delight; to share in such happiness was Southey’s; and Arnold -and Cuthbert formed a new bond between their fathers. In 1836, when -Southey, in his sixty-third year, guided his son through the scenes of -his boyhood, several delightful days were spent at Clifton with Landor. -I never knew a man of brighter genius or of kinder heart, said Southey; -and of Landor in earlier years:—“He does more than any of the gods of all -my mythologies, for his very words are thunder and lightning—such is the -power and splendour with which they burst out.” Landor responded with a -majestic enthusiasm about his friend, who seemed to him no less noble a -man than admirable a writer: - - “No firmer breast than thine hath Heaven - To poet, sage, or hero given: - No heart more tender, none more just, - To that He largely placed in trust: - Therefore shalt thou, whatever date - Of years be thine, with soul elate - Rise up before the Eternal throne, - And hear, in God’s own voice, ‘Well done!’” - -That “Well done” greeted Southey many years before Landor’s imperial -head was laid low. In the last letter from his friend received by -Southey—already the darkness was fast closing in—he writes, “If any man -living is ardent for your welfare, I am; whose few and almost worthless -merits your generous heart has always overvalued, and whose infinite -and great faults it has been too ready to overlook. I will write to you -often, now I learn that I may do it inoffensively; well remembering that -among the names you have exalted is Walter Landor.” Alas! to reply was -now beyond the power of Southey; still, he held _Gebir_ in his hands -oftener than any other volume of poetry, and, while thought and feeling -lived, fed upon its beauty. “It is very seldom now,” Caroline Southey -wrote at a later date, “that he ever names any person: but this morning, -before he left his bed, I heard him repeating softly to himself, _Landor, -ay, Landor_.” - -“If it be not now, yet it will come: the readiness is all”—this was ever -present to Southey during the happy days of labour and rest in Greta -Hall. While he was disposing his books so as to make the comeliest show, -and delighting in their goodly ranks; while he looked into the radiant -faces of his children, and loved their innocent brightness, he yet knew -that the day of detachment was approaching. There was nothing in such a -thought which stirred Southey to a rebellious mood; had he not set his -seal to the bond of life? How his heart rested in his home, only his -own words can tell; even a journey to London seemed too long:—“Oh dear; -oh dear! there is such a comfort in one’s old coat and old shoes, one’s -own chair and own fireside, one’s own writing-desk and own library—with -a little girl climbing up to my neck, and saying, ‘Don’t go to London, -papa—you must stay with Edith;’ and a little boy, whom I have taught to -speak the language of cats, dogs, cuckoos, and jackasses, etc., before he -can articulate a word of his own;—there is such a comfort in all these -things, that _transportation_ to London for four or five weeks seems a -heavier punishment than any sins of mine deserve.” Nor did his spirit of -boyish merriment abate until overwhelming sorrow weighed him down:—“I -am quite as noisy as I ever was,” he writes to Lightfoot, “and should -take as much delight as ever in showering stones through the hole of -the staircase against your room door, and hearing with what hearty good -earnest ‘you fool’ was vociferated in indignation against me in return. -Oh, dear Lightfoot, what a blessing it is to have a boy’s heart! it -is as great a blessing in carrying one through this world, as to have -a child’s spirit will be in fitting us for the next.” But Southey’s -light-heartedness was rounded by a circle of earnest acquiescence in -the law of mortal life; a clear-obscure of faith as pure and calm and -grave as the heavens of a midsummer night. At thirty he writes:—“No -man was ever more contented with his lot than I am, for few have ever -had more enjoyments, and none had ever better or worthier hopes. Life, -therefore, is sufficiently dear to me, and long life desirable, that I -may accomplish all which I design. But yet I could be well content that -the next century were over, and my part fairly at an end, having been -gone well through. Just as at school one wished the school-days over, -though we were happy enough there, because we expected more happiness and -more liberty when we were to be our own masters, might lie as much later -in the morning as we pleased, have no bounds and do no exercise—just so -do I wish that my exercises were over.” At thirty-five:—“Almost the only -wish I ever give utterance to is that the next hundred years were over. -It is not that the uses of this world seem to me weary, stale, flat, and -unprofitable—God knows far otherwise! No man can be better contented with -his lot. My paths are paths of pleasantness.... Still, the instability of -human happiness is ever before my eyes; I long for the certain and the -permanent.” “My notions about life are much the same as they are about -travelling—there is a good deal of amusement on the road, but, after -all, one wants to be at rest.” At forty:—“My disposition is invincibly -cheerful, and this alone would make me a cheerful man if I were not so -from the tenor of my life; yet I doubt whether the strictest Carthusian -has the thought of death more habitually in his mind.” - -Such was Southey’s constant temper: to some persons it may seem an -unfortunate one; to some it may be practically unintelligible. But -those who accept of the feast of life freely, who enter with a bounding -foot its measures of beauty and of joy—glad to feel all the while -the serviceable sackcloth next the skin—will recognize in Southey an -instructed brother of the Renunciauts’ rule. - - - - -CHAPTER VI. - -CHANGES AND EVENTS, 1803-1843. - - -In October, 1805, Southey started with his friend Elmsley for a short -tour in Scotland. On their way northward they stopped three days at -Ashestiel. There, in a small house, rising amid its old-fashioned garden, -with pastoral hills all around, and the Tweed winding at the meadow’s -end, lived Walter Scott. It was the year in which old Border song had -waked up, with ampler echoings, in the _Lay of the Last Minstrel_, and -Scott was already famous. Earlier in the year he had visited Grasmere, -and had stood upon the summit of Helvellyn, with Wordsworth and Davy by -his side. The three October days, with their still, misty brightness, -went by in full enjoyment. Southey had brought with him a manuscript -containing sundry metrical romances of the fifteenth century, on which -his host pored, as far as courtesy and the hours allowed, with much -delight; and the guests saw Melrose, that old romance in stone so dear -to Scott, went salmon-spearing on the Tweed, dined on a hare snapped -up before their eyes by Percy and Douglas, and visited Yarrow. From -Ashestiel they proceeded to Edinburgh. Southey looked coldly on the grey -metropolis; its new city seemed a kind of Puritan Bath, which worshipped -propriety instead of pleasure; but the old town, seen amid the slant -light of a wild red sunset, impressed him much, its vast irregular -outline of roofs and chimneys rising against tumultuous clouds like the -dismantled fragments of a giant’s palace. Southey was prepared to find -himself and his friends of the Lakes persons of higher stature than -the Scotch _literatuli_. Before accepting an invitation to meet him at -supper, Jeffrey politely forwarded the proof of an unpublished review -of _Madoc_; if the poet preferred that his reviewer should not present -himself, Mr. Jeffrey would deny himself the pleasure of Mr. Southey’s -acquaintance. Southey was not to be daunted, and, as he tells it himself, -felt nothing but good-humour on beholding a bright-faced homunculus of -five-foot-one, the centre of an attentive circle, ëënunciating with -North-British ëëlocution his doctrines on taste. The lively little -gentleman, who thought to crush _The Excursion_—he could as easily crush -Skiddaw, said Southey—received from the author of _Madoc_ a courtesy _de -haut en bas_ intended to bring home to his consciousness the fact that he -was—but five-foot-one. The bland lips of the gods who looked down on Auld -Reekie that evening smiled at the magnanimity alike of poet and critic. - -Two years later (1807), differences having arisen between the proprietors -and the editor of the _Edinburgh Review_, it was in contemplation to -alter the management, and Longman wrote requesting Southey to review -him two or three articles “in his best manner.” Southey did not keep -firkins of criticism of first and second brand, but he was not unwilling -to receive ten guineas a sheet instead of seven pounds. When, however, -six months later, Scott urged his friend to contribute, Judge Jeffrey -still sat on the bench of the _Edinburgh Review_, hanging, drawing, and -quartering luckless poets with undiminished vivacity. It was of no use -for Scott to assure Southey that the homunculus, notwithstanding his -flippant attacks on _Madoc_ and _Thalaba_, had the most sincere respect -for their author and his talents. Setting all personal feelings aside, an -irreconcilable difference, Southey declared, between Jeffrey and himself -upon every great principle of taste, morality, and policy, occasioned a -difficulty which could not be removed. Within less than twelve months -Scott, alienated by the deepening Whiggery of the _Review_, and by more -personal causes, had ceased to contribute, and opposite his name in -the list of subscribers Constable had written, with indignant notes of -exclamation, “_Stopt!!!_” John Murray, the young bookseller in Fleet -Street, had been to Ashestiel; in “dern privacie” a bold complot was -laid; why should the Edinburgh clique carry it before them? The spirit of -England was still sound, and would respond to loyalty, patriotism, the -good traditions of Church and State, the temper of gentlemen, courage, -scholarship; Gifford, of the Anti-Jacobin, had surely a sturdier arm than -Jeffrey; George Ellis would remember his swashing-blow; there were the -Roses, and Matthias, and Heber; a rival _Review_ should see the light, -and that speedily; “a good plot, good friends, and full of expectation—an -excellent plot, very good friends.” - -Southey was invited to write on Spanish affairs for the first number of -the _Quarterly_ (February, 1809). His political opinions had undergone -a considerable alteration since the days of Pantisocracy and _Joan of -Arc_. The Reign of Terror had not caused a violent reaction against -the doctrine of a Republic, nor did he soon cease to sympathize with -France. But his hopes were dashed; it was plain that “the millennium -would not come this bout.” Man as he is appeared more greedy, ignorant, -and dangerous than he had appeared before, though man as he may be was -still a being composed of knowledge, virtue, and love. The ideal republic -receded into the dimness of unborn time; no doubt—so Southey maintained -to the end—a republic is the best form of government in itself, as a -sundial is simpler and surer than a time-piece; but the sun of reason -does not always shine, and therefore complicated systems of government, -containing checks and counter-checks, are needful in old countries for -the present; better systems are no doubt conceivable—for better men. -“Mr. Southey’s mind,” wrote Hazlitt, “is essentially sanguine, even to -overweeningness. It is prophetic of good; it cordially embraces it; it -casts a longing, lingering look after it, even when it is gone for ever. -He cannot bear to give up the thought of happiness, his confidence in his -fellow-men, when all else despair. It is the very element where he must -live or have no life at all.’” This is true; we sacrifice too much to -prudence—Southey said, when not far from sixty—and in fear of incurring -the danger or the reproach of enthusiasm, too often we stifle the holiest -impulses of the understanding and the heart. Still, at sixty he believed -in a state of society actually to be realized as superior to English -society in the nineteenth century, as that itself is superior to the -condition of the tattooed Britons, or of the Northern Pirates from whom -we have descended. But the error of supposing such a state of society -too near, of fancying that there is a short road to it, seemed to him a -pernicious error, seducing the young and generous into an alliance with -whatever is flagitious and detestable. - -It was not until the Peace of Amiens (1802) that Southey was restored -in feeling to his own country. From that hour the new departure in his -politics may be said to date. The honour of England became as dear to -him as to her most patriotic son; and in the man who had subjugated -the Swiss Republic, and thrown into a dungeon the champion of Negro -independence, and slaughtered his prisoners at Jaffa, he indignantly -refused to recognize the representative of the generous principles of -1789. To him, as to Wordsworth, the very life of virtue in mankind seemed -to dwell in the struggle against the military despotism which threatened -to overwhelm the whole civilized world. Whatever went along with a -spirited war-policy Southey could accept. It appeared to himself that his -views and hopes had changed precisely because the heart and soul of his -wishes had continued the same. To remove the obstacles which retard the -improvement of mankind was the one object to which, first and last, he -gave his most earnest vows. “This has been the pole-star of my course; -the needle has shifted according to the movements of the state vessel -wherein I am embarked, but the direction to which it points has always -been the same. I did not fall into the error of those who, having been -the friends of France when they imagined that the cause of liberty was -implicated in her success, transferred their attachment from the Republic -to the Military Tyranny in which it ended, and regarded with complacency -the progress of oppression because France was the oppressor. ‘They had -turned their face toward the East in the morning to worship the rising -sun, and in the evening they were looking eastward, obstinately affirming -that still the sun was there.’ I, on the contrary altered my position as -the world went round.”[9] - -Wordsworth has described in memorable words the sudden exaltation of -the spirit of resistance to Napoleon, its change from the temper of -fortitude to enthusiasm, animated by hope, when the Spanish people -rose against their oppressors. “From that moment,” he says, “this -corruptible put on incorruption, and this mortal put on immortality.” -Southey had learned to love the people of the Peninsula; he had almost -naturalized himself among them by his studies of Spanish and Portuguese -history and literature. Now there was in him a new birth of passion at -a period of life when ordinarily the crust of custom begins to encase -our free spirits. All his moral ardour flowed in the same current with -his political enthusiasm; in this war there was as direct a contest -between the principles of evil and good as the elder Persians or the -Manicheans imagined in their fables. “Since the stirring day of the -French Revolution,” he writes to John May, “I have never felt half so -much excitement in political events as the present state of Spain has -given me.” Little as he liked to leave home, if the Spaniards would -bury their crown and sceptre, he would gird up his loins and assist at -the ceremony, devout as ever pilgrim at Compostella. A federal republic -which should unite the Peninsula, and allow the internal governments to -remain distinct, was what Southey ardently desired. When news came of the -Convention of Cintra (1808), the poet, ordinarily so punctual a sleeper, -lay awake all night; since the execution of the Brissotines no public -event distressed him so deeply. “How gravely and earnestly used Samuel -Taylor Coleridge”—so writes Coleridge’s daughter—“and William Wordsworth -and my uncle Southey also, to discuss the affairs of the nation, as if it -all came home to their business and bosoms, as if it were their private -concern! Men do not canvass these matters now-a-days, I think, quite in -the same tone.” - -That faith in the ultimate triumph of good which sustains Southey’s -heroine against the persecution of the Almighty Rajah, sustained -Southey himself during the long struggle with Napoleon. A military -despotism youthful and full of vigour, he said, must beat down corrupt -establishments and worn-out governments; but how can it beat down for -ever a true love of liberty and a true spirit of patriotism? When at last -tidings reached Keswick that the Allies were in Paris, Southey’s feelings -were such as he had never experienced before. “The curtain had fallen -after a tragedy of five-and-twenty years.” The hopes, and the ardours, -and the errors, and the struggles of his early life crowded upon his -mind; all things seemed to have worked together for good. He rejoiced -that the whirlwind of revolution had cleared away the pestilence of the -old governments; he rejoiced that right had conquered might. He did not -wish to see the bad Bourbon race restored, except to complete Bonaparte’s -overthrow. And he feared lest an evil peace should be made. Paris taken, -a commanding intellect might have cast Europe into whatever mould it -pleased. “The first business,” says Southey, with remarkable prevision, -“should have been to have reduced France to what she was before Louis -XIV.’s time; the second, to have created a great power in the North of -Germany, with Prussia at its head; the third, to have consolidated Italy -into one kingdom or commonwealth.” - -The politicians of the _Edinburgh Review_ had predicted ruin for all who -dared to oppose the Corsican; they ridiculed the romantic hopes of the -English nation; the fate of Spain, they declared in 1810, was decided; -it would be cruel, they said, to foment petty insurrections; France had -conquered Europe. It was this policy of despair which roused Scott and -Southey. “We shall hoist the bloody flag,” writes the latter, “down -alongside that Scotch ship, and engage her yard-arm to yard-arm.” But -at first Southey, by his own request, was put upon other work than that -of firing off the heavy _Quarterly_ guns. Probably no man in England -had read so many books of travel; these he could review better, he -believed, than anything else; biography and history were also within -his reach; with English poetry, from Spenser onwards, his acquaintance -was wide and minute, but he took no pleasure in sitting in judgment on -his contemporaries; his knowledge of the literary history of Spain and -Portugal was a speciality, which, as often as the readers of the _Review_ -could bear with it, might be brought into use. Two things he could -promise without fail—perfect sincerity in what he might write, without -the slightest pretension of knowledge which he did not possess, and a -punctuality not to be exceeded by Mr. Murray’s opposite neighbour, the -clock of St. Dunstan’s. - -Southey’s essays—literary, biographical, historical, and -miscellaneous—would probably now exist in a collected form, and -constitute a store-house of information—information often obtained -with difficulty, and always conveyed in a lucid and happy style—were -it not that he chose, on the eve of the Reform Bill, to earn whatever -unpopularity he could by collecting his essays on political and social -subjects. Affairs had hurried forward with eager strides; these -_Quarterly_ articles seemed already far behind, and might safely be left -to take a quiet corner in Time’s wallet among the alms for oblivion. -Yet Southey’s political articles had been effective in their day, and -have still a value by no means wholly antiquarian. His home politics had -been, in the main, determined by his convictions on the great European -questions. There was a party of revolution in this country eager to -break with the past, ready to venture every experiment for a future -of mere surmise. Southey believed that the moral sense of the English -people, their regard for conduct, would do much to preserve them from -lawless excess; still, the lesson read by recent history was that order -once overthrown, anarchy follows, to be itself quelled by the lordship -of the sword. Rights, however, were pleaded—shall we refuse to any man -the rights of a man? “Therapeutics,” says Southey, “were in a miserable -state as long as practitioners proceeded upon the gratuitous theory of -elementary complexions; ... natural philosophy was no better, being a -mere farrago of romance, founded upon idle tales or fanciful conjectures, -not upon observation and experiment. The science of politics is just -now in the same stage; it has been erected by shallow sophists upon -abstract rights and imaginary compacts, without the slightest reference -to habits and history.” “Order and improvement” were the words inscribed -on Southey’s banner. Order, that England might not fall, as France had -fallen, into the hands of a military saviour of society; order, that she -might be in a condition to wage her great feud on behalf of freedom with -undivided energy. Order, therefore, first; not by repression alone—though -there were a time and a place for repression also—but order with -improvement as a portion of its very life and being. Southey was a poet -and a moralist, and judged of the well-being of a people by other than -material standards; the wealth of nations seemed to him something other -and higher than can be ascertained by wages and prices, rent and revenue, -exports and imports. “True it is,” he writes, “the ground is more highly -cultivated, the crooked hedge-rows have been thrown down, the fields are -in better shape and of handsomer dimensions, the plough makes longer -furrows, there is more corn and fewer weeds; but look at the noblest -produce of the earth—look at the children of the soil, look at the seeds -which are sown here for immortality!” “The system which produces the -happiest moral effects will be found the most beneficial to the interest -of the individual and the general weal; upon this basis the science of -political economy will rest at last, when the ponderous volumes with -which it has been overlaid shall have sunk by their own weight into the -dead sea of oblivion.” Looking about him, he asked, What do the English -people chiefly need? More wealth? It may be so; but rather wisdom to use -the wealth they have. More votes? Yes, hereafter; but first the light of -knowledge, that men may see how to use a vote. Even the visible beauty -and grace of life seemed to Southey a precious thing, the loss of which -might be set over against some gain in pounds, shillings, and pence. The -bleak walls and barrack-like windows of a manufactory, the long, unlovely -row of operatives’ dwellings, struck a chill into his heart. He contrasts -the old cottages substantially built of native stone, mellowed by time, -taken by nature to herself with a mother’s fondness, the rose-bushes -beside the door, the little patch of flower-garden—he contrasts these -with the bald deformities in which the hands of a great mill are stalled. - -Before all else, national education appeared to Southey to be the need -of England. He saw a great population growing up with eager appetites, -and consciousness of augmented power. Whence were moral thoughtfulness -and self-restraint to come? Not, surely, from the triumph of liberal -opinions; not from the power to read every incentive to vice and -sedition; nor from Religious Tract societies; nor from the portentous -bibliolatry of the Evangelical party. But there is an education which -at once enlightens the understanding and trains the conscience and -the will. And there is that great association for making men good—the -Church of England. Connect the two—education and the Church; the progress -of enlightenment, virtue, and piety, however gradual, will be sure. -Subordinate to this primary measure of reform, national education, many -other measures were advocated by Southey. He looked forward to a time -when, the great struggle respecting property over—for this struggle he -saw looming not far off—public opinion will no more tolerate the extreme -of poverty in a large class of the people than it now tolerates slavery -in Europe; when the aggregation of land in the hands of great owners must -cease, when that community of lands, which Owen of Lanark would too soon -anticipate, might actually be realized. But these things were, perhaps, -far off. Meanwhile how to bring nearer the golden age? Southey’s son -has made out a long list of the measures urged upon the English people -in the _Quarterly Review_, or elsewhere, by his father. Bearing in mind -that the proposer of these measures resisted the Reform Bill, Free Trade, -and Catholic Emancipation, any one curious in such things may determine -with what political label he should be designated:—National education; -the diffusion of cheap and good literature; a well-organized system -of colonization, and especially of female emigration;[10] a wholesome -training for the children of misery and vice in great cities; the -establishment of Protestant sisters of charity, and a better order of -hospital nurses; the establishment of savings-banks in all small towns; -the abolition of flogging in the army and navy, except in extreme cases; -improvements in the poor-laws; alterations in the game-laws; alterations -in the criminal laws, as inflicting the punishment of death in far too -many cases; execution of criminals within prison walls; alterations in -the factory system for the benefit of the operative, and especially as to -the employment of children; national works—reproductive if possible—to -be undertaken in times of peculiar distress; the necessity of doing -away with interments in crowded cities; the system of giving allotments -of ground to labourers; the employment of paupers in cultivating waste -lands; the commutation of tithes; and last, the need for more clergymen, -more colleges, more courts of law. - -“Mr. Southey,” said Hazlitt, “missed his way in Utopia; he has found it -at old Sarum.” To one of Southey’s temper old Sarum seemed good, with -its ordered freedom, its serious aspiration, its habitual pieties, its -reasonable service, its reverent history, its beauty of holiness, its -close where priests who are husbands and fathers live out their calm, -benignant lives—its amiable home for those whose toil is ended, and who -now sleep well. But how Southey found his way from his early deism to -Anglican orthodoxy cannot be precisely determined. Certainly not for -many years could he have made that subscription to the Articles of the -Church of England, which at the first barred his way to taking orders. -The superstition, which seemed to be the chief spiritual food of Spain, -had left Southey, for the rest of his life, a resolute opponent of -Catholicism; and as he read lives of the Saints and histories of the -Orders, the exclamation, “I do well to be angry,” was often on his lips. -For the wisdom, learning, and devotion of the Jesuits he had, however, -a just respect. Geneva, with its grim logic and stark spirituality, -suited nerves of a different temper from his. For a time Southey thought -himself half a Quaker, but he desired more visible beauty and more -historical charm than he could find in Quakerism. Needing a comely home -for his spiritual affections, he found precisely what pleased him built -in the pleasant Anglican close. With growing loyalty to the State, his -loyalty to the Church could not but keep pace. He loved her tolerance, -her culture; he fed upon her judicious and learned writers—Taylor, with -his bright fancies like the little rings of the vine; South, hitting out -straight from the shoulder at anarchy, fanaticism, and licentiousness, -as Southey himself would have liked to hit; Jackson, whose weight of -character made his pages precious as with golden bullion. After all, old -Sarum had some advantages over Utopia. - -The English Constitution consisting of Church and State, it seemed to -Southey an absurdity in politics to give those persons power in the -State whose duty it is to subvert the Church. Admit Catholics, he said, -to every office of trust, emolument, or honour; only never admit them -into Parliament. “The arguments about equal rights are fit only for -a schoolboy’s declamation; it may as well be said that the Jew has -a right to be a bishop, or the Quaker an admiral, as that the Roman -Catholic has a right to a seat in the British Legislature; his opinions -disqualify him.” To call this a question of toleration was impudence; -Catholics were free to practise the rites of their religion; they had -the full and free use of the press; perfect toleration was granted to -the members of that church which, wherever dominant, tolerates no other. -Catholic Emancipation would not conciliate Ireland; the great source of -Irish misery had been, not England’s power, but her weakness, and those -violences to which weakness resorts in self-defence; old sores were not -to be healed by the admission of Catholic demagogues into Parliament. -The measure styled Emancipation would assuredly be followed by the -downfall of the Protestant Establishment in Ireland, and by the spread of -Catholicism in English society. To Pyrrhonists one form of faith might -seem as good or as bad as the other; but the great mass of the English -people had not advanced so far in the march of intellect as to perceive -no important difference between Catholic and Protestant doctrine, or -between Catholic and Protestant morality. By every possible means, better -the condition of the Irish peasantry; give them employment in public -works; facilitate, for those who desire it, the means of emigration; -extend the poor-laws to Ireland, and lay that impost on absentees in such -a proportion as may compensate, in some degree, for their non-residence; -educate the people; execute justice and maintain peace, and the cry of -Catholic Emancipation may be safely disregarded. - -So Southey pleaded in the _Quarterly Review_. With reference to -Emancipation and to the Reform Bill, he and Wordsworth—who, perhaps, -had not kept themselves sufficiently in relation with living men and -the public sentiment of the day—were in their solitude gifted with a -measure of the prophetic spirit, which in some degree explains their -alarms. For the prophet who knows little of expediency and nothing of -the manipulation of parties, nothing of the tangled skein of contending -interests, sees the future in its moral causes, and he sees it in a -vision. But he cannot date the appearances in his vision. Battle, and -garments rolled in blood, and trouble, and dimness of anguish pass -before him, and he proclaims what it is given him to see. It matters not -a little, however, in the actual event, whether the battle be on the -morrow or half a century hence; and the prophet furnishes us with no -chronology, or at best with some vague time and times and half a time. -New forces have arisen before the terrors of his prediction come to pass, -and therefore, when they come to pass, their effect is often altogether -different from that anticipated. Wordsworth and Southey were right in -declaring that a vast and formidable change was taking place in the -England of their day: many things which they, amid incredulous scoffs, -announced, have become actual; others remain to be fulfilled. But the -events have taken up their place in an order of things foreign to the -conceptions of the prophets; the fire from heaven descends, but meanwhile -we, ingenious sons of men, have set up a lightning-conductor. - -Southey and the _Quarterly Review_ were often spoken of as a single -entity. But the _Review_, in truth, never precisely represented his -feelings and convictions. With Gifford he had no literary sympathies. -Gifford’s heart was full of kindness, says Southey, for all living -creatures except authors; _them_ he regarded as Isaac Walton did the -worm. Against the indulgence of that temper Southey always protested; -yet he was chosen to bear the reproach of having tortured Keats, and of -having anonymously glorified himself at the expense of Shelley. Gifford’s -omissions, additions, substitutions, often caused Southey’s article in -the _Review_ to be very unlike the article which he had despatched to -the editor in manuscript. Probably these changes were often made on -warrantable grounds. Southey’s confidence in his own opinions, which -always seemed to him to be based upon moral principles, was high; and he -was not in the habit of diluting his ink. Phrases which sounded well in -the library of Greta Hall had quite another sound in Mr. Murray’s office -in Fleet Street. - -On arriving in London for a short visit in the autumn of 1813, Southey -learnt that the Prince Regent wished to confer on him the Laureateship, -vacant by the death of Pye. Without consulting the Regent, Lord Liverpool -had previously directed that the office should be offered to Walter -Scott. On the moment came a letter from Scott informing Southey that he -had declined the appointment, not from any foolish prejudice against -holding it, but because he was already provided for, and would not -engross emoluments which ought to be awarded to a man of letters who had -no other views in life. Southey hesitated, having ceased for several -years to produce occasional verses; but his friend Croker assured him -that he would not be compelled to write odes as boys write exercises -at stated times on stated subjects; that it would suffice if he wrote -on great public events, or did not write, as the spirit moved him; and -thus his scruples were overcome. In a little, low, dark room in the -purlieus of St. James’—a solitary clerk being witness—the oath was duly -administered by a fat old gentleman-usher in full buckle, Robert Southey -swearing to be a faithful servant to the King, to reveal all treasons -which might come to his knowledge, and to obey the Lord Chamberlain -in all matters of the King’s service. It was Scott’s belief that his -generosity had provided for his poorer brother bard an income of three -or four hundred pounds a year. In reality the emolument was smaller and -the task-work more irksome than had been supposed. The tierce of Canary, -swilled by Ben Jonson and his poetic sons, had been wickedly commuted for -a small sum; the whole net income amounted to 90_l._ But this, “the very -least of Providence’s mercies,” as a poor clergyman said when pronouncing -grace over a herring, secured an important happiness for Southey: he did -not employ it, as Byron puts it, to butter his bread on both sides; he -added twelve pounds to it, and vested it forthwith in an insurance upon -his own life. “I have never felt any painful anxiety about providing for -my family, ...” he writes to Scott; “but it is with the deepest feeling -of thanksgiving that I have secured this legacy for my wife and children, -and it is to you that I am primarily and chiefly indebted.” - -Croker’s assurance was too hastily given. The birthday Ode, indeed, -fell into abeyance during the long malady of George III.; but the -New-Year’s Ode had still to be provided. Southey was fortunate in 1814; -events worthy of celebration had taken place; a dithyramb, or rather an -oration in lines of irregular length, was accordingly produced, and was -forwarded to his musical yoke-fellow, Sir William Parsons. But the sight -of Southey’s page, over which the longs and shorts meandered seemingly -at their own sweet will, shocked the orderly mind of the chief musician. -What kind of ear could Mr. Southey have? His predecessor, the lamented -Mr. Pye, had written his Odes always in regular stanzas. What kind of -action was this exhibited by the unbroken State Pegasus? Duly as each -New Year approached, Southey set himself to what he called his _ode_ous -job; it was the price he paid for the future comfort of his children. -While his political assailants pictured the author of _Joan of Arc_ as -a court-lacquey following in the train of the fat Adonis, he, with grim -cheerfulness, was earning a provision for his girls; and had it not been -a duty to kiss hands on the appointment, His Royal Highness the Prince -Regent would never have seen his poet. Gradually the New-Year’s Ode -ceased to be looked for, and Southey was emancipated. His verse-making as -laureate occasionally rose into something higher than journeyman work; -when public events stirred his heart to joy, or grief, or indignation, -he wrote many admirable periods of measured rhetoric. _The Funeral Song -for the Princess Charlotte_ is of a higher strain; a knell, heavy yet -clear-toned, is tolled by its finely wrought octosyllabics. - -A few months after the battle of Waterloo, which had so deeply moved -Southey, he started with his wife, a rare voyager from Keswick, and his -little daughter Edith May, on a pilgrimage to the scene of victory. -The aunts remained to take care of Bertha, Kate, and Isabel, with the -nine-years-old darling of all, the only boy, Herbert. With Bruges, -“like a city of Elizabeth’s age—you expect to see a head with a ruff -looking from the window,” Southey was beyond measure delighted. At Ghent -he ransacked bookshops, and was pleased to see in the Beguinage the -realization of his own and Rickman’s ideas on Sisterhoods. On a clear -September day the travellers visited the battlefield; the autumnal -sunshine with soft airs, and now and again a falling leaf, while the bees -were busy with the year’s last flowers, suited well with the poet’s mood -of thankfulness, tempered by solemn thought. When, early in December, -they returned with a lading of toys to their beloved lake-country, little -Edith had hardly recovered from an illness which had attacked her at Aix. -It was seven o’clock in the evening by the time they reached Rydal, and -to press forward and arrive while the children were asleep would be to -defraud everyone of the first reward earned by so long absence. “A return -home under fortunate circumstances has something of the character of a -triumph, and requires daylight.” The glorious presence of Skiddaw, and -Derwent bright under the winter sky, asked also for a greeting at noon -rather than at night. A depth of grave and tender thankfulness lay below -Southey’s joy that morning; it was twelve years since he had pitched his -tent here beside the Greta; twelve years had made him feel the touch of -time; but what blessings they had brought! all his heart’s desire was -here—books, children, leisure, and a peace that passeth understanding. -The instant hour, however, was not for meditation but for triumph:— - - “O joyful hour, when to our longing home - The long-expected wheels at length drew nigh! - When the first sound went forth, ‘they come! they come!’ - And hope’s impatience quicken’d every eye! - ‘Never had man whom Heaven would heap with bliss - More glad return, more happy hour than this.’ - - “Aloft on yonder bench, with arms dispread, - My boy stood, shouting there his father’s name, - Waving his hat around his happy head; - And there a younger group his sisters came: - Smiling they stood with looks of pleased surprise - While tears of joy were seen in elder eyes. - - “Soon all and each came crowding round to share - The cordial greeting, the beloved sight; - What welcomings of hand and lip were there! - And when those overflowings of delight - Subsided to a sense of quiet bliss, - Life hath no purer, deeper happiness. - - “The young companion of our weary way - Found here the end desired of all her ills; - She who in sickness pining many a day - Hunger’d and thirsted for her native hills. - Forgetful now of suffering past and pain, - Rejoiced to see her own dear home again. - - “Recovered now the homesick mountaineer - Sate by the playmate of her infancy, - The twin-like comrade,[11]—render’d doubly dear - For that long absence; full of life was she - With voluble discourse and eager mien - Telling of all the wonders she had seen. - - “Here silently between her parents stood - My dark-eyed Bertha, timid as a dove; - And gently oft from time to time she woo’d - Pressure of hand, or word, or look of love, - With impulse shy of bashful tenderness, - Soliciting again the wished caress. - - “The younger twain in wonder lost were they, - My gentle Kate and my sweet Isabel: - Long of our promised coming, day by day, - It had been their delight to hear and tell; - And now when that long-promised hour was come, - Surprise and wakening memory held them dumb. - - ... - - “Soon they grew blithe as they were wont to be; - Her old endearments each began to seek; - And Isabel drew near to climb my knee, - And pat with fondling hand her father’s cheek; - With voice and touch and look reviving thus - The feelings which had slept in long disuse. - - “But there stood one whose heart could entertain - And comprehend the fulness of the joy; - The father, teacher, playmate, was again - Come to his only and his studious boy; - And he beheld again that mother’s eye - Which with such ceaseless care had watched his infancy. - - “Bring forth the treasures now—a proud display— - For rich as Eastern merchants we return! - Behold the black Beguine, the Sister grey, - The Friars whose heads with sober motion turn, - The Ark well filled with all its numerous hives, - Noah, and Shem, and Ham, and Japhet, and their wives. - - “The tumbler loose of limb; the wrestlers twain; - And many a toy beside of quaint device, - Which, when his fleecy flocks no more can gain - Their pasture on the mountains hoar with ice, - The German shepherd carves with curious knife, - Earning in easy toil the food of frugal life. - - “It was a group which Richter, had he viewed, - Might have deemed worthy of his perfect skill; - The keen impatience of the younger brood, - Their eager eyes and fingers never still; - The hope, the wonder, and the restless joy - Of those glad girls and that vociferous boy. - - “The aged friend[12] serene with quiet smile, - Who in their pleasure finds her own delight; - The mother’s heart-felt happiness the while; - The aunt’s rejoicing in the joyful sight; - And he who in his gaiety of heart, - With glib and noisy tongue performed the showman’s part.” - -It was manifest to a thoughtful observer, says De Quincey, that Southey’s -golden equanimity was bound up in a trinity of chords, a threefold -chain—in a conscience clear of offence, in the recurring enjoyments -from his honourable industry, and in the gratification of his parental -affections. In the light of Herbert’s smiles his father almost lived; -the very pulses of his heart played in unison with the sound of his -son’s laughter. “There was,” De Quincey goes on, “in his manner towards -this child, and towards this only, something that marked an excess of -delirious doating, perfectly unlike the ordinary chastened movement of -Southey’s affections; and something also which indicated a vague fear -about him; a premature unhappiness, as if already the inaudible tread of -calamity could be divined, as if already he had lost him.” As a baby, -while Edith was only “like an old book, ugly and good,” Herbert, in spite -of his Tartar eyes, a characteristic of Southey babyhood, was already -beautiful. At six he was more gentle and more loving, says Southey, than -you can almost conceive. “He has just learnt his Greek alphabet, and -is so desirous of learning, so attentive and so quick of apprehension, -that, if it please God he should live, there is little doubt but that -something will come out of him.” In April, 1809, Southey writes to -Landor, twenty-four hours after an attack of croup which seized his boy -had been subdued: “Even now I am far, very far, from being at ease. There -is a love which passeth the love of women, and which is more lightly -alarmed than the lightest jealousy. Landor, I am not a Stoic at home; I -feel as you do about the fall of an old tree! but, O Christ! what a pang -it is to look upon the young shoot and think it will be cut down! And -this is the thought which almost at all times haunts me; it comes upon me -in moments when I know not whether the tears that start are of love or of -bitterness.” - -The alarm of 1809 passed away, and Herbert grew to the age of nine, -active and bright of spirit, yet too pale, and, like his father, hanging -too constantly over his books; a finely organized being, delicate in his -sensibilities, and prematurely accomplished. Before the snow had melted -which shone on Skiddaw that day when the children welcomed home their -parents, Herbert Southey lay in his grave. His disease was an affection -of the heart, and for weeks his father, palsied by apprehension, and -unable to put hand to his regular work, stood by the bedside, with -composed countenance, with words of hope, and agonized heart. Each day -of trial made his boy more dear. With a trembling pride Southey saw the -sufferer’s behaviour, beautiful in this illness as in all his life; -nothing could be more calm, more patient, more collected, more dutiful, -more admirable. At last, worn with watching, Southey and his wife were -prevailed upon to lie down. The good Mary Barker watched, and it is she -who writes the following lines:—“Herbert!—that sweetest and most perfect -of all children on this earth, who died in my arms at nine years of age, -whose death I announced to his father and mother in their bed, where I -had prayed and persuaded them to go. When Southey could speak, his first -words were, ‘_The Lord hath given, and the Lord hath taken away. Blessed -be the name of the Lord!_’ Never can I forget that moment” (1816). - -“I am perfectly resigned,” Southey wrote to Bedford on the most mournful -of all days, “and do not give way to grief. Thank God I can control -myself for the sake of others.” But next morning found him weak as a -child, even weaker in body than in mind, for long anxiety had worn him -to the bone, and while he tried to calm and console the rest, his limbs -trembled under him. His first wild wish to fly from Keswick passed away; -it was good to be there near the boy’s grave. Weak as he was, he flung -himself upon his work. “I employ myself incessantly, taking, however, -every day as much exercise as I can bear without injurious fatigue, which -is not much.” “It would surprise you were you to see what I get through -in a day.” “For the first week I did as much every day as would at other -times have seemed the full and overflowing produce of three.” From his -early discipline in the stoical philosophy some help now was gained; -from his active and elastic mind the gain was more; but these would have -been insufficient to support him without a heart-felt and ever-present -faith that what he had lost was not lost for ever. A great change had -indeed come upon him. He set his house in order, and made arrangements -as if his own death were at hand. He resolved not to be unhappy, but the -joyousness of his disposition had received its death-wound; he felt as -if he had passed at once from boyhood to the decline of life. He tried -dutifully to make head against his depression, but at times with poor -success. “I employ myself, and have recovered strength, but in point -of spirits I rather lose ground.” Still, there are hidden springs of -comfort. “The head and flower of my earthly happiness is cut off. But I -am _not_ unhappy.” “When I give way to tears, which is only in darkness -or solitude, they are not tears of unmingled pain.” All beloved ones grew -more precious; the noble fortitude of his wife made her more than ever -a portion of his best self. His uncle’s boy, Edward, he could not love -more than he had loved him before; but, “as far as possible, he will -be to me hereafter,” writes Southey, “in the place of my son.” And in -truth the blessing of Herbert’s boyhood remained with him still; a most -happy, a most beautiful boyhood it had been; he was thankful for having -possessed the child so long; “for worlds I would not but have been his -father.” “I have abundant blessings left; for each and all of these I -am truly thankful; but of all the blessings which God has given me, this -child, who is removed, is the one I _still_ prize the most.” To relieve -feelings which he dared not utter with his lips, he thought of setting -about a monument in verse for Herbert and himself, which might make one -inseparable memory for father and son. A page or two of fragmentary -thoughts in verse and prose for this poetic monument exists, but Southey -could not keep his imagination enough above his heart to dare to go on -with it; to do so would have dissolved his heart anew. One or two of -these holy scriptures of woe, truly red drops of Southey’s life-blood, -will tell enough of this love passing the love of women. - - “Thy life was a day; and sum it well, life is but a week of - such days—with how much storm and cold and darkness! Thine was - a sweet spring day—a vernal Sabbath, all sunshine, hope, and - promise.” - - * * * * * - - “And that name - In sacred silence buried, which was still - At morn and eve the never-wearying theme - Of dear discourse.” - - * * * * * - - “Playful thoughts - Turned now to gall and esil.” - - * * * * * - - “No more great attempts, only a few autumnal flowers like - second primroses, etc.” - - * * * * * - - “They who look for me in our Father’s kingdom - Will look for him also; inseparably - Shall we be remembered.” - - * * * * * - - “Come, then, - Pain and Infirmity—appointed guests, - My heart is ready.” - -From the day of his son’s death Southey began to step down from the -heights of life, with a steadfast foot, and head still held erect. He -recovered cheerfulness, but it was as one who has undergone an amputation -seeks the sunshine. Herbert’s grave anchored him in Keswick. An offer of -2000_l._ a year for a daily article in the _Times_ did not tempt him to -London. His home, his books, his literary work, Skiddaw, Derwentwater, -and Crosthwaite churchyard were too dear. Three years later came the -unlooked-for birth of a second boy; and Cuthbert was loved by his -father; but the love was chastened and controlled of autumnal beauty and -seriousness. - -When the war with France had ended, depression of trade was acutely felt -in England; party spirit ran high, and popular passions were dangerously -roused. In the spring of 1817, the Laureate saw to his astonishment -a poem entitled _Wat Tyler_, by Robert Southey, advertised as just -published. He had written this lively dramatic sketch in the full fervour -of Republicanism twenty-three years previously; the manuscript had passed -into other hands, and he had long ceased to think of it. The skulking -rogue and the knavish publisher who now gave it to the world had chosen -their time judiciously; this rebuke to the apostate of the _Quarterly_ -would be a sweet morsel for gossip-mongers to roll under the tongue, an -infallible pill to purge melancholy with all true children of progress. -No fewer than sixty thousand copies, it is said, were sold. _Wat Tyler_ -suited well with Southey’s nonage; it has a Bright rhetorical fierceness -of humanity. The speech-making radical blacksmith, “still toiling, yet -still poor,” his insulted daughter, her virtuous lover, the communist -priest John Ball, whose amiable theology might be that of Mr. Belsham in -his later days, stand over against the tyrant king, his Archiepiscopal -absolver from oaths, the haughty nobles, and the servile minions of the -law. There was nothing in the poem that could be remembered with shame, -unless it is shameful to be generous and inexperienced at the age of -twenty. But England in 1817 seemed charged with combustibles, and even -so small a spark as this was not to be blown about without a care. The -Prince Regent had been fired at; there were committals for treason; -there were riots in Somersetshire; the swarm of Manchester Blanketeers -announced a march to London; the Habeas Corpus was suspended; before -the year was out, Brandreth and his fellows had been executed at Derby. -Southey applied to the Court of Chancery for an injunction to restrain -the publication of his poem. It was refused by Lord Eldon, on the ground -that the publication being one calculated to do injury to society, the -author could not reclaim his property in it. There the matter might have -dropped; but it seemed good to Mr. William Smith, representing liberal -Norwich, where Southey had many friends, to take his seat in the House -of Commons one evening with the _Quarterly Review_ in one pocket and -_Wat Tyler_ in the other, and to read aloud contrasted extracts showing -how the malignant renegade could play the parts, as it suited him, of a -seditious firebrand and a servile courtier. Wynn on the spot administered -a well-deserved rebuke; Wilberforce wrote to Southey that, had he been -present, his voice would also have been heard. Coleridge vindicated him -in the _Courier_. Seldom, indeed, was Southey drawn into controversy. -When pelted with abuse, he walked on with uplifted head, and did not turn -round; it seemed to him that he was of a stature to invite bespattering. -His self-confidence was high and calm; that he possessed no common -abilities, was certain: and the amount of toil which went into his -books gave him a continual assurance of their worth which nothing could -gainsay; he had no time for moods of dejection and self-distrust. But -if Southey struck, he struck with force, and tried to leave his mark on -his antagonist. To repel this attack made in the House of Commons, was a -duty. _A Letter to William Smith, Esq., M.P._, was written, as Wordsworth -wished, with the strength of masculine indignation; blow after blow -is planted with sure effect; no word is wasted; there is skill in the -hard hitting; and the antagonist fairly overthrown, Southey, with one -glance of scorn, turns on his heel, and moves lightly away. “I wish you -joy,” wrote Walter Scott, “of your triumphant answer.... Enough of this -gentleman, who I think will not walk out of the round again to slander -the conduct of individuals.” The concluding sentences of the Letter give -in brief Southey’s fearless review of his unstained career. - - “How far the writings of Mr. Southey may be found to deserve a - favourable acceptance from after-ages, time will decide; but a - name which, whether worthily or not, has been conspicuous in - the literary history of its age, will certainly not perish.... - It will be related that he lived in the bosom of his family, - in absolute retirement; that in all his writings there - breathed the same abhorrence of oppression and immorality, - the same spirit of devotion, and the same ardent wishes for - the melioration of mankind; and that the only charge which - malice could bring against him was, that as he grew older, his - opinions altered concerning the means by which that melioration - was to be effected, and that as he learnt to understand the - institutions of his country, he learnt to appreciate them - rightly, to love, and to revere, and to defend them. It will - be said of him that in an age of personality he abstained - from satire; and that during the course of his literary life, - often as he was assailed, the only occasion on which he ever - condescended to reply was when a certain Mr. William Smith - insulted him in Parliament with the appellation of renegade. - On that occasion, it will be said, he vindicated himself, as - it became him to do, and treated his calumniator with just - and memorable severity. Whether it shall be added that Mr. - William Smith redeemed his own character by coming forward with - honest manliness, and acknowledging but is not of the slightest - importance to me.” - -One other personal strife is worthy of notice. When visiting London in -1813, he made the acquaintance of Byron. “Is Southey magnanimous?” Byron -asked Rogers, remembering how he had tried his wit in early days on -_Thalaba_ and _Madoc_. Rogers could answer for Southey’s magnanimity, -and the two poets met, Southey finding in Byron very much more to like -than he had expected, and Byron being greatly struck by Southey’s “epic -appearance.” “To have that poet’s head and shoulders,” he said, “I would -almost have written his Sapphics.” And in his diary he wrote:—“Southey’s -talents are of the first order. His prose is perfect.... He has probably -written too much of poetry for the present generation; posterity will -probably select; but he has passages equal to anything.” At a later -date Byron thought Southey’s _Roderick_ “the first poem of the time.” -But when about to publish _Don Juan_, a work “too free for these very -modest days,” what better mode of saucily meeting public opinion, and -getting a first laugh on his side, than to dedicate such a poem to a -virtuous Laureate, and show that he and his fellows, who had uttered -nothing base, were yet political turncoats, not entitled by any superfine -morality to assume airs of indignation against him and his reprobate -hero? The dedication was shown about and laughed over though not yet -printed. Southey heard of these things, and felt released from that -restraint of good feeling which made him deal tenderly in his writings -with every one to whom he had once given his hand. An attack upon -himself would not alone have roused Southey; no man received abuse with -more self-possession. Political antagonism would still have left him -able to meet a fellow-poet on the common ground of literature. When -distress fastened upon Leigh Hunt, whose _Examiner_ and _Liberal_ had -never spared the Laureate, Mr. Forster did not hesitate to apply to -Southey for assistance, which was declined solely because the circular -put forward Leigh Hunt’s political services as those chiefly entitling -him to relief. “Those who are acquainted with me,” Southey wrote, “know -that I am neither resentful nor intolerant;” and after expressing -admiration of Leigh Hunt’s powers, the letter goes on to suggest that -his friends should draw up a circular in which, without compromising -any of his opinions, the appeal might be made solely upon the score -of literary merit, “placing him thus, as it were, within the sacred -territory which ought always to be considered and respected as neutral -ground.” Wise and admirable words! But there was one offence which was -to Southey the unforgivable sin against the holy spirit of a nation’s -literature. To entice poetry from the altar, and to degrade her for the -pleasure of wanton imaginations, seemed to Southey, feeling as he did -the sanctity of the love of husband and wife, of father and child, to -be treason against humanity. Southey was, indeed, tolerant of a certain -Rabelaisian freedom in playing with some of the enclosed incidents of -our life. “All the greatest of poets,” he says, “have had a spice of -Pantagruelism in their composition, which I verily believe was essential -to their greatness.” But to take an extravagant fling in costume of a -_sans-culotte_, and to play the part of “pander-general to the youth of -Great Britain,” were different things. In his preface to _A Vision of -Judgment_, Southey deplored the recent fall in the ethical spirit of -English literature, “which for half a century had been distinguished -for its moral purity,” and much of the guilt he laid on the leaders of -“the Satanic School.” In the long-run the interests of art, as of all -high endeavour, are invariably proved to be one with the interest of a -nation’s morality. It had taken many lives of men to lift literature out -of the beast. From prudential virtue and the lighter ethics of Addison -it had risen to the grave moral dignity of Johnson, and from that to the -impassioned spirituality of Wordsworth. Should all this be abandoned, -and should literature now be permitted to reel back into the brute? We -know that the title “Satanic School” struck home, that Byron was moved, -and replied with brilliant play of wit in his _Vision of Judgment_. The -laughers went over to Byron’s side. One who would be witty has certain -advantages, if content to disregard honesty and good manners. To be witty -was not Southey’s concern. “I saw,” he said, many years after, “that -Byron was a man of quick impulses, strong passions, and great powers. I -saw him abuse these powers; and, looking at the effect of his writings on -the public mind, it was my duty to denounce such of them as aimed at the -injury of morals and religion. This was all.” If continental critics find -in what he set down a characteristic example of the bourgeois morality of -England, we note with interest their point of view.[13] - -“Bertha, Kate, and Isabel,” wrote Southey on June 26, 1820, “you have -been very good girls, and have written me very nice letters, with which -I was much pleased. This is the last letter which I can write in return; -and as I happen to have a quiet hour to myself here at Streatham, on -Monday noon, I will employ that hour in relating to you the whole history -and manner of my being ell-ell-deed at Oxford by the Vice-Chancellor.” -Public distinctions of this kind he rated, perhaps, below their true -value. To stand well with Murray and Longman was more to him than any -handle to his name. A similar honour from Cambridge he declined. His -gold medal from the Royal Society of Literature he changed for a silver -coffee-pot for Mrs. Southey. To “be be-doctored and called everything -that ends in issimus,” was neither any harm nor much good; but to take -his seat between such doctors as the Duke of Wellington, and—perhaps—Sir -Walter Scott was a temptation. When his old schoolfellow Phillimore -presented Southey, the theatre rang with applause. Yet the day was, -indeed, one of the heaviest in his life. Never had he stopped for a night -in Oxford since he left it in 1794, intending to bid farewell to Europe -for an Utopia in some back settlement of America. Not one who really -loved him—for Scott could not appear—was present. When in the morning -he went to look at Balliol, no one remembered him except old Adams, who -had attempted to dress his hair as a freshman, and old Mrs. Adams, the -laundress, both now infirm. From the tumultuous theatre Southey strolled -into Christ Church walks alone. What changes time had made! Many of -the friends with whom he had sauntered there were in their graves. So -brooding, he chewed the bitter-sweet of remembrance, until at length -a serious gratitude prevailed. “Little girls,” the letter ends, “you -know it might be proper for me now to wear a large wig, and to be called -Doctor Southey, and to become very severe, and leave off being a comical -papa. And if you should find that ell-ell-deeing has made this difference -in me, you will not be surprised. However, I shall not come down in my -wig, neither shall I wear my robes at home.” - -While in Holland, in the summer of 1826, a more conspicuous honour -was unexpectedly thrust upon Southey. The previous year he had gone -abroad with Henry Taylor, and at Douay was bitten on the foot by Satan, -according to his conjecture, sitting squat at his great toe; at Leyden he -was obliged to rest his inflamed foot, and there it was his good fortune -to be received into the house of the poet Bilderdijk, a delightful -old erudite and enthusiast, whose charming wife was the translator -of _Roderick_. In 1826 he visited his kind friends once more, and at -Brussels received the surprising intelligence that during his absence he -had been elected a member of Parliament. Lord Radnor, an entire stranger, -had read with admiration Southey’s confession of faith concerning Church -and State, in the last paragraph of his _Book of the Church_. By his -influence the poet had been elected for the borough of Downton: the -return, however, was null, for Southey held a pension during pleasure; -and even if this were resigned, where was the property qualification? -This latter objection was met by Sir Robert Inglis, who desired to know -whether Southey would sit in Parliament if an estate of 300_l._ a year -were purchased for him. An estate of 300_l._ a year would be a very -agreeable thing to Robert Lackland; but he had no mind to enter on a new -public sphere for which he was ill qualified by his previous life, to -risk the loss of health by midnight debates, to abandon the education of -his little boy, and to separate himself more or less from his wife and -daughters. He could not be wrong, he believed, in the quiet confidence -which assured him that he was in his proper place. - -Now more than ever before, Edith Southey needed her husband’s sustaining -love. On the day of his return to Keswick, while amused to find himself -the object of mob popularity, he learnt that one of his daughters was -ailing; the illness, however, already seemed to have passed the worst. -This appearance of amendment quickly proved deceptive; and, on a Sunday -evening in mid July, Isabel, “the most radiant creature that I ever -beheld or shall behold,” passed away, while her father was on his knees -in the room below, praying that she might be released from suffering -either by recovery or by death. All that had been gone through ten years -before, renewed itself with dread exactness. Now, as then, the first day -was one of stunned insensibility; now, as then, the next morning found -him weak as a child, and striving in his weakness to comfort those who -needed his support; now, as then, he turned to Grosvenor Bedford for -a heart on which he might lay his own heart prone, letting his sorrow -have its way. “Nothing that has assailed my character, or affected my -worldly fortune, ever gave me an hour’s vexation, or deprived me of an -hour’s rest. My happiness has been in my family, and there only was I -vulnerable; that family is now divided between earth and heaven, and I -must pray to remain with those who are left, so long as I can contribute -to their welfare and comfort, rather than be gathered (as otherwise I -would fain be) to those who are gone.” On that day of which the word -Τετέλεσται is the record, the day on which the body of his bright Isabel -was committed to earth, Southey wrote a letter to his three living -daughters, copied with his own hand for each. It said what he could -not bear to say of consolation and admonishment by word of mouth; it -prepared them for the inevitable partings to come; it urged on them with -measureless tenderness the duty of self-watchfulness, of guarding against -little faults, of bearing and forbearing; it told them of his own grief -to think that he should ever by a harsh or hasty word have given their -dead sister even a momentary sorrow which might have been spared; it -ended with the blessing of their afflicted father. - -Sorrows of this kind, as Southey has truly said, come the heavier when -they are repeated; under such strokes a courageous heart may turn coward. -On Mrs. Southey a weight as of years had been laid; her spirits sank, her -firmness gave way, a breath of danger shook her. Southey’s way of bearing -himself towards the dead is that saddest way—their names were never -uttered; each one of the household had, as it were, a separate chamber -in which the images of their dead ones lay, and each went in alone and -veiled. The truth is, Southey had little native hardihood of temperament; -self-control with him was painfully acquired. In solitude and darkness -his tears flowed; when in his slumbers the images of the dead came to -him, he could not choose but weep. Therefore, all the more among those -whom he wished to lead into the cheerful ways of life, he had need to -keep a guard upon his tenderness. He feared to preserve relics, and did -not like to bear in mind birthdays, lest they should afterwards become -too dangerously charged with remembrance and grief. “Look,” he writes, -“at some verses in the _Literary Souvenir_, p. 113; they are written by -a dear friend of mine on the death of—you will know who”—for his pen -would have trembled in tracing the name Isabel. And yet his habitual -feelings with respect to those who had departed were not bitter; the dead -were absent—that was all; he thought of them and of living friends at a -distance with the same complacency, the same affection, only with more -tenderness of the dead. - -Greta Hall, once resounding with cheerful voices, had been growing -silent. Herbert was gone; Isabel was gone. In 1829 Sara Coleridge went, a -bride, tearful yet glad, her mother accompanying her, to distant London. -Five years later, Edith May Southey became the wife of the Rev. John -Warter. Her father fell back, even more than in former years, upon the -never-failing friends of his library. It was in these darkening years -that he sought relief in carrying out the idea, conceived long before, of -a story which should be no story, but a spacious receptacle for mingled -wit and wisdom, experience and book-lore, wholesome nonsense and solemn -meditation. _The Doctor_, begun in jest after merry talks with Grosvenor -Bedford, grew more and more earnest as Southey proceeded. “He dreamt -over it and brooded over it, laid it aside for months and years, resumed -it after long intervals, and more often, latterly, in thoughtfulness -than in mirth, and fancied at last that he could put into it more of his -mind than could conveniently be produced in any other form.” The secret -of its authorship was carefully kept. Southey amused himself somewhat -laboriously with ascribing it now to this hand and now to that. When -the first two volumes arrived, as if from the anonymous author, Southey -thrust them away with well-assumed impatience, and the disdainful words, -“Some novel, I suppose.” Yet several of his friends had shrewd suspicions -that the manuscript lay somewhere hidden in Greta Hall, and on receiving -their copies wrote to thank the veritable donor; these thanks were -forwarded by Southey, not without a smile in which something of irony -mingled, to Theodore Hook, who was not pleased to enter into the jest. “I -see in _The Doctor_,” says its author, playing the part of an impartial -critic, “a little of Rabelais, but not much; more of Tristram Shandy, -somewhat of Burton, and perhaps more of Montaigne; but methinks the -_quintum quid_ predominates?” The _quintum quid_ is that wisdom of the -heart, that temper of loyal and cheerful acquiescence in the rule of life -as appointed by a Divine Master, which characterizes Southey. - -For the third volume of _The Doctor_, in that chapter which tells of -Leonard Bacon’s sorrow for his Margaret, Southey wrote as follows: - - “Leonard had looked for consolation, where, when sincerely - sought, it is always to be found; and he had experienced - that religion effects in a true believer all that philosophy - professes, and more than all that mere philosophy can perform. - The wounds which stoicism would cauterize, religion heals. - - “There is a resignation with which, it may be feared, most of - us deceive ourselves. To bear what must be borne, and submit to - what cannot be resisted, is no more than what the unregenerate - heart is taught by the instinct of animal nature. But to - acquiesce in the afflictive dispensations of Providence—to make - one’s own will conform in all things to that of our Heavenly - Father—to say to him in the sincerity of faith, when we drink - of the bitter cup, ‘Thy will be done!’—to bless the name of - the Lord as much from the heart when he takes away as when he - gives, and with a depth of feeling of which, perhaps, none but - the afflicted heart is capable—this is the resignation which - religion teaches, this is the sacrifice which it requires.” - -These words, written with no forefeeling, were the last put on paper -before the great calamity burst upon Southey. “I have been parted from -my wife,” he tells Grosvenor Bedford on October 2, 1834, “by something -worse than death. Forty years she has been the life of my life; and I -have left her this day in a lunatic asylum.” - -Southey’s union with his wife had been at the first one of love, and -use and wont had made her a portion of his very being. Their provinces -in the household had soon defined themselves. He in the library earned -their means of support; all else might be left to her with absolute -confidence in her wise contrivance and quiet energy. Beneath the divided -work in their respective provinces their lives ran on in deep and still -accord. Now he felt for the first time shrunk into the limits of a -solitary will. All that had grown out of the past was deranged by a -central disturbance; no branch had been lopped away, but the main trunk -was struck, and seared, and shaken to the roots. “Mine is a strong -heart,” Southey writes; “I will not say that the last week has been the -most trying of my life; but I will say that the heart which could bear -it can bear anything.” Yet, when he once more set himself to work, a -common observer, says his son, would have noticed little change in him, -though to his family the change was great indeed. His most wretched hour -was when he woke at dawn from broken slumbers; but a word of hope was -enough to counteract the mischief of a night’s unrest. No means were -neglected which might serve to keep him in mental and bodily health; he -walked in all weathers; he pursued his task-work diligently, yet not -over-diligently; he collected materials for work of his choice. When, in -the spring of 1835, it was found that the sufferer might return to wear -out the body of this death in her own home, it was marvellous, declares -Cuthbert Southey, how much of his old elasticity remained, and how, -though no longer happy, he could be contented and cheerful, and take -pleasure in the pleasures of others. He still could contribute something -to his wife’s comfort. Through the weary dream which was now her life she -knew him, and took pleasure in his coming and going. - -When Herbert died, Southey had to ask a friend to lend him money to -tide over the short period of want which followed his weeks of enforced -inaction. Happily now, for the first time in his life, his income was -beforehand with his expenses. A bequest of some hundreds of pounds had -come in; his _Naval Biographies_ were paying him well; and during part -of Mrs. Southey’s illness he was earning a respectable sum, intended for -his son’s education, by his _Life of Cowper_—a work to which a painful -interest was added by the study of mental alienation forced upon him -in his own household. So the days passed, not altogether cheerlessly, -in work if possible more arduous than ever. “One morning,” writes his -son, “shortly after the letters had arrived, he called me into his -study. ‘You will be surprised,’ he said, ‘to hear that Sir Robert Peel -has recommended me to the King for the distinction of a baronetcy, and -will probably feel some disappointment when I tell you that I shall not -accept it.’” Accompanying Sir Robert Peel’s official communication came -a private letter asking in the kindest manner how he could be of use -to Southey. “Will you tell me,” he said, “without reserve, whether the -possession of power puts within my reach the means of doing anything -which can be serviceable or acceptable to you; and whether you will -allow me to find some compensation for the many sacrifices which office -imposes upon me, in the opportunity of marking my gratitude, as a public -man, for the eminent services you have rendered, not only to literature, -but to the higher interests of virtue and religion?” Southey’s answer -stated simply what his circumstances were, showing how unbecoming and -unwise it would be to accept the proffered honour: it told the friendly -statesman of the provision made for his family—no inconsiderable one—in -the event of his death; it went on to speak of his recent affliction; how -this had sapped his former confidence in himself; how it had made him an -old man, and forced upon him the reflection that a sudden stroke might -deprive him of those faculties by which his family had hitherto been -supported. “I could afford to die, but not to be disabled,” he wrote in -his first draft; but fearing that these words would look as if he wanted -to trick out pathetically a plain statement, he removed them. Finally, -if such an increase of his pension as would relieve him from anxiety on -behalf of his family could form part of a plan for the encouragement of -literature, it would satisfy all his desires. “Young as I then was,” -Cuthbert Southey writes, “I could not, without tears, hear him read with -his deep and faltering voice, his wise refusal and touching expression -of those feelings and fears he had never before given utterance to, to -any of his own family.” Two months later Sir Robert Peel signed a warrant -adding 300_l._ annually to Southey’s existing pension. He had resolved to -recognize literary and scientific eminence as a national claim; the act -was done upon public grounds, and Southey had the happiness of knowing -that others beside himself would partake of the benefit. - -“Our domestic prospects are darkening upon us daily,” Southey wrote in -July, 1835. “I know not whether the past or the present seems most like -a dream to me, so great and strange is the difference. But yet a little -while, and all will again be at the best.” While Mrs. Southey lived, a -daily demand was made upon his sympathies and solicitude which it was -his happiness to fulfil. But from all except his wife he seemed already -to be dropping away into a state of passive abstraction. Kate and Bertha -silently ministered to his wants, laid the books he wanted in his way, -replenished his ink-bottle, mended his pens, stirred the fire, and -said nothing. A visit to the south-west of England in company with his -son broke the long monotony of endurance. It was a happiness to meet -Landor at Bristol, and Mrs. Bray at Tavistock, and Mrs. Bray’s friend, -the humble poet, Mary Colling, whose verses he had reviewed in the -_Quarterly_. Yet to return to his sorrowful home was best of all; there -is a leap up of the old spirits in a letter to his daughters announcing -his approach. It is almost the last gleam of brightness. In the autumn of -that year (1835) Edith Southey wasted away, growing weaker and weaker. -The strong arm on which she had leaned for two-and-forty years, supported -her down stairs each day and bore her up again at evening. When the -morning of November 16th broke, she passed quietly “from death unto life.” - -From that day Southey was an altered man. His spirits fell to a still -lower range. For the first time he was conscious of the distance which -years had set between him and his children. Yet his physical strength -was unbroken; nothing but snow deterred him from his walk; he could -still circle the lake, or penetrate into Borrowdale on foot. But Echo, -whom he had summoned to rejoice, was not roused by any call of his. -Within-doors it was only by a certain violence to himself that he could -speak. In the library he read aloud his proof-sheets alone; but for this -he might almost have forgotten the sound of his own voice. Still, he was -not wholly abandoned to grief; he looked back and saw that life had been -good; its hardest moral discipline had served to train the heart: much -still remained that was of worth—Cuthbert was quietly pursuing his Oxford -studies; Bertha was about to be united in marriage to her cousin, Herbert -Hill, son of that good uncle who had done so much to shape Southey’s -career. “If not hopeful,” he writes, “I am more than contented, and -disposed to welcome and entertain any good that may yet be in store for -me, without any danger of being disappointed if there should be none.” -Hope of a sober kind indeed had come to him. For twenty years he had -known Caroline Bowles; they had long been in constant correspondence; -their acquaintance had matured into friendship. She was now in her -fifty-second year; he in his sixty-fifth. It seemed to Southey natural -that, without making any breach with his past life, he should accept her -companionship in the nearest way possible, should give to her all he -could of what remained, and save himself from that forlorn feeling which -he feared might render old age miserable and useless. - -But already the past had subdued Southey, and if any future lay before -him it was a cloud lifeless and grey. In the autumn of 1838 he started -for a short tour on the Continent with his old friend Senhouse, his son -Cuthbert, John Kenyon, their master of the horse, Captain Jones, the -chamberlain, and Crabb Robinson, who was intendant and paid the bills. -On the way from Boulogne they turned aside to visit Chinon, for Southey -wished to stand on the spot where his first heroine, Joan of Arc, had -recognized the French king. At Paris he roamed along the quays and hunted -book-stalls. The change and excitement seemed to have served him; he -talked freely and was cheerful. “Still,” writes his son, “I could not -fail to perceive a considerable change in him from the time we had last -travelled together—all his movements were slower, he was subject to -frequent fits of absence, and there was an indecision in his manner and -an unsteadiness in his step which was wholly unusual with him.” He often -lost his way, even in the hotels; then laughed at his own mistakes, -and yet was painfully conscious of his failing memory. His journal -breaks off abruptly when not more than two-thirds of the tour had been -accomplished. In February, 1839, his brother, Dr. Southey—ever a true -comrade—describes him as working slowly and with an abstraction not usual -to him; sometimes to write even a letter seemed an effort. In midsummer -his marriage to Caroline Bowles took place, and with her he returned to -Keswick in August. On the way home his friends in London saw that he was -much altered. “The animation and peculiar clearness of his mind,” wrote -Henry Taylor, “was quite gone, except a gleam or two now and then.... -The appearance was that of a placid languor, sometimes approaching -to torpor, but not otherwise than cheerful. He is thin and shrunk in -person, and that extraordinary face of his has no longer the fire and -strength it used to have, though the singular cast of the features and -the habitual expressions make it still a most remarkable phenomenon.” -Still, his friends had not ceased to hope that tranquillity would restore -mental tone, and he himself was planning the completion of great designs. -“As soon as we are settled at Keswick, I shall resolutely begin upon -the _History of Portugal_, as a duty which I owe to my uncle’s memory. -Half of the labour I consider as done. But I have long since found the -advantage of doing more than one thing at a time, and the _History of the -Monastic Orders_ is the other thing to which I shall set to with hearty -good-will. Both these are works of great pith and moment.” - -Alas! the current of these enterprises was already turned awry. In -August it was not without an occasional uncertainty that he sustained -conversation. “He lost himself for a moment; he was conscious of it, and -an expression passed over his countenance which was very touching—an -expression of pain and also of resignation.... The charm of his manner -is perhaps even enhanced at present (at least when one knows the -circumstances) by the gentleness and patience which pervade it.” Before -long the character of his handwriting, which had been so exquisite, was -changed to something like the laboured scrawl of a child; then he ceased -to write. Still he could read, and, even when he could no longer take -in the meaning of what was before him, his eye followed the lines of -the printed page. At last even this was beyond his power. He would walk -slowly round his library, pleased with the presence of his cherished -possessions, taking some volume down mechanically from the shelf. In 1840 -Wordsworth went over to Greta Hall. “Southey did not recognize me,” he -writes, “till he was told. Then his eyes flashed for a moment with their -former brightness, but he sank into the state in which I had found him, -patting with both hands his books affectionately like a child.” In the -_Life of Cowper_ he had spoken of the distress of one who suffers from -mental disease as being that of a dream—“a dream, indeed, from which the -sufferer can neither wake nor be awakened; but it pierces no deeper, -and there seems to be the same dim consciousness of its unreality.” So -was it now with himself. Until near the end he retained considerable -bodily strength; his snow-white hair grew darker; it was the spirit which -had endured shattering strokes of fate, and which had spent itself in -studying to be quiet. - -After a short attack of fever, the end came on the 21st of March, 1843. -Never was that “Well done!” the guerdon of the good and faithful servant, -pronounced amid a deeper consent of those who attended and had ears -to hear. On a dark and stormy morning Southey’s body was borne to the -beautiful churchyard of Crosthwaite, towards which he had long looked -affectionately as his place of rest. There lay his three children and -she who was the life of his life. Skiddaw gloomed solemnly overhead. A -grey-haired, venerable man who had crossed the hills stood there leaning -on the arm of his son-in-law; these two, Wordsworth and Quillinan, were -the only strangers present. As the words, “ashes to ashes,” were uttered, -a sudden gleam of sunshine touched the grave; the wind dropped, the rain -was over, and the birds had begun their songs of spring. The mourners -turned away thinking of a good man’s life and death with peace— - - “And calm of mind, all passion spent.” - - - - -CHAPTER VII. - -SOUTHEY’S WORK IN LITERATURE. - - -Southey’s career of authorship falls into two chief periods—a period -during which poetry occupied the higher place and prose the lower, and a -period during which this order was reversed. His translations of romantic -fiction—_Amadis of Gaul_, _Palmerin of England_, and _The Cid_—connect -the work of the earlier with that of the latter period, and serve to mark -the progress of his mind from legend to history, and from the fantastic -to the real. The poet in Southey died young, or, if he did not die, fell -into a numbness and old age like that of which an earlier singer writes:— - - “Elde that in my spirit dulleth me, - Hath of endyting all the subtilité - Welnyghe bereft out of my remembraunce.” - -After thirty Southey seldom cared to utter himself in occasional verse. -The uniformity of his life, the equable cheerfulness maintained by habits -of regular work, his calm religious faith, his amiable Stoicism, left him -without the material for lyrical poetry; and one so honest and healthy -had no care to feign experiences of the heart which were not his. Still, -he could apply himself to the treatment of large subjects with a calm, -continuous energy; but as time went on his hand grew slack, and wrought -with less ease. Scarcely had he overcome the narrative poet’s chief -difficulty, that of subduing varied materials to an unity of design, when -he put aside verse, and found it more natural to be historian than poet. - -The poetry of sober feeling is rare in lyrical verse. This may be -found admirably rendered in some of Southey’s shorter pieces. Although -his temper was ardent and hopeful, his poems of pensive remembrance, -of meditative calm, are perhaps the most characteristic. Among these -his _Inscriptions_ rank high. Some of those in memory of the dead are -remarkable for their fine poise of feeling, all that is excessive and -transitory having been subdued; for the tranquil depths of sorrow and of -hope which lie beneath their clear, melodious words. - -Southey’s larger poetical works are fashioned of two materials which -do not always entirely harmonize. First, material brought from his own -moral nature; his admiration of something elevated in the character of -man or woman—generosity, gentleness, loyalty, fortitude, faith. And, -secondly, material gathered from abroad; mediæval pomps of religion and -circumstance of war; Arabian marvels, the work of the enchanters and the -genii; the wild beauties and adventure of life amid New-World tribes; -the monstrous mythology of the Brahman. With such material the poet’s -inventive talent deals freely, rearranges details or adds to them; -still Southey is here rather a _finder_ than a _maker_. His diligence -in collecting and his skill in arranging were so great that it was well -if the central theme did not disappear among manifold accessories. One -who knows Southey, however, can recognize his ethical spirit in every -poem. Thalaba, as he himself confessed, is a male Joan of Arc. Destiny -or Providence has marked alike the hero and the heroine from mankind; -the sheepfold of Domremi, and the palm-grove by old Moath’s tent, alike -nurture virgin purity and lofty aspiration. Thalaba, like Joan, goes -forth a delegated servant of the Highest to war against the powers of -evil; Thalaba, like Joan, is sustained under the trials of the way by -the sole talisman of faith. We are not left in doubt as to where Southey -found his ideal. Mr. Barbauld thought _Joan of Arc_ was modelled on the -Socinian Christ. He was mistaken; Southey’s ideal was native to his soul. -“Early admiration, almost adoration of Leonidas; early principles of -Stoicism derived from the habitual study of Epictetus, and the French -Revolution at its height when I was just eighteen—by these my mind was -moulded.” And from these, absorbed into Southey’s very being, came -Thalaba and Joan. - -The word _high-souled_ takes possession of the mind as we think of -Southey’s heroic personages. Poetry, he held, ought rather to elevate -than to affect—a Stoical doctrine transferred to art, which meant that -his own poetry was derived more from admiration of great qualities -than from sympathy with individual men or women. Neither the quick and -passionate tenderness of Burns nor the stringent pathos of Wordsworth -can be found in Southey’s verse. No eye probably ever shed a tear over -the misery of Ladurlad and his persecuted daughter. She, like the lady -in _Comus_, is set above our pity and perhaps our love. In _Kehama_, -a work of Southey’s mature years, the chivalric ardour of his earlier -heroes is transformed into the sterner virtues of fortitude and an almost -despairing constancy. The power of evil, as conceived by the poet, -has grown more despotic; little can be achieved by the light-winged -Glendoveer—a more radiant Thalaba—against the Rajah; only the lidless -eye of Seeva can destroy that tyranny of lust and pride. _Roderick_ -marks a higher stage in the development of Southey’s ethical ideal. -Roderick, too, is a delegated champion of right against force and fraud; -he too endures mighty pains. But he is neither such a combatant, pure -and intrepid, as goes forth from the Arab tent, nor such a blameless -martyr as Ladurlad. He is first a sinner enduring just punishment; then a -stricken penitent; and from his shame and remorse he is at last uplifted -by enthusiasm, on behalf of his God and his people, into a warrior saint, -the Gothic Maccabee. - -_Madoc_ stands somewhat away from the line of Southey’s other narrative -poems. Though, as Scott objected, the personages in _Madoc_ are too -nearly abstract types, Southey’s ethical spirit dominates this poem less -than any of the others. The narrative flows on more simply. The New-World -portion tells a story full of picturesque incident, with the same skill -and grace that belong to Southey’s best prose writings. Landor highly -esteemed _Madoc_. Scott declared that he had read it three times since -his first cursory perusal, and each time with increased admiration of -the poetry. Fox was in the habit of reading aloud after supper to eleven -o’clock, when it was the rule at St. Ann’s Hill to retire; but while -_Madoc_ was in his hand, he read until after midnight. Those, however, -who opened the bulky quarto were few: the tale was out of relation with -the time; it interpreted no need, no aspiration, no passion of the -dawn of the present century. And the mind of the time was not enough -disengaged to concern itself deeply with the supposed adventures of a -Welsh prince of the twelfth century among the natives of America. - -At heart, then, Southey’s poems are in the main the outcome of his moral -nature; this we recognize through all disguises—Mohammedan, Hindoo, or -Catholic. He planned and partly wrote a poem—_Oliver Newman_—which -should associate his characteristic ideal with Puritan principles and -ways of life. The foreign material through which his ethical idea was set -forth went far, with each poem, to determine its reception by the public. -Coleridge has spoken of “the pastoral charm and wild, streaming lights of -the _Thalaba_.” Dewy night moon-mellowed, and the desert-circle girdled -by the sky, the mystic palace of Shedad, the vernal brook, Oneiza’s -favourite kidling, the lamp-light shining rosy through the damsel’s -delicate fingers, the aged Arab in the tent-door—these came with a fresh -charm into English narrative poetry eighty years ago. The landscape and -the manners of Spain, as pictured in _Roderick_, are of marked grandeur -and simplicity. In _Kehama_, Southey attempted a bolder experiment; and -although the poem became popular, even a well-disposed reader may be -allowed to sympathize with the dismay of Charles Lamb among the monstrous -gods: “I never read books of travels, at least not farther than Paris or -Rome. I can just endure Moors, because of their connexion as foes with -Christians; but Abyssinians, Ethiops, Esquimaux, Dervises, and all that -tribe I hate. I believe I fear them in some manner. A Mohammedan turban -on the stage, though enveloping some well-known face, ... does not give -me unalloyed pleasure. I am a Christian, Englishman, Londoner, Templar. -God help me when I come to put off these snug relations, and to get -abroad into the world to come.” - -Though his materials are often exotic, in style Southey aimed at the -simplicity and strength of undefiled English. If to these melody was -added, he had attained all he desired. To conversations with William -Taylor about German poetry—certainly not to Taylor’s example—he ascribes -his faith in the power of plain words to express in poetry the highest -thoughts and strongest feelings. He perceived, in his own day, the rise -of the ornate style, which has since been perfected by Tennyson, and -he regarded it as a vice in art. In early years Akenside had been his -instructor; afterwards he owed more to Landor than to any other master of -style. From _Madoc_ and _Roderick_—both in blank-verse—fragments could -be severed which might pass for the work of Landor; but Southey’s free -and facile manner, fostered by early reading of Ariosto, and by constant -study of Spenser, soon reasserts itself; from under the fragment of -monumental marble, white almost as Landor’s, a stream wells out smooth -and clear, and lapses away, never dangerously swift nor mysteriously -deep. On the whole, judged by the highest standards, Southey’s poetry -takes a midmost rank; it neither renders into art a great body of thought -and passion, nor does it give faultless expression to lyrical moments. -But it is the output of a large and vigorous mind, amply stored with -knowledge; its breath of life is the moral ardour of a nature strong and -generous, and therefore it can never cease to be of worth. - -Southey is at his best in prose. And here it must be borne in mind -that, though so voluminous a writer, he did not achieve his most -important work, the _History of Portugal_, for which he had gathered -vast collections. It cannot be doubted that this, if completed, would -have taken a place among our chief histories. The splendour of story -and the heroic personages would have lifted Southey into his highest -mood. We cannot speak with equal confidence of his projected work of -second magnitude, the _History of the Monastic Orders_. Learned and -sensible it could not fail to be, and Southey would have recognized the -more substantial services of the founders and the brotherhoods; but he -would have dealt by methods too simple with the psychology of religious -emotions; the words enthusiasm and fraud might have risen too often to -his lips; and at the grotesque humours of the devout, which he would have -exhibited with delight, he might have been too prone to smile. - -As it is, Southey’s largest works are not his most admirable. _The -History of Brazil_, indeed, gives evidence of amazing patience, industry, -and skill; but its subject necessarily excludes it from the first rank. -At no time from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century was Brazil a -leader or a banner-bearer among lands. The life of the people crept on -from point to point, and that is all; there are few passages in which -the chronicle can gather itself up, and transform itself into a historic -drama. Southey has done all that was possible; his pages are rich in -facts, and are more entertaining than perhaps any other writer could -have made them. His extraordinary acquaintance with travel gave him -many advantages in narrating the adventures of early explorers; and his -studies in ecclesiastical history led him to treat with peculiar interest -the history of the Jesuit Reductions. - -_The History of the Peninsular War_ suffers by comparison with the great -work of Sir William Napier. That heroic man had himself been a portion of -the strife; his senses, singularly keen, were attuned to battle; as he -wrote, the wild bugle-calls, the measured tramp, the peals of musketry, -the dismal clamour, sounded in his ears; he abandoned himself again to -the swiftness and “incredible fury” of the charge. And with his falcon -eye he could discern amid the shock or formless dispersion, wherever -hidden, the fiery heart of victory. Southey wrought in his library as a -man of letters; consulted sources, turned over manuscripts, corresponded -with witnesses, set his material in order. The passion of justice and an -enthusiasm on behalf of Spain give unity to his work. If he estimated too -highly the disinterestedness and courage of the people of the Peninsula, -the illusion was generous. And it may be that enduring spiritual forces -become apparent to a distant observer, which are masked by accidents of -the day and hour from one who is in their midst. - -History as written by Southey is narrative rendered spiritual by moral -ardour. There are no new political truths, he said. If there be laws of -a nation’s life other than those connected with elementary principles of -morality, Southey did not discover these. What he has written may go only -a little way towards attaining the ultimate ends of historical study, -but so far as it goes it keeps the direct line. It is not led astray by -will-o’-the-wisp, vague-shining theories that beguile night wanderers. -Its method is an honest method as wholesome as sweet; and simple -narrative, if ripe and sound at first, is none the less so at the end of -a century. - -In biography, at least, one may be well pleased with clear and charming -narrative. Here Southey has not been surpassed, and even in this single -province he is versatile; he has written the life of a warrior, of a -poet, and of a saint. His industry was that of a German; his lucidity -and perfect exposition were such as we rarely find outside a French -memoir. There is no style fitter for continuous narrative than the -pedestrian style of Southey. It does not beat upon the ear with hard, -metallic vibration. The sentences are not cast by the thousand in one -mould of cheap rhetoric, nor made brilliant with one cheap colour. -Never dithyrambic, he is never dull; he affects neither the trick of -stateliness nor that of careless ease; he does not seek out curiosities -of refinement, nor caress delicate affectations. Because his style is -natural, it is inimitable, and the only way to write like Southey is to -write well. - -“The favourite of my library, among many favourites;” so Coleridge speaks -of the _Life of Wesley_—“the book I can read for the twentieth time, when -I can read nothing else at all.” And yet the schoolboy’s favourite—the -_Life of Nelson_—is of happier inspiration. The simple and chivalric -hero, his splendid achievements, his pride in duty, his patriotism, -roused in Southey all that was most strong and high; but his enthusiasm -does not escape in lyrical speech. “The best eulogy of Nelson,” he says, -“is the faithful history of his actions; the best history that which -shall relate them most perspicuously.” Only when all is over, and the -captain of Trafalgar lies dead, his passion and pride find utterance:—“If -the chariot and the horses of fire had been vouchsafed for Nelson’s -translation, he could scarcely have departed in a brighter blaze of -glory.” From Nelson on the quarter-deck of the _Victory_, to Cowper -caressing his tame hares, the interval is wide; but Southey, the man of -letters, lover of the fireside, and patron of cats, found it natural to -sympathize with his brother poet. His sketches of literary history in -the _Life of Cowper_ are characteristic. The writer’s range is wide, his -judgment sound, his enjoyment of almost everything literary is lively; as -critic he is kindly yet equitable. But the highest criticism is not his. -Southey’s vision was not sufficiently penetrative; he culls beauties, but -he cannot pluck out the heart of a mystery. - -His translations of romantic fiction, while faithful to their sources, -aim less at literal exactitude than at giving the English reader the -same pleasure which the Spaniard receives from the originals. From the -destruction of Don Quixote’s library Master Nicholas and the curate -spared _Amadis of Gaul_ and _Palmerin of England_. Second to Malory’s -grouping of the Arthur cycle _Amadis_ may well take its place. Its -chivalric spirit, its wildness, its tenderness and beauty, are carefully -preserved by the translator. But Southey’s chief gift in this kind -to English readers is _The Cid_. The poem he supposed, indeed, to be -a metrical chronicle instead of a metrical romance—no fatal error; -weaving together the best of the poem, the ballads and the chronicle, he -produced more than a mere compilation. “I know no work of the kind in our -language,” wrote Coleridge, “none which, uniting the charms of romance -and history, keeps the imagination so constantly on the wing, and yet -leaves so much for after-reflection.” - -Of Southey’s political writings something has been said in a former -chapter. Among works which can be brought under no general head, one -that pleased the public was _Espriella’s Letters_, sketches of English -landscape, life, and manners, by a supposed Spanish traveller. The -letters, giving as they do a lively view of England at the beginning of -the present century, still possess an interest. Apart from Southey’s -other works stands _The Doctor_; nowhere else can one find so much of -his varied erudition, his genial spirits, his meditative wisdom. It asks -for a leisurely reader content to ramble everywhere and no whither, and -still pleased to take another turn because his companion has not yet come -to an end of learning, mirth, or meditation. That the author of a book -so characteristic was not instantly recognized, is strange. “The wit and -humour of _The Doctor_,” says Edgar Poe, a keen critic, “have seldom been -equalled. We cannot think Southey wrote it.” Gratitude is due to Dr. -Daniel Dove from innumerable “good little women and men,” who have been -delighted with his story of _The Three Bears_. To know that he had added -a classic to the nursery would have been the pride of Southey’s heart. -Wide eyes entranced and peals of young laughter still make a triumph for -one whose spirit, grave with a man’s wisdom, was pure as the spirit of a -little child. - -THE END. - - - - -FOOTNOTES - - -[1] Recollections of Corston, somewhat in the manner of Goldsmith’s -_Deserted Village_, will be found in Southey’s early poem, _The -Retrospect_. - -[2] Carmen Nuptiale: Proem, 18. - -[3] I find in a Catalogue of English Poetry, 1862, the following passage -from an autograph letter of S. T. Coleridge, dated Bristol, July 16, -1814, then in Mr. Pickering’s possession: “I looked over the first five -books of the first (quarto) edition of _Joan of Arc_ yesterday, at -Hood’s request, in order to mark the lines written by me. I was really -astonished—1, at the schoolboy, wretched allegoric machinery; 2, at the -transmogrification of the fanatic Virago into a modern Novel-pawing -proselyte of the Age of Reason, a Tom Paine in petticoats, but so lovely! -and in love more dear! ‘_On her rubied cheek hung pity’s crystal gem_;’ -3, at the utter want of all rhythm in the verse, the monotony and the -dead plumb down of the pauses, and of the absence of all bone, muscle, -and sinew in the single lines.” - -[4] See Southey’s article on “Dr. Sayers’s Works,” _Quarterly Review_, -January, 1827. - -[5] Harriet Martineau: Autobiography, i. p. 300. - -[6] See her “History of the Peace,” B. vi. chap. xvi. - -[7] For Westall’s drawing, and the description of Walla Crag, see “Sir -Thomas More:” Colloquy VI. - -[8] _I. e._, to go to Davies’ lodgings; Davies, Dr. Bell’s Secretary, -was engaged in arranging a vast accumulation of papers with a view to -forwarding Southey in his _Life of Bell_. - -[9] The words quoted by Southey are his own, written in 1809. - -[10] “With the Cape and New Holland I would proceed thus:—‘Govern -yourselves, and we will protect you as long as you need protection; -when that is no longer necessary, remember that though we be different -countries, each independent, we are one people.’”—R. 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