of views, than to join his opponents in ascribing it to unalloyed selfishness.*

To the secluded littérateur, watching over his gifted invalid boy amid romantic lakes and mountains, the calm and nature-loving Wordsworth was a more desirable companion than Godwin; to whom, at a previous era, he acknowledged himself under essential intellectual obligations. His wife, the gentle and devoted Edith, might have objected to such an inmate as Mary Wolstonecraft, whom her husband preferred to all the literary lions during his early visits to London; and it was far more agreeable to "counteract sedition" in his quiet studio at Keswick, than to roughly experience Pantisocracy in America; while a man of sterner mould might be pardoned for preferring a picnic glorification over the battle of Waterloo, on the top of Skiddaw, to a lonely struggle for human rights against the overwhelming tide of popular scorn, which drove the more adventurous and poetic Shelley into exile. All Southey's compassion, however, so oracularly expressed for that sensitive and heroic spirit, derogates not a particle from the superior nobility of soul for which generous

"In all his domestic relations, Southey was the most amiable of men; but he had no general philanthropy: he was what you call a cold man. I spent some time with him at Lord Lonsdale's, in company with Wordsworth and others; and while the rest of the party were walking about, talking, and amusing themselves, Southey preferred sitting solus in the library."-Rogers's Table-talk.

thinkers cherish his memory. We can, however, easily follow the natural gradations by which the boy Southey, whose ideal was the Earl of Warwick, and the youth Southey, intent upon human progress and social reformation, became the man Southey; a good citizen, industrious author, exemplary husband and father, and most loyal subject. Indeed, the conservative mood begins to appear even before any avowed change in his opinions. Soon after his return from the first visit to Lisbon, while hesitating what profession to adopt, and while his friends were discouraged at the apparent speculative recklessness and desultory life he indulged, we find him writing to Grosvenor, one of his most intimate friends, "I am conversing with you now in that easy, calm, good-humored state of mind, which is, perhaps, the summum bonum. The less we think of the world, the better. My feelings were once like an ungovernable horse. Now I have tamed Bucephalus: he retains his spirit and his strength; but they are made useful, and he shall not break my neck."

This early visit to Lisbon, when his mind was in its freshest activity, attracted him to the literature of Spain and Portugal; and the local associations, which gave them so vivid a charm to his taste, imparted kindred life to his subsequent critiques and historical sketches devoted to these scenes and people. They furnish another striking instance of the felicitous manner in which the ex

perience of foreign travel and the results of study coalesce in literary productions.

Authorship, indeed, was so exclusively the vocation of Southey,* that his life may be said to have been identified with it; yet pursued, as we have seen, in a spirit often mechanical, we are not surprised, that, while he felt himself adapted to the pursuit, he was sometimes conscious of that mediocrity which is the inevitable fruit of a wilful tension of the mind. Thus, while to one friend he writes, "One happy choice I made when I betook myself to literature as my business in life," to

* The following list comprises the acknowledged writings of Southey:

Southey was also the editor of Specimens of English Poets; Specimens of Later British Poets; Select British Poets; the Works of Chatterton, Kirke White, and Cowper. He contributed the historical part of the Edinburgh Annual Register for the years 1808, 9, and 10; fifty-two articles to the Annual, and nearly one hundred to the Quarterly Review.

another, in 1815, he declares, "I have the disheartening conviction that my best is done, and that to add to the bulk of my works will not be to add to their estimation." Yet Southey, like all genuine authors, cherished his dream of glory, and probably anticipated enduring renown from his poetry. The mechanical spirit of his literary toil, however, was carried into verse. He set about designing a poem as he did a history or a volume of memoirs, and proceeded to fill up the outline with the same complacent alacrity. Many of these works exhibit great ingenuity of construction, both as regards form and language. They are striking examples of the inventive faculty, and show an extraordinary command of language. In this latter regard, some of his verses are the most curious in our literature: the "Fall of Lodore" is an instance. But it is obvious, that, unless fused by the glow of sentiment, however aptly constructed, elaborate versified tales can scarcely be ranked among the standard poems of any language. The best passages of his long poems are highly imaginative; but the style is diffuse, the interest complicated, and there is a want of human interest that prevents any strong enlistment of the sympathies. They have not the picturesque and living attraction of Scott, nor yet the natural tenderness of Burns; but are melo-dramatic, and make us wonder at the author's fertility of invention, rather than become attached to its fruits.

One of the most striking instances of want of discrimination in the critical tone of the day was the habit of designating Coleridge, Wordsworth, and Southey under the same general term. The only common ground for calling them the Lake School was the fact that they each resided among the lakes of Cumberland at one and the same time. The diffuse, reflective, philosophic Muse of Wordsworth is as essentially different from the mystic and often profoundly tender sentiment of Coleridge, as both are from the elaborate chronicles and rhetorical artifice of Southey. His "Pilgrimage to Waterloo" is an apt and clever journal in verse; occasionally, from its personal style and simplicity, quite attractive. His laureate odes have a respectable sound, and frequently a commendable sense, but rarely any bardic fire or exquisite grace. In a word, although there is much to admire in Southey's poetry as the work of a creative fancy and the result of research and facility, as well as invention in the use of language, we seldom find, in perusing his works, any of those "Elysian corners of intuition," wherein Leigh Hunt speaks of comparing notes with the reader. The amplitude, variety, and tact of constructive talent, and not the glow and mystery of genius, win us to his page. It informs, entertains, and seldom offends; but rarely melts, kindles, or nerves the spirit.

His most obstinate admirers cannot but admit, that, as poems, "Joan of Arc," "Madoc," and