tolary ease and graceful narrative, to the austere and impet-. uous moral declamation; from the pastoral claims and wild streaming lights of the Thalaba, in which sentiment and imagery have given permanence even to the excitement of 5 curiosity; and from the full blaze of the Kehama (a gallery of finished pictures in one splendid fancy piece, in which, notwithstanding, the moral grandeur rises gradually above the brilliance of the colouring and the boldness and novelty of the machinery) to the more sober beauties of the Madoc; 10 and lastly, from the Madoc to his Roderick, in which, retaining all his former excellencies of a poet eminently inventive and picturesque, he has surpassed himself in language and metre, in the construction of the whole, and in the splendour of particular passages.

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Here then shall I conclude? No! The characters of the deceased, like the encomia on tombstones, as they are described with religious tenderness, so are they read, with allowing sympathy indeed, but yet with rational deduction. There are men who deserve a higher record; men with whose char20 acters it is the interest of their contemporaries, no less than that of posterity, to be made acquainted; while it is yet possible for impartial censure, and even for quick-sighted envy, to cross-examine the tale without offence to the courtesies of humanity; and while the eulogist detected in exag25 geration or falsehood must pay the full penalty of his baseness in the contempt which brands the convicted flatterer. Publicly has Mr. Southey been reviled by men, who (I would fain hope for the honour of human nature) hurled fire-brands against a figure of their own imagination, publicly have his 30 talents been depreciated, his principles denounced; as publicly do I therefore, who have known him intimately, deem

it my duty to leave recorded, that it is Southey's almost unexampled felicity to possess the best gifts of talent and genius free from all their characteristic defects. To those who remember the state of our public schools and universities some twenty years past, it will appear no ordinary praise 5 in any man to have passed from innocence into virtue, not only free from all vicious habit, but unstained by one act of intemperance, or the degradations akin to intemperance. That scheme of head, heart, and habitual demeanour, which in his early manhood, and first controversial writings, Milton, 10 claiming the privilege of self-defence, asserts of himself, and challenges his calumniators to disprove; this will his schoolmates, his fellow-collegians, and his maturer friends, with a confidence proportioned to the intimacy of their knowledge, bear witness to, as again realized in the life of Robert Southey. 15 But still more striking to those, who by biography or by their own experience are familiar with the general habits of genius, will appear the poet's matchless industry and perseverance in his pursuits; the worthiness and dignity of those pursuits; his generous submission to tasks of transitory interest, or 20 such as his genius alone could make otherwise; and that having thus more than satisfied the claims of affection or prudence, he should yet have made for himself time and power, to achieve more, and in more various departments, than almost any other writer has done, though employed 25 wholly on subjects of his own choice and ambition. But as Southey possesses, and is not possessed by, his genius, even so is he the master even of his virtues. The regular and methodical tenour of his daily labours, which would be deemed rare in the most mechanical pursuits, and might be 30 envied by the mere man of business, loses all semblance of

formality in the dignified simplicity of his manners, in the spring and healthful cheerfulness of his spirits. Always employed, his friends find him always at leisure. No less punctual in trifles, than stedfast in the performance of highest 5 duties, he inflicts none of those small pains and discomforts 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 10 him 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. I know few men who so well deserve the char15 acter which an ancient attributes to Marcus Cato, namely, that he was likest virtue, inasmuch as he seemed to act aright, not in obedience to any law or outward motive, but by the necessity of a happy nature which could not act otherwise. As son, brother, husband, father, master, friend, he moves with 20 firm yet light steps, alike unostentatious, and alike exemplary. As a writer, he has uniformly made his talents subservient to the best interests of humanity, of public virtue, and domestic piety; his cause has ever been the cause of pure religion and of liberty, of national independence and of national illumina25 tion. When future critics shall weigh out his guerdon of praise and censure, it will be Southey the poet only, that will supply them with the scanty materials for the latter. They will likewise not fail to record, that as no man was ever a more constant friend, never had poet more friends 30 and honourers among the good of all parties; and that quacks in education, quacks in politics, and quacks in criticism were his only enemies.2

CHAPTER III.

The Lyrical Ballads with the preface - Mr. Wordsworth's earlier poems On fancy and imagination The investigation of the distinction important to the fine arts.

I HAVE wandered from the object in view, but as I fancied to myself readers who would respect the feelings that had tempted me from the main road; so I dare calculate on not a few, who will warmly sympathize with them. At present it will be sufficient for my purpose, if I have proved 5 that Mr. Southey's writings no more than my own, furnished the original occasion to this fiction of a new school of poetry, and of clamours against its supposed founders and proselytes.

As little do I believe that Mr. Wordsworth's Lyrical Bal- 10 lads were in themselves the cause I speak exclusively of the two volumes so entitled. A careful and repeated examination of these confirms me in the belief, that the omission of less than a hundred lines would have precluded ninetenths of the criticism on this work. I hazard this declara- 15 tion, however, on the supposition, that the reader had taken it up, as he would have done any other collection of poems purporting to derive their subjects or interests from the incidents of domestic or ordinary life, intermingled with higher strains of meditation which the poet utters in his own per- 20 son and character; with the proviso, that they were perused

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without knowledge of, or reference to, the author's peculiar opinions, and that the reader had not had his attention previously directed to those peculiarities. In these, as was actually the case with Mr. Southey's earlier works, the lines 5 and passages which might have offended the general taste, would have been considered as mere inequalities, and attributed to inattention, not to perversity of judgment. The men of business who had passed their lives chiefly in cities, and who might therefore be expected to derive the highest 10 pleasure from acute notices of men and manners conveyed in easy, yet correct and pointed language; and all those who, reading but little poetry, are most stimulated with that species of it which seems most distant from prose, would probably have passed by the volumes altogether. Others 15 more catholic in their taste, and yet habituated to be most pleased when most excited, would have contented themselves with deciding, that the author had been successful in proportion to the elevation of his style and subject. Not a few, perhaps, might by their admiration of the Lines writ20 ten near Tintern Abbey, Lines left upon a Seat in a Yewtree, The Old Cumberland Beggar, and Ruth, have been gradually led to peruse with kindred feeling, The Brothers, the Hart-leap Well, and whatever other poems in that collection may be described as holding a middle place between 25 those written in the highest and those in the humblest style; as for instance between the Tintern Abbey and The Thorn, or the Simon Lee. Should their taste submit to no further change, and still remain unreconciled to the colloquial phrases, or the imitations of them, that are, more or less, 30 scattered through the class last mentioned; yet even from the small number of the latter, they would have deemed