16 DECEMBER 1916, Page 10

SOUTHEY AND A PREMATURE PEACE.

[To THE EDITOR or THE " SPECTATOR."] 8m, Does any one read Southey now ? I confess I do not, but in Ward's English Poets I came across his " Ode Written during the Negotiations with Buonaparte in Januaiy, 1814," and was much struck with its applicability to the present time. I quote a few lines, but the whole poem is worth referring to :-

" Who• counsels peace at this tremendous hour, When God bath given deliverance to the oppressed, And to the injured, power?

_ Who counsels peace, when vengeance like a flood Rolls on, no longer now to be repressed; When innocent blood from the four corners of the world cries out For justice upon one accursed head? "