BOOKS.

SOUTHEY'S LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE.*

THE life of Southey was uneventful; its very occurrences derive their colour from his opinions rather than from the nature of the acts, though circumstances have given much publicity to the leading incidents. Ifs early views on politics and religion, and the enthusiasm with which he urged them, excited the hostility of the Pitt Tories ; the attacks of the Antijacabin giving to his early career a celebrity it would not have attained by itself. When years and experience cooledhis enthusiasm and altered his views, and he became linked with men who attacked his old opinions and some of his old associates with a coarseness and fury which were wrongfully attributed to him, he roused the anger of Whigs and Radicals, as he had formerly done that of their opponents. His life was then assailed for the wide extremes of opinion between blot Tykratid the Vision of Judgment or similar strains of loyalty. His quarrels with Byron and the " Satanic School" exposed him to the satirical attacks to Don Juan and the Liberal; and their poetical form embalmed his life and characteristics in a more enduring shape than the political assaults, unless it were the jeux d'esprit of Canning. Hence, the novelty of Southey's biography must be inner rather than outer, and must reter to thoughts rather than deeds. In this point of view it is worth a full exposition; fur, independently of his literary eminence, Southey was the head of a class. If Pope set the first example of emancipation from patronage or place, showing that the time had come when a man of genius might reap a sufficient peen. nary reward by his works,—and if Goldsmith was the first who really addressed the people,—Southey was the original of the modern littera- tear, who follows authorship as a regular profession, and holds the pen of a "ready writer." Writers, indeed, existed before his time, who were ready enough to undertake anything that was offered to them; but they neither brought knowledge to their labour, nor exercised it conscientiously, nor were able to live by their wits, at least respectably. In all these points Southey was the reverse ; fur although he had resources apart from literature, (his pension, his salary as Laureate, and, in the outset, 1601. a year allowed him by his schoolfellow Mr. C. W. W. Wynn,) yet he had family claims upon him through life, and his income from his own labours was sufficient for respectable subsistence.

It is desirable to have a full account of the thoughts of such a man, and the gradual changes they underwent. It is also well to be able to trace the acquisition of his knowledge; the economy of time, and the steady industry, by which so much was prepared for and written ; the influence that years and outward events exercised upon his opinions and his productions. Whether six full-sized and closely-printed volumes may not partake a little of the "ne quid nimia," will be better told when greater progress is made with the work. As regards the correspondence in the volume before us, the book would have been improved by a somewhat more vigorous excision ; by the omission of mere expressions of opinion, or of minor details in reference to other people. Asyet, how- ever, the extraneous or unimportant matter is leas than might have been imagined.

Nearly a half of the volume is occupied by a family history and auto- biography, by Southey himself. It was begun in the year In% when the writer was six-and-forty, and was addressed in a series of seventeen letters to his friend John May. It brings down the writer's life and reminiscences to the age of' fifteen, just before he had to leave Westmin- ster School for a severe jeu d'esprit on flogging, which Dr. Vincent, the head master, took to himself. Bat this part contains something more than the writer's autobiography. The family history is told at a length rather disproportioned to its interest. The dwellings with the furniture of his parents and immediate relations are described in a style which par- takes of the minutely garrulous. The picture of his own feelings, his mind and its progress, the sketches of the various characters in his own family and at sohool, are fuller of interest. Even the foreign matters and family genealogy contribute with the biography to form a picture of middle-class life and society such as it existed sixty or seventy years ago; although not altogether free from the using-up habit of the profes- sional litterateur, and not devoid of the " longueurs ' which Byron attri- buted to " Bob Southey."

The second half of the volume relates to Southey's life from the age of fifteen to twenty-fire,-and consists of his correspondence for the period embraced, with a connecting narrative by his son. Its principal topics are Southey's career at college, his rejection of the church from conscien- tious motives, his struggling uncertainty in regard to a profession, the scheme of Pantisocracy, his literary projects in conjunction with Cole-

ridge and others, and the composition of Joan of Arc and Madee, with many of his minor poems. To this period also belong his first marriage, his journey to Spain and Portugal, his appearance before the world as an author, his unsuccessful to study for the bar, his final with- drawal from law and London, and his commencement of literature as the fixed pursuit of his life, in his twenty-fifth year.

The facts about Pantisocracy are pretty well known from Mr. Cottle's

interesting Reminiscences of Coleridge; the history of Southey's epic and other poems have been told by himself in the prefaces to his collected edition ; much incidental information about the whole of this period may also be gleaned from various memoirs and the letters of Southey that have been published. The interest of this part lies lees in the narrative of the facts than in the pictures of mind and character. To his intimate friends, especially to Mr. Bedford of the Exchequer, Southey pours out Himself fully upon all subjects, whether publics or personal, with feelings as enthusiastic as might be supposed from a projector of a society where property should be in common, and literature; science, virtue, and what

• The Ltfe and Correspondence of Robert Southey. Edited by his Son, the Reverend

ChaNea Cuthbert Southey. ALA., Curate of Plumbland, Cumberland. In six Volumes. Plaishedly Longman end Co. not, cultivated by all its members, alternately with the cultivation of the earth, . His style partakes of his feelings. It is verbose, with a touch of the schoolboy or "freshman," sometimes occupied in turning and point- ing periods, sometimes deelamatorial, and giving little promise of the so- lidity it afterwards attained, though there is its easy flow. Much of this raw character, however, passed away with his teens; and the call to express his opinions to others left him too. In 1798, when in his twenty-fourth year, he writes thus to Mr. Wynn. a 'Yon call me lazy for not writing: is it not the same with you? Do you feel the same inclination for filling a folio sheet now, as when in '90 and '91 we wrote to each other so fully and so frequently ? The inclination is gone from me. I have nothing to communicate—no new feelings—no new opinions. We move no longer in the same circles, and no longer see things in the same point of view. I never now write a long letter to those who think with me,—it is useless to express what they also feel; and as for reasoning with those who differ from me, I have never seen any good result from argument. I write not in the best of spirits; my mother's state of health depresses me,—the more so as I have to make her cheer- ful. Edith is likewise very unwell; indeed, so declining as to make me somewhat apprehensive for the future. A few months will determine all these uncertainties,

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sad Rerhaps change my' views in life, or rather destroy them. This is the first time that I have expressed the feelings that often will rise. Take no notice of them when you write.' "

It is probable, however, that his health had something to do with his greater epistolary reticence : anxiety, mental exertion, and a seden- tary life, had begun to produce their usual effects ; and the volume closes with medical advice and a partial suspension of his literary labours.

The correspondence exhibits some weaknesses of character, which more or less accompanied the author through life; but it also bears witness to his honesty of purpose and motive. He declined the church, in which he bad fair prospects, of family consequence to him, because he could not subscribe the Articles. Similar feelings threw him upon the world to find his own bread and that of others as he could ; while, though not de- void of enthusiasm in politics and social philosophy, it was, though a youthful, a reasoning, not a headstrong enthusiasm. The critic could see the errors of people on his own side; and it does not seem that his Christianity was ever altogether shaken, though he held a singular kind of Socinianism.

The sterling firmness and honesty of Southey were shown in his mar- riage. The family of Miss Pricker was not in original standing equal to his own, and reverses had overtaken them. Her position is known by the lordly personality of one of Byron's couplets : when his aunt Tyler was made acquainted with his plans of emigration and marriage, she turned him out of doors, on a wet autumn night, leaving him to walk home, a distance of nine miles. His uncle Hill, the Chaplain at Lisbon, who had supported him at Oxford after his father's failure, was milder, and more politic : he offered to take him to Portugal for a few months.

"Mr. Hill's object in this was partly to take him out of the arena of political discussion into which he had thrown himself by his lectures, and bring bins round to more moderate views and also to wean him if possible from what he considered an 'imprudent attachment.' In the former object he partly succeeded; in at- tempting to gain the latter, he had not understood my father's character. He was too deeply and sincerely attached to the object of his choice to be lightly turned from it ; and the similarity of her worldly circumstances to his own would have made him consider it doubly dishonourable even to postpone the fulfilment of his engagement.

"When the day was fixed for the travellers to depart, my father fixed that also for his wedding-day; and on the 14th of November 1795, was united at Radclift Church, Bristol, to Edith Fricker. Immediately after the ceremony they parted. My mother wore her wedding-ring hung round her neck, and preserved her maiden name until the report of the marriage had spread abroad. The following letters will explain these circumstances, and fin up the interval until his return.

To Grosvenor C. Bedford, Esq.

" Nov. 21, 1795, Nan Swithin, near St. Columba " Grosvenor, what should that necromancer deserve who could transpose our souls for half an hour, and make each the inhabitant of the other's tenement? There are so many curious avenues in mine, and so many closets in yours, of which you have never sent me the key. "'Here I am, in a huge and handsome mansion, not a finer room in the county of Cornwall than the one in which I write; and yet have I been silent, and retired into the secret cell of my own heart. This day week, Bedford ! There is a some- thing in the bare name that is now mine, that wakens sentiments I know not how to describe: never did man stand at the altar with such strange feelings as I did. Can you, Grosvenor, by any effort of imagination shadow out my emotion? • . . . She returned the pressure of my hand, and we parted in silence.—Zotiuds ! what have I to do with supper !' "

And again he writes to his friend Cottle.

"To Joseph Cottle, Esq.

"Falmouth, 1795. "My dear Friend—I have learnt from Lord the news from Bristol, public as well as private, and both of an interesting nature. My marriage is become pub- lic. You know my only motive for wishing it otherwise, and must know that its publicity can give me no concern. I have done my duty. Perhaps you may hardly think my motives for marrying at that time sufficiently strong. One, and that to me of great weight, I believe was never mentioned to you. There might have arisen feelings of an unpleasant nature at the idea of receiving sup- port from one not legally a husband; and (do not show this to Edith) should I perish by shipwreck, or any other casualty, I have relations whose prejudices would then yield to the anguish of affection, and who would love, cherish, and yield all possible consolation to my widow. Of such an evil there is but a possi-

bility: but against possibility it was my duty to guard "Farewell. Yours sincerely, ROBERT SOUTHEY."

We will close the present notice with a few gleanings from what after all is the most interesting part of the volume—the autobiography. This was the state of female education and middle-class morals some eighty years ago.

" Female education was not much regarded in her [his mother's) childhood.

The ladies who kept boarding-schools in those days did not consider it necessary to Possess any other knowledge themselves than that of ornamental needlework. Two sisters, who had been mistresses of the most fashionable school in Hereford- shire, fifty years ago, used to say when they spoke of a former pupil, 'Her went to school to we ': and the mistress of which, some ten years later, was thought the best school near Bristol, (where Mrs. Siddone sent her daughter,) spoke, to my perfect recollection, much such English as this. My mo- ther, I believe, never went to any but a dancing-school, and her state was the more gracious. But her half-sister, Miss Tyler, was placed at one in the neighbourhood under a Mrs. —, whom I mention because her history is cha- racteristic of those tames. Her husband carried on the agreeable business of a butcher in Bristol, while she managed a 'school for young ladies about a mile out of the town. His business would not necessarily have disqualified her for this occupation, (though it would be no recommendation,) Kirke White's mother, a truly admirable woman, being in this respect just under like circumstances. But Mrs. — might, with more propriety, have been a black- smith's wife; as, in that case, Vulcan might have served for a type of her husband in his fate, but not in the complacency with which he submitted to it, horns sit- ting as easily on his head as upon the beasts which he slaughtered. She was a handsome woman, and her children were, like the liarleian Miscellany[ by different authors. This was notorious; yet her school flourished notwithstanding, and she retired from it at last with a competent fortune, and was visited as long as she lived by her former pupils. This may serve to show a great improvement in the morals of middle life."

The following is Southey's reminiscence of hie dancing-days, and his dancing-master, a man of the name of Walters.

"That poor man was for three years the plague of my life, and I was the plague of his. In some unhappy mood lie prevailed en my mother to let me learn to dance; persuading himself as well as her, that I should do credit to his teach- ing. It must have been for my sins that he formed this opinion: in an evil hour for himself and for me was it formed; he would have had much less trouble in teaching a bear, and far better success. I do not remember that I set out with any dislike or contempt of dancing; but the unconquerable incapacity which it was soon evident that I possessed, produced both, and the more he laboured to correct an incorrigible awkwardness, the more awkwardly of course I performed. I verily believe the fiddlestick was applied as much to my head as to the fiddle-strings when I was called out. But the rascal had a worse way than that of punishing me. He would take my hands in his, and lead me down a dance; and then the villain would apply his thumb-nail against the flat surface of mine, in the middle, and press it till he left the mark there: this species of torture I suppose to have been his own invention ; and so intolerable it was, that at last whenever he had recourse to it I kicked his shins. Luckily for me he got into a scrape by beating a boy unmercifully at another school, so that lie was afraid to carry on this sort of con- test; and, giving up at last all hope of ever making ins a votary of the Graces or of the dancing Muse, he contented himself with shaking his head and turning up his eyes in hopelessness whenever he noticed my performance."

" The child is father of the man." Southey's earliest effort at prose (he began to compose verse as early as he could remember) was the type of much of his future writing, a skilful reproduction of other people's matter.

"Sometimes, when Williams was in good humour, he suspended the usual busi- ness of the school and exercised the boys in some uncommon manner. For ex- ample, he would bid them all take their slates, and write as he should dictate. This was to try their spelling; and I remember he once began with this sentence- ' As I walked out to take the air, I met a man with red hair, who was heir to a good estate, and was carrying ahare in his hand.' Another time he called upon all of a certain standing to write a letter, each upon any subject that he pleased. You will perhaps wonder to hear that no task ever perplexed me so wofully as this. I had never in my life written a letter, except a formal one at Canton be- fore the holydays, every word of which was of the master's dictation, and which used to begin Honoured Parents.' Some of the boys produced compositions of this stamp: others, who were a little older and more ambitions, wrote in a trades- manlike style, soliciting orders, or acknowledging them, or sending in an account. For my part I actually cried for perplexity and vexation. Had I been a block- head this would have provoked Williams; but he always looked upon me with a favourable eye, and, expressing surprise rather than anger, he endeavoured both to encourage and shame me to the attempt. To work I fell at last, and presently presented him with a description of Stonehenge, in the form of a letter, which completely filled the slate. I had laid hands not long before upon the Salisbury Guide, and Stonehenge had appeared to me one of the greatest wonders in the world. The old man was exceedingly surprised, and not less delighted; and I well remember how much his astonishment surprised me, and how much I was gratified by his praise. I was not conscious of having done anything odd or ex- traordinary, bat the boys made me so; and to the sort of envy which it excited among them I was indebted for a wholesome mortification."