ROBERT SOUTHEY'S AND MRS. SOUTHEY'S ROBIN HOOD AND MISCELLANEOUS POEMS.

NEARLY twenty-five years ago, the late Robert Southey suggested to Mrs. Southey, then Caroline Bowles, a joint poem on the subject of Robin Hood; the "battle-scenes and such like" to be done by Southey, and Miss Bowles to take " the women, and children, and forest." Time metre chosen was that of Malabo. The view of "Jollye Robin" was some- thing similar to that of Ritson, a theory advanced in Southey:s youth, when it was most likely to make an impression ; and the hero was to have been a lord of romance. The poem was begun, but various hinderanoes prevented its completion, and it seems never to have gut further than a couple of scenes or acts : the first, by Southey, narrating the marriage of Robin's father, the death of his mother in giving him birth, the conse- quent melancholy of the widower, and his departure far the Holy Land as a crusader; while Mrs. Southey wrote a very charming picture of the infancy and early youth of the future outlaw, while under the care of his nurse and the family chaplain. On the scale before us, the whole poem of Robin Hood would have been of interminable length ; and, though we are very glad to have the fragment, we can scarcely regret that it was not completed.

The truth is, that neither Southey nor Mrs. Southey was adapted to

the theme. All would be done that could be done by knowledge, obser- vation, and poetical genius, not of the loftiest or most comprehensive kind, and rather descriptive than dramatic : but this does not suffice. In- stinct as well as art is required to handle the subject of Robin Hood, and

an instinct in which there has been a strong infusion of John Barleycorn and similar creature comforts. If the reader is prepared to allow more human qualities to the soul, and to consider intellect as an abstract part of it, less passionate, less excitable, and less gross, but colder and less genial, then we can describe our meaning by saying that Sou- they's genius was essentially an intellect. He wanted that quick and passionate sympathy by which the actor and the true poet enter into their subject so as to form one with it. Southey only looked at it; if it were living, as an observer—if dead, as a scholar. His judgment enabled bim to select what was characteristic and striking ; he had the literary skill to present it in a style distinct and picturesque, if be might in poetry want the words that burn the breathing thought into the reader; he lacked not knowledge or fertility of invention to construct a story that should embody his matter in a likely form : but the whole was rather like tapestry than life. This was always felt ; but in remote subjects like Madoc or Thalaba it was not as plainly perceived as it would have been in a subject so thoroughly English as Robin Hood.

Yet the fragment is remarkable ; especially as affording such a com- plete view of Soutbey's workmanship, and of the manner in which Mrs. Southey wrote up to him, though with more tenderness in the domestic scenes, less mastery of the peculiar (and inappropriate) metre, but we think with greater freshness. Southey's grief on the bereavement of Fitzhood is not very pathetic ; but his processions of the funeral and the cavalcade going forth to the crusade are pictures conceived in knowledge both of books and human character. One of the followers is the mere soldier in his essence.

"Look now at Reginald I There is no heaviness upon his brow; No sorrow in that reckless eye; No trouble in that sensual countenance; No bodings in that hard and hollow heart; He, when he breaks awayfrom natural ties, Not more obstruction feels Than what, upon a still autumnal day, The stag perceives upon his antler'd crest

From threads of gossamer,

That spread and float along the tangled sky;

Even the parental tears that fell for him Will presently be dried. Reginald leaves no loves; Bears with him no regret— No fond remembrance, and no sad presage;

Nor doth one generous hope, Nor one religious aspiration, stir

Within his worthless breast:

For he unto himself is all in all.

So he may find his fill Of animal content, He cares not where or how: As little it imports How, where, or when the inevitable hour May overtake him, nor if worms at home, Sea sharks, or Syrian dogs, Jackalls and vultures, share their fitting prey."

The Miscellaneous Poems offer nothing remarkable on the part of Southey, unless it be a little descriptive piece on March, the fragment of a "Calendar," in which he and Mrs. Southey were to have written the months alternately, and which she is quite competent to execute alone. aural poetry, where description of scenery alternates with some tale of humble life, is indeed her forte ; and there are some very striking speci- mens of this class in the volume. If there is not always the force of Crabbe, there is all his fidelity, with a refinement, a delicacy, and a feminine tenderness, which were not in Crabbe's nature. The subject of "The Murder Glen" is the punishment of murder and an adulterous in- tercourse between a son and his young stepmother, as shown in their wretched lives, and the birth of an idiot, who forms one main source of quarrel; topics of a very questionable kind, yet so handled by Mrs. Southey as to bring out all that is useful and all that is human in the subject, without anything exaggerated, canting, or offensive. "The Young Grey Head " is the tale of a little cottage girl, whose hair turned

"white

In a single night,"

from her anxious sense of responsibility as having the care of a still smaller sister, when both were benighted and her charge drowned in a flood. " Walter and William " is a story of an old quarrel between bro- thers shadowing the life of the otherwise happy yeoman, till the supposed dead wanderer is rescued from a snow-storm. "The Evening Walk " is a descriptive poem, in which rustic life is interwoven. In each, the cha- racters, incideuts, and landscapes, are thoroughly natural and thoroughly English. There may be a shade more of virtue, and we certainly think of resigned content, than generally obtains amongst our bold peasantry ; but not more than the purposes of art require; and probably the representa- tion is true of the Northern counties, whence Mrs. Southey has drawn her pictures. What can be truer than the following little bit from the com- mencement of "The Evening Walk" P It might be sworn to in its literal verities, yet its poetical spirit removes it from either literalness or narrow-

ness.

" My lonely ramble yester eve I took,

Along that pleasant path that by the brook (Skirting its flowery margin) winds away

Through fields all fragrant now with new-mown hay.

I could not choose but linger as I went, A willing idler; with a child's content, Gathering the wild-flowers, on that streamlet's edge, Spared by the mower's scithe; a fringing ledge

Of spiky purple; epilobium tall, Veronicas, and cup-like corona

Ofgolden crowsfoot waving meadow-sweet, And wilding rose, that dipp'd the stream to meet.

" And that small brook, so shallow and so clear: The mother-ewe, without a mother's fear, Led her young lamb from off the shelving brink, ruin in the midway stream to stand and drink.

'Twas pleasant, as it dipped and gazed, to see

Its wonder at the watery. mimicry;

As here and there, the ripple glancing by,

Imaged an up-drawn foUt, a round black eye, Wide staring; and a nose, to meet his own That Beetled advanCing from below. Anon, From the dark hollow of a little cove, By an old oak-root, richly groin'd above'

Where lay the gather'd waters still ancideep,

A vaulted well: e'en thence there seems to peep A round white staring face, that starts away i As he himself starts back in quick dismay.

Again advancing, with a bolder stare, He butts defiance. Lo! it meets him there, And answers threat with threat. He stands at bay, Perplex'd; and ripe for warfare or for play. Who had not loiter d, gazed, and smiled like me, Pleased with the pretty wanton's antic glee; And cried, 0, Nature!' from a thankful heart, ' How graceful and how beautiful thou art!' "