SOUTHEY'S LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE. * THIS last volume of Southey's Life

and Letters commences with 1829, when he had reached his fifty-fifth year ; and closes with his death in 1843, at the age of sixty-eight. The original let- ters are as readable as ever, and the original narrative is pro- bably more interesting, as Mr. Cuthbert Southey is now speaking from his own personal recollections ; but the volume is on the whole the least attractive of the six. The matter of the letters is less various, and generally speaking less interesting, than in the previous volumes ; perhaps the treatment has less spirit and viva- city, as if the disease which finally overpowered the writer's mind were already in action though latent, and occasionally induced a flagging in voluntary work. There is also the saddening feeling which almost inevitably attends upon long life from separation and deaths, if from no other cause. One or two of Southey's daughters had married ; his surviving son left home for college • and though these changes were all in the regular course of life, 6outhey's re- cluse habits, and the distance at which he resided from his friends, rendered these blanks in his household more felt than they might have been had he mixed in society, or been thrown into the bustle of active life. At sixty, a heavier affliction overtook him. Mrs. Southey's health and spirits had been giving way for some time, but in 1834 she was no longer herself. She was removed to an asylum at York, with fluctuating hopes of restoration. After some months her state improved sufficiently to allow of her return home ; and for nearly three years her husband had to bear the weight of seeing her, though harmless, almost unconscious of any- thing save the actual present, and latterly, it would seem, not clear- ly comprehending that.

The blow struck him, not only as it would strike any one of common sensibility, but in a peculiar way. Although poverty in a literal sense could not be predicated of Southey, yet his means

• The Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey. Edited by his Son, the Rev. Charles Cuthbert Southey, M.A., Curate of Plumbland, Cumberland. In six volumes. Vol. VI. Published by Longman and Co.

were straitened. An insurance on his life nearly absorbed his laureateship and pension. His writings, though well paid for, ac- cording to literary pay, rarely became popular—that is, popular like Scott's or Byron s, or like those of persons who have the knack of hitting the temporary taste ; nor had they the steady sale of Campbell's. The demand for them, too, fell off latterly ; and the copyright of one of the most popular, the Life of Nelson, had, we believe, passed away from the author. For many years the Quar- terly Review was his chief reliance ; nor was it till he reached sixty that he ever had a year's income in advance. The shock of his wife's derangement with its effect upon his health, the domestic care which it threw upon him, and perhaps a presentiment of a similar affliction impending over himself, startled him into anxiety that he never felt in the buoyancy of youth or the strength of manhood. He began to entertain fears lest the power of hte- rary exertion should fail him, and that his family should be re- duced to distress. At this crisis, Sir Robert Peel, with that won- derful faculty which he had of moving with the occasion, stepped forward to his relief. In this as in some other cases, it was rather the lucky time than the well-understood mode that is remarkable,— unless Peel had heard of Southey's position, and the offer of the baronetcy was rather an opportunity of enabling him to speak, than made with a view of being accepted. The passage relates to an important part of Southey's biography ; and it has an interest from its display of Peel. The style of his letters is sometimes ver- bally inelegant, like that of a man who has not time to pick words or revise what he had written. But the letters display a hearty and earnest appreciation of literature, not always shown by Minis- ters with greater literary pretence. They show, too, theprinciple on which Peel would have administered the fund destined by Par- liament for the encouragement of literature and science. His suc- cessors have been less discriminating or more unscrupulous. ” One morning, shortly after the letters had arrived, he called me into his study. You will be surprised,' he said, to hear that Sir Robert Peel has recommended me to the King for the distinction of a baronetcy,- and you will probably feel some disappointment when I tell you that I shall not ac- cept it, and this more on your account than on my own. I think, however, that you will be satisfied I do so for good and wise reasons' ; and he then read to me the following letters, and his reply to them.

"'SIR ROBERT PEEL TO R. f3011THEY, ESQ.

' Whitehall Gardens, Feb. 1, 1835. " My dear Sir—I have offered a recommendation to the King, (the first of the kind which I have offered,) which, although it concerns you person- ally, concerns also high public interests, so important as to dispense with the necessity on my part of that previous reference to individual feelings and wishes which in an ordinary case I should have been bound to make. I have advised the King to adorn the distinction of baronetage with a name the most eminent in literature, and which has claims to respect and honour which literature alone can never confer.

" The King has most cordially approved of my proposal to his Majesty ; and I do hope that, however indifferent you may be personally to a com.pli- meat of this kind—however trifling it is when compared with the real titles to fame which you have established,—I do hope that you will permit a mark of royal favour to be conferred in your person upon the illustrious commu- nity of which you are the head. "'Believe me, my dear Sir, with the sincerest esteemum,BER most p faithfully yours, "This was accompanied with another letter marked private.

"'SIR ROBERT PEEL TO R. SOUTHEY, ESQ.

". • Whitehall, Feb. 1, 1835. " My dear Sir—I am sure, when there can be no doubt as to the purity of the motive and intention, there can be no reason for seeking indirect channels of communication in preference to direct ones. Will you tell me, without reserve, whether the possession of power puts within my reach the means of doing anything which can be serviceable or acceptable to you,- and whether you will allow me to find some compensation for the many heavy sacrifices which office imposes upon me, in the opportunity of marking my gratitude as a public man for the eminent services you have rendered, not only to literature but to the higher interests of virtue and religion ? "'I write hastily, and perhaps abruptly, but I write to one to whom I feel it would be almost unbecoming to address elaborate and ceremonious ex- pressions, and who will prefer to receive the-declaration of friendly inten- tions in the simplest language. "'Believe me, my dear Sir, with true respect, most faithfully yours, "'ROBERT 'ROBERT PZEL.

" P.S. I believe your daughter is married to a clergyman of Freat worth ; and perhaps I cannot more effectually promote the object of this letter than by attempting to improve his professional situation. You cannot gratify me more than by writing to me with the same unreserve with which I have written to you.' " ROBERT SOUTHEY, ESQ., TO SIR ROBERT PEEL.

" Keswick, Feb. 3, 1835.

"'Dear Sir—No communications have ever surprised me so much as those which I have this day the honour of receiving from you. I may truly say, also, that none have ever gratified me more, though they make me feel how difficult it is to serve any one who is out of the way of fortune. An unre- served statement of my condition will be the fittest and most respectful reply.

" have a pension of 2001., conferred upon me through the good offices of my old friend and benefactor Charles W. Wynn, when Lord Grenville went out of office ; and I have the Laureateship. The salary of the latter

was immediately appropriated, as far as it went, to a life insurance for 30001. This, with an earlier insurance for 10001., is the whole provision that I have made for my family ; and what remains of the pension after the annual pay- ments are made is the whole of my certain income all beyond must be de- rived from my own industry. Writing for a livelihood, a livelihood is all that I have gained; for having also something better in view, and therefore never having courted popularity nor written for the mere sake of gain, it has not been possible for me to lay by anything. Last year, for the first time in my life,. I was provided with a year's expenditure beforehand. This ex- position might suffice to show how utterly unbecoming and unwise it would be to accept the rank, which so greatly to my honour, you have solicited for Inc, and which his Majesty would so graciously have conferred. But the tone of your letter encourages me to say more. " 'My life insurances have incrfts.d in value. With these, the produce of my library, my papers, and a posthumous edition of my works, there will probably be 12,000/. for my family at my decease. Good fortune, with great exertions on the part of my surviving friends, might possibly extend this to 15,0001. • beyond which I do not dream of any further possibility. I had bequeathed the whole to my wife, to be divided ultimately between our four children; having thus provided for them, no man could-have-been-more contented with his lot, nor more thankful to that Providence on whose espe- cial blessing he knew than he was constantly, and as it were immediately, . dependent for his daily bread. " But the confidence which used to feel in-myself is now failing. I was young, in health and heart, on my last birthday; when I tompletaimy sixtieth year. Since then I have been shaken at the roott- djt bath pleased God to visit me with the severest of all domestic afflictions, those alone ex- cepted into which guilt enters.' My wife, a true helpmate as ever man was blessed with, lost her senses a few months ego: She is now in a-lunatic asy- . him ; and broken sleep, and-anxious thoughts,.-from which there is no escape Mahe nightseason, have made me feel how more than possible it is that a 'sudden stroke may deprive mo of those- faculties by the exercise of which this poor family has hitherto been supported. Even in .the event of my death, their condition would, by our recent calamity, be materially altered for the worse ; but if I were rendered helpless, all our available meanswould procure only a respite from actual distress. " tinder these circumstances, your letter, Sir, would in other times have encouraged me to ask for such an increase of pension as might relieve me from anxiety on.this score. Now that lay sinecures are in fact abolished; there is no other way by which a man can be served, who has no profession wherein • to be promoted, and whom' any official situation would take from the only employment for which the studies and the habits of forty years haveqish- - fled him. This way, I. am aware, is not now to be thought of, unless it were .practicable as part of a plan for the encouragement of literature; but to such ..a plan perhaps these times might not be unfavourable.

"'The length of this communication would require an apology if its sub- , stance could have been compressed ; but on such an occasion it seemed a .:- duty to say what I have said ; nor, indeed, should I deserve the kindness ...which you have expressed, if I did not. explicitly declare how thankful I ,.should be to profit by it. "'I have the honour to remain, with the sincerest respect, your most

faithful and obliged servant, ROBERT SO1TTHET.' "Young as 1 then was, I--could not without tears hear him read, with .,his deep and faltering none, 'wise refusal . and touching expression of .those feelings and.fears be had never before given utterance to, to any of his own family.. And if any feelings of regret occasionally come over-my mind that he did not accept the proffered honour, which, so acquired and so con- ferred, any man might justly be proud to have inherited, the remembrance at what a time and under what circumstances it was offered, and the feeling - what a mockery honours of that kind would have been to a family so afflicted, and, I may add, how unsuitable they would be to my own position and very -straitened means, make me quickly feel how justly he judged and how

prudently he acted." No immediate answer was made to -this communication; though Southey understood. from two " authentic sources " that as soon as it was in Peel's power, he might receive " some substantial bone- . -fit." Nearly two months later, and yet in-suspense, he writes, in

• navident hope, and- as evident anxiety—" If anything should- be , done for me,-.(which it would be equally. unwise to build upon and unjust to doubt,) though I am sure it is not easy to sit between "the two stools.".. In two days.more the suspense was.ended.

8IR HOBERT PEEL TO R. ,13OUTHEY, ESQ.

' Whitehall, April 4;1835.

• " My Ilear Sir—I have . resolved to apply the miserable. pittance at the

-Idisposul of the Crown,. on the Civil List Pension altogether to the re-

ward and encouragement of literary exertions. I do this on public-grounds; s and much more with the view of establishing a principle, than in the hope, -.!with such limited means, of-being enabled to confer any benefit upon. those .

whom I shall name to the Crown—worthy of -the Crown, or commensurate , ...with their claims.

nI have just had the satisfaction of attaching my name to a warrant which will add 3001. annually to the -amount of your existing pension. Yon will see in the position of public affairs asufficient reasonfor may having done this without delay, and.. without previous communication with you. "-I trust you can have no difficulty in sanctioning what .I have done with

your consent, as I have acted on your ownsuggestion,- and granted the pen- _Aeons on a public principle the recognition of liraryand scientific eminence

as a public claim. The other persons to whom I. have addressed myself on this subject are—Professor Airey of Cunbridge,.the,first of living mathema- s ,ticians. and astronomers, (the first ef this country-at least,) Mrs. Somerville, uSharon, lamer, and James Montgomery of Sheffield.

"Believe me, my dear Sir, inost.faidifully yours, ROBERT PEEL."

The closing -years of .Southey's life are briefly described, but touchingly. His disorder-was rather decay.than derangement of .the mind. At the outset he displayed less clearness of think- ing and vivacity of discourse, and took less interest in subjects, more like aanan-- who ,was tired ; his. memory of recent events began to fail, and he lost his way in familiar places. Even as the i disease deepened it was-rather lassitude-than aberration.

" Much of my father's failure in its early. -stages was at first ascribed by -.Ahem anxiously watching-him to repeated attacks of the - influenza, at that

time a prevailing epidemic—from which he had suffered greatly,. and to which he attributed his own feelings of weakness : but, alas ! the weak-

lieu he felt was as much mental as bodily, (though he had cer- ....Willy declined much in bodily strength,) and after Ins return home it . , 'gradually increased. upon him. The uncertain step--.the confused manner- ts the eye once so keen and so intelligent now either wandering restlessly, or -sfixed, as it were, in blank contemplation,-all showed that the over-wrought Amnia was worn out.

.." One of• the plainest signs of this was the cessation of his accustomed ...labours : but while doing nothing, (with him how plain a proof that nothing could be done!) ho would frequently anticipate a coming period of his usual oindustry. His mind, while any spark of its reasoning powers remained, was ,busy with its old day-dreams : the _History of Portugal, the History of the ...Monastic Orders, The Doctor—all were soon to be taken in hand in ear- . nest—all completed, and new works added to these. "For a considerable time after he had ceased to compose, he took pleasure , - in reading, and the habit continued after the power of comprehension was gone. Ins dearly-prized books, indeed, were a pleasure to him almost to the ..send; and he would walk slowly round his library looking-at them, and taking them down mechanically.

"In the earlier stages of his disorder (if the term may be fitly applied to , ' tease which was not a perversion of the faculties, but their decay) he could o.still converse at time with much of his old liveliness and energy. When the mind was, as it were, set going upon some familiar subject, for a little A.tune you could not perceive much failure ; but if the thread was-broken, if :At was a conversation in which new topics were started, or if any argument an-was commenced, his powers failed-him at once, and a. painful sense of this seemed to come over him for the moment.. His recolleotion.first4ailed as to recent events, and his thoughts. appeared chiefly to dwell. upon those long ,:past; and as his mind grew weaker,: hese recollections seemed to-recede.

farther back. ,Names he could rarely remember ; and more than once, when trying to recall one which he felt he ought to know, I have seen: him press his hand upon his brow, and sadly exclaim-' Memory! memory! where art -thou gone ?

"But this failure ,altogether was so gradual, and at the same time so com- plete, that I. am inclined to hope and believe there was not on the whole much painful consciousness of it ; and oertainlyfor more than a year _pre- ceding his death, he passed his time as in a-dream, with-little if .any know-

ledge of. what went on around him. • * *

" In some eases of this kind, towards the end some glimmering of -reason reappears ; -but thia.must be when the mind is obscured or upset, not, as in this case, apparently worn out. The .body gradually grew weaker, and dis- orders.appeared which the state of the. patient rendered it almostimpossible to treat properly.; and, after a short attack. f fever, the Beene closed, on the 21st of .March 1813; and a second time had we cause to feel deeply thankful, when the change from life to death; or more truly, fromdeath to- I/lei-took -place."