imagination, though it has been utterly wanting in some of our greatest poets,-in Wordsworth and Coleridge, as well as in Milton. It is commonly and perhaps correctly said to be the gift of a gloomy rather than of a cheerful temperament; and no doubt the humour which breaks through the clouds is the most enlarging and enriching :—

The richest mirth, the richest sadness too,
Stands from a groundwork of its opposite;
For these extremes upon the way to meet
Take a wide sweep of Nature, gathering in
Harvests of sundry seasons.'

This was not Southey's kind; but his had a charm of its own. Much of it belonged to his daily life, and it was often out of this that it found its way into his poetry. His life was a singular combination of gaiety with steady industry and laborious research. Some trivial incident occurred, and his fireside was enlivened by verses like those which follow1, almost conversational in their easy pleasantry :

Inscription for a Coffee-pot.

'A golden medal was voted to me

By a certain Royal Society.

'Twas not a thing at which to scoff,

For fifty guineas were the cost thereof.

On the one side the head of the King you might see,

And on the other was Mercury.

But I was scant of worldly riches,

And moreover the Mercury had no breeches.

So, thinking of honour and utility too,

And having modesty also in view,

I sold the medal,-why should I not?

And with the money which for it got

I purchased this silver coffee-pot;

Which I trust my son will 'preserve with care,

To be handed down from heir to heir.

These verses are engraven here,

That the truth of the matter may appear;

And I hope the Society will be so wise
As in future to dress their Mercuries.'

As to the place and rank to be assigned to Southey amongst the poetic souls of our literature, the time has hardly yet arrived for 1 I was at his fireside when they were written, and took a copy of them.

forming a judgment. 'Do not ask yourself,' he says in a letter to Ebenezer Elliot, 'what are the causes of the failure or success of your contemporaries; their failure or success is not determined yet; a generation, an age, a century, will not suffice to determine it'.' This is a truth to which past history will be found to testify. We read now with astonishment the opinion which Dryden, evidently conscious that he was flying in the face of prevailing sentiments, ventured to express, towards the end of the seventeenth century, about two poets who had written in the beginning of it: -For my own part, I consider Shakespeare equal to Ben Jonson, if not superior?

Southey's belief in his own posthumous renown has led some persons to call him conceited. In his youth he was sanguine and presumptuous; in his after-life sanguine and confident; at no time of life was he ever vain. He took great delight in his own works. Why should he not? Wordsworth once spoke to me of the value he had himself attached to ethical poetry as possibly excessive, but not on that account to be found fault with ; inasmuch as it had given encouragement and animation to his endeavours. Southey in a letter to Grosvenor Bedford (Feb. 12, 1809) says,—' Young lady never felt more desirous to see herself in a new ball-dress than I do to see my own performances in print. There are a

great many philosophical reasons for this fancy of mine, and one of the best of all reasons is, that I hold it good to make everything a pleasure which it is possible to make so.' And in a letter to me (April 13, 1829) twenty years later, he illustrates the same principle by a story of a Spaniard he had known who 'always put on his spectacles when he was about to eat cherries, that they might look the bigger and more tempting.'

He was not in the habit of guarding himself against misconstruction. Except on rare occasions, such as Lord Byron's invectives in the Press or those of Mr. W. Smith in the House of Commons,—he left his character to take care of itself. He had a high opinion, especially in his earlier years, of his powers. He believed too in the high and permanent place which some portion of his work would take in the literature of his country. Such expectations are probably indulged by many young poets who make no mention of it. As abstinence is easier than moderation, and egoism in soliloquy than outspoken egoism, so is it not seldom the 1 Life and Letters, vol. iv. Jan. 30, 1819.

refuge of the weak. And whether the aspirants be weak or strong, their aspirations are not ignoble, and their hopes make them happy. If they succeed, the world is the better; if they fail, it is

no worse.

Whatever tendency to excess there may have been on Southey's part in the estimate of his own works will be found to prevail quite as much in his estimate of the works of his friends, or indeed of many other works, old and new, which he approved and admired. In a letter to me of Oct. 1829, he writes,-'A greater poet than Wordsworth there never has been nor ever will be.' And if he expected for himself a larger measure of attention from posterity than may now seem likely to be accorded him, it should be remembered, that though as long as his mind lasted he 'lived laborious days' for the sake of his family and of others whom, in the generosity of his heart, he helped to support, yet all the labours of all the days did not enable him to do more than make preparations for the three great works which it was the object and ambition of his life to accomplish.

Of what he did accomplish, a portion will not soon be forgotten. There were greater poets in his generation, and there were men of a deeper and more far-reaching philosophic faculty; but take him for all in all, his ardent and genial piety, his moral strength, the magnitude and variety of his powers, the field which he covered in literature, and the beauty of his life,-it may be said of him, justly and with no straining of the truth, that of all his contemporaries he was the greatest MAN.

HENRY TAYLOR.

FROM 'RODERICK.'

[The King is in disguise on his final mission to exterminate the Moors.]

On foot they came,

Chieftains and men alike; the Oaken Cross,
Triumphant borne on high, precedes their march,
And broad and bright the argent banner shone.
Roderick, who dealing death from side to side,
Had through the Moorish army now made way,
Beheld it flash, and judging well what aid
Approach'd, with sudden impulse that way rode,
To tell of what had pass'd, . . lest in the strife
They should engage with Julian's men, and mar
The mighty consummation. One ran on
To meet him fleet of foot, and having given
His tale to this swift messenger, the Goth
Halted awhile to let Orelio breathe.
Siverian, quoth Pelayo, if mine eyes

Deceive me not, yon horse, whose reeking sides
Are red with slaughter, is the same on whom

The apostate Orpas in his vauntery

Wont to parade the streets of Cordoba.

But thou shouldst know him best; regard him well:
Is 't not Orelio?

Either it is he,

The old man replied, or one so like to him,
Whom all thought matchless, that similitude
Would be the greater wonder. But behold,
What man is he who in that disarray
Doth with such power and majesty bestride
The noble steed, as if he felt himself
In his own proper seat? Look how he leans
To cherish him; and how the gallant horse
Curves up his stately neck, and bends his head,
As if again to court that gentle touch,

And answer to the voice which praises him.
Can it be Maccabee? rejoin'd the King,

Or are the secret wishes of my soul

Indeed fulfill'd, and hath the grave given up

Its dead?... So saying, on the old man he turn'd
Eyes full of wide astonishment, which told
The incipient thought that for incredible
He spake no farther. But enough had past;
For old Siverian started at the words

Like one who sees a spectre, and exclaim'd,
Blind that I was to know him not till now!
My Master, O my Master!

He meantime

With easy pace moved on to meet their march.
King, to Pelayo he began, this day
By means scarce less than miracle, thy throne
Is stablish'd, and the wrongs of Spain revenged.
Orpas the accursed, upon yonder field
Lies ready for the ravens. By the Moors
Treacherously slain, Count Julian will be found
Before Saint Peter's altar; unto him

Grace was vouchsafed; and by that holy power
Which at Visonia from the Primate's hand
Of his own proper act to me was given,
Unworthy as I am, . . yet sure I think
Not without mystery, as the event hath shown, .
Did I accept Count Julian's penitence,
And reconcile the dying man to Heaven.
Beside him hath his daughter fallen asleep;
Deal honourably with his remains, and let

One grave with Christian rites receive them both.
Is it not written that as falls the Tree

So it shall lie?

In this and all things else,

Pelayo answered, looking wistfully

Upon the Goth, thy pleasure shall be done.

Then Roderick saw that he was known, and turn'd

His head away in silence. But the old man

Laid hold upon his bridle, and look'd up
In his master's face, weeping and silently.
Thereat the Goth with fervent pressure took
His hand, and bending down toward him, said,