There is one of his smaller poems- a pleasing one, entitled the "Retrospect"-full of this kind of personal interest. It was suggested by a visit to the village of Corston, where he had spent some part of his boyhood, under the harsh tyranny of a boarding-school clouding the rightful gaiety of those blithe early years. The stern look and voice of his old teacher rise up to his memory, and the recollections of the dismal feelings of his entrance into the school :

:

"Even now, through many a long, long year, I trace

The hour when first with awe I view'd his face;

Even now recall my entrance at the dome :

'T was the first day I ever left my home!

Years intervening have not worn away

The deep remembrance of that wretched day."

But what I chiefly notice this poem for is an expression of the fine satirical power which is a trait of Southey's genius, well chastened, however, for it never tempted him into the indulgence of a vicious mockery. He is describing the interview between his parents and the proprietors of the school, and closes it with a significant allusion to the master's short-lived civility to his pupil :

"Methinks ev'n now the interview I see,-
The mistress's glad smile, the master's glee.
Much of my future happiness they said,
Much of the easy life the scholars led,
Of spacious play-ground and of wholesome air,
The best instruction and the tenderest care;
And when I follow'd to the garden door
My father, till through tears I saw no more,
How civilly they soothed my parting pain!
And never did they speak so civilly again."

Some sad feelings come over him, as after the lapse of some years he finds the spot the same, yet different, and the people estranged,—himself unknowing and unknown; but, after yielding to a momentary depression, he bids his spirit rise to worthier feelings, and closes the poem with a self-admonition, which, considering it was an effusion of his early manhood, is a fine indication of that upright manliness which has honourably characterized Southey's whole life

"Thy path is plain and straight; that light is given.
Onward in faith, and leave the rest to Heaven."

This deep, confiding spirit seems never to have deserted him. Living in one unbroken mood of faith, he carried forward with him as he grew older not only the buoyancy of boyish years, but a steadier cheerfulness, for ever brightening his own heart and his own home. In one of his

early pieces, conceived quite in the spirit of old George Herbert's poetical moralizing, and with somewhat of its sound, he touches very pleasingly on the moral discipline of his temperament :

"O reader! hast thou ever stood to see
The holly-tree?

The eye that contemplates it well perceives
Its glossy leaves,

Order'd by an intelligence so wise

As might confound the atheist's sophistries.

Below, a circling fence, its leaves are seen,
Wrinkled and keen;

No grazing cattle through their prickly round
Can reach to wound;

But, as they grow where nothing is to fear,
Smooth and unarm'd the pointless leaves appear.
"I love to view these things with curious eyes,
And moralize;

And in this wisdom of the holly-tree
Can emblems see

Wherewith perchance to make a pleasant rhyme,--
One which may profit in the after-time.

"Thus, though abroad perchance I might appear
Harsh and austere,-

To those who on my leisure would intrude,
Reserved and rude,-

Gentle at home amid my friends I'd be,
Like the high leaves upon the holly-tree.

"And should my youth (as youth is apt, I know)
Some harshness show,

All vain asperities I day by day

Would wear away,

It is a part of the history of Southey's mind, that, as he describes it, in his youth, when his stock of knowledge consisted of such an acquaintance with Greek and Roman history as is acquired in the course of a regular scholastic education, when his heart was full of poetry and romance, and Lucan and Akenside were at his tongue's end, he fell into the political opinions which the French Revolution was then scattering throughout Europe; at that time, and with those opinions—or rather feelings he wrote the dramatic piece entitled "Wat Tyler," which was so often and so reproachfully coupled with his name. It was assailed on the floor of the House of Commons as seditious, and in various ways gained a notoriety remarkable in literary history for the crude production of a boy. Written hastily in three mornings, it was never given by the author himself to publication, till recently he has placed it in the collection of his works, just as it was first printed, when a stolen copy found its way to the press. It detracts nothing from the truth of Southey's pure and high-spirited review of his long literary career, when he records an author's best pride:- "In all that I have written, whether in prose or verse, there has never been a line, which, for any compunctious reason, living or dying, I could wish to blot.” "Wat Tyler" had been written under the influences of an enthusiasm which hoped that the immutable division of society into rich and poor might be abolished. The author had taken up revolutionary notions in his youth; conscientiously he wrote what he sincerely thought and felt; and when he outgrew them they were left behind and frankly disavowed, in the same straightforward and manly spirit.

Southey's young ardent genius was busy with poetical plans as well as with schemes of political and social regeneration. He was thus hurried into the execution of his early literary day-dreams when his powers should rather have been gradually maturing by such cautious development as the genius of his illustrious model, Spenser, had prescribed to itself. Southey first made himself known as a poet by a production in the fashion of an epic poem,-his "Joan of Arc," the bold enterprise of a youth of nineteen years of age, and composed in the short space of six weeks. This poem, as Southey himself has since very candidly described it, crudely conceived, rapidly executed, rashly prefaced, and prematurely hurried to publication, was nevertheless favourably received,- -a success which, with equal candour and good sense, he attributes chiefly to adventitious circumstances. It was a work of greater pretensions than had appeared for some time, and, being composed in somewhat of a political spirit, at a period of political excitement, attracted more attention and favour than usually fall to the share of

juvenile performances. Happily no one sooner discovered its deficiencies and faults than the young poet himself; and his vigorous good sense never suffered his early success to betray him into the fatal error of supposing that it gave him a dispensation from the careful cultivation of his natural endowment and the thoughtful study of the principles of his art. One single passage in the poem I wish briefly to notice, for the sake of a coincidence illustrative of the beauty-making power of imagination. The Maid of Orleans describes the death of a loved friend and playmate of her peasant-days, closing with these lines,—

Went to the grave, a lark sprung up aloft.
And soared amid the sunshine, caroling
So full of joy, that to the mourner's ear
More mournfully than dirge or passing bell
The joyous carol came, and made us feel
That, of the multitude of beings, none
But man was wretched."

At the opening of this course of lectures I had occasion to speak of what I have often since sought to illustrate,-imaginative truth,—such truth as poetry makes manifest,-better, brighter, and purer than what we commonly see around us, and therefore designed to elevate and refine our thoughts and feelings. That the product of imagination is still truth is sometimes forced upon our conviction when actual life presents that which equals the poet's inventions. I have just referred to an incident which existed only in Southey's imagination,—the caroling of the lark over the grave of one of the imaginary beings in his early poem. At the burial of Mrs. Lockhart, the favourite child of Sir Walter Scott, precisely the same incident actually occurred,—the notes of the jocund lark heard in the air above the mournful company, and mingling with the sounds of the solemn services for the dead. That which had been seen and heard by the imaginative sense of one poet was now witnessed by the bodily senses of another. One had recorded an imagination; the other has recorded a fact; but does not every one feel that each is a record of truth, and hold unimportant that one is imaginative and the other actual? The officiating clergyman over Mrs. Lockhart's grave was that chaste and excellent poet-deserving more than this casual allusion-Milman. He has told, in some stanzas as true in feeling as in poetry, of the incident, when the "Minstrel's darling child" was placed in earth :

"O thou light-loving and melodious bird!

At every sad and solemn fall

Of mine own voice, each interval

RODERIC THE GOTH.

In the soul-elevating prayer, I heard
Thy quivering descant full and clear,
Discord not inharmonious to the ear!

I watch'd thee lessening, lessening to the sight,
Still faint and fainter winnowing

The sunshine with thy dwindling wing,-
A speck, a movement in the ruffled light,—
Till thou wert melted in the sky,

An undistinguish'd part of the bright infinity.

"Meet emblem of that lightsome spirit thou!
That still, wherever it might come,
Sheds sunshine o'er that happy home,
Her task of kindliness and gladness now,
Absolved with the element above,

297

Hath mingled, and become pure light, pure joy, pure love."

To resume the poetry of Southey: his works are remarkable for including a greater number of elaborate poems than I remember in the volumes of any other of the English poets. "Joan of Arc,” “ Madoc," Thalaba," "The Curse of Kehama," and "Roderic the Goth," are the five extended poems which Southey completed amid all his multifarious literary work. His fame would perhaps have been greater had he written less; for the estimate of his poetical character is almost distracted by these numerous works of such variety and scope, and the occurrence of passages deficient in imaginative animation has depreciated the real value of other portions of his writings, distinguished for many of the highest qualities of poetry. The least interesting of his long poems seems to me to be the poem of "Madoc," founded on the tradition of the early voyages of the Welsh to America; and its failure to win the sympathies of the reader would be very apt to discourage further acquaintance with Southey's poetry. "Roderic" is a noble heroic narrative poem, founded on a grand historical period, the downfal of the Gothic monarchy in Spain, and filled with the lofty actors in that great national drama. It is a very spirited poem, the story conducted with all the interest of a romance, and not only abounding in passages both of beauty and sublimity, but finely sustained throughout. To resort to that very inadequate mode of illustrating the character of a poem, by giving isolated quotation, how true and how beautiful a description is in such a passage as this,-one of many like it :

"The morn had risen o'ercast,

And, when the sun had reach'd the height of heaven,

Dimly his pale and beamless orb was seen

Moving through mist. A soft and gentle rain,