CORRESPONDENCE OF MANY YEARS WITH THE LATE ROBERT SOUTHEY, ESQ., AND ORIGINAL LETTERS FROM SIR WALTER SCOTT, COMPILED AND EDITED BY J. W. ROBBERDS, F.G.S., OF NORWICH. IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. I. LONDON: JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET. PREFACE. THIS Memoir was originally undertaken with the design of prefixing it to a new edition of Mr. Taylor's "English Synonyms Discriminated;" but the materials were found too extensive and important to be compressed within such limits. Unseen and almost unknown, he exercised an influence over the public mind of this country, the effects of which are still progressively developing. It was by him that the vast stores of German literature were first laid open before us, and he first infused into our periodical criticism that new spirit which has rendered it the guide of intellect and the ruler of opinion. To show the working of these impulses, to do justice to his philological studies, and to display the varied erudition and bright |