ROBERT SOUTHEY

(1774-1843)

F IT were possible to earn a place among the immortals by the force of unremitting toil, no man of letters could have a clearer claim to the distinction than Robert Southey. The vast labors of his life, seconding talents of no mean order, did indeed build for him a reputation which cannot be destroyed by time. What the author of 'Thalaba' and the Life of Nelson' accomplished, has a definite and solid value. Within his limits he did his life's work well. He was a good and faithful servant of literature: had he had more of the mastery of genius, he would have been less in bondage to his conceptions. As it was, he was fettered by the schemes for his vast epics and interminable histories. The element of drudgery dulls even the greatest of his works. He is among English men of letters as one that serveth.

His life touched at many points the lives of other noted men; yet it was ever self-contained, closed in against all passions but the one devouring passion for culture. There was a Southey who, feeling the electric currents of the revolution, dreamed of brotherhood and freedom in the forests of America: but the Southey of literary history spent his life among his thousands of beloved books in the quiet rooms of Greta Hall, content with the use and wont of the Old World; content to perform, year in and year out, the daily tasks of composition, proof-reading, and letter-writing. The poet had become the sober writer of prose; the revolutionist had become the conservative.

Robert Southey was born on the 12th of August, 1774. His father, a linen draper, being unsuccessful in his business, the care and support of the boy was partly assumed by his mother's maiden aunt, Miss Tyler, an eccentric woman, who was wise enough however to feed her charge's mind with such tales as 'Goody Two-Shoes' and the History of the Seven Champions of England'; she further trained the future poet in the way he should go, by taking him to the theatre, and by allowing him to enter into the enchanted world of Beaumont and Fletcher, and to wander along the broad human highways of Shakespeare.

He was early taken from these most beautiful and tender nurses of genius, and delivered over to schoolmasters to be "regularly"

educated. Great institutions of learning do not always know how to conduct the education of a poet. Westminster School rejected Southey after four years of nurture, because the boy wrote a sarcastic article on flogging, for the paper published by the pupils. Two enduring friendships, however, were formed at Westminster: one with Grosvenor Bedford, the other with C. W. Wynn. It was through the liberality of the latter that an annuity of £160 was for many years settled upon Southey. Through provision made by his uncle, the Rev. Mr. Hill, chaplain to the British factory at Lisbon, Southey was enabled to go to Oxford. Christ Church rejected him because of the Westminster episode, but he was received at Balliol.

In 1794 occurred an event of much importance in his life: he met Coleridge. With the mystical poet, "voyaging on strange seas of thought alone," the young Southey had much in common. They were both under the domination of the republican spirit; they had both looked to France for the dawn of the social millennium, and had beheld only the terrors of the midnight tempest. They both dreamed of a world made over nearer to the heart's desire. Coleridge had already formulated his dreams. They should go to America: there in the virgin forests they could free themselves forever from the pernicious social system of the Old World. They would live as brothers. Each would till the soil, living by the work of his own hands. Each would take with him a wife who should share the toil and the blessings. They would rear their children in innocence and peace. They would live the ideal life of study and of manual labor in the bosom of nature. Their community would be a "pantisocracy." Coleridge and Southey had friends ready and willing to make the venture,Robert Lovell, a young Quaker; Robert Allen, and George Burnett. Lovell's wife had four sisters,- Edith, Sarah, Martha, and Elizabeth Fricker. An idea prevailed among the pantisocrats that these ladies might be married off-hand, the only inducement necessary being a glowing description of the land of promise. Southey, however, had another object in marrying than the good of the new community. He loved Edith Fricker, and she returned his affection.

Nothing was lacking now to the perfect success of the scheme but money. The young enthusiasts were rich in dreams, but poor in pocket. Coleridge never had money in his life. The others, being also of the poetical temperament, could never have much of it. Southey and Coleridge began a series of lectures, the one on history, the other on ethics and politics, for the sake of raising the necessary funds. About this time Southey met Joseph Cottle, a Bristol bookseller, whose sincere friendship manifested itself in substantial forms. Two years before, in 1794, Southey had written an epic, 'Joan of Arc,' in which he had embodied his democratic fervor. Cottle bought this