168

A CURE FOR SEDITION.

under which society was labouring, and periodicals of great weight and ability, and men of consummate talent and unimpeachable integrity, advocated and rendered respectable in the eyes of the world by their advocacy the principles of freedom. “The surest way to prevent seditions (if the times will bear it) is to take away the matter of them; for if there be fuel prepared, it is hard to tell whence the spark shall come that shall set it on fire."* Yet so timid was Southey, or, rather, so little foresight had he, that he would, had it been in his power, have crushed the voice of complaint with the violent enactments of legislation, and endeavoured to mould the intellect in the systematic trammels of an absolute education.

SOUTHEY'S PROSPECTS.

169

CHAPTER XIV.

Engagements-His Family-Annual Register-Quarterly Review-Life of Nelson-Applications from Literary Aspirants -James Dusatoy-Vacant Office of the Laureateship filled by Southey-Lord Byron-The Carmen Triumphale- Politics -Laureate Odes-Don Roderick, the Last of the Goths -Southey's Poetry-Wordsworth's-Immortality.

ETAT. 38-41.

THE period to which we have arrived was the busiest Southey ever knew. The chances of extricating himself from periodical writing were becoming fewer and more few, and he felt that it became his duty-no unpleasing one, so kindly are we moulded by habit and nature to the circumstances in which we are placed-to devote himself to that labour which was the most remunerative. Perhaps the engagement he held on the "Annual Register" an engagement fully consonant with his own wishes-might have reconciled him to this course of life. It is certain (although he made the two unsuccessful applications referred to in the last chapter for

170

POWERFUL FETTERS.

the stewardship of the Greenwich estates and the office of historiographer) he would only have accepted a post which gave him leisure to study and prosecute his opus magnum. This determination fettered his friends, -for though they had it in their power to raise him above a dependent position had no such reservation existed, it was without the range of their influence to confer upon him an office that would be little less than a sinecure.

A family, too, was fast springing up around him. In the endearment of a son, now six years old, who possessed a singularly beautiful and gentle disposition, he experienced all that could warm the feelings of a father. Perhaps he allowed his affections to be too firmly engrossed upon this boy. The manifestation of a bright and ready intellect, and an aptitude for study, insensibly led him to look with fond hope and fonder pride upon the rising future of this youth. His acquaintance with many families in the neighbourhood of Keswick and in the county had ripened into generous and sincere friendships, and powerfully aided in averting his mind from other pursuits, and in quietly settling his spirit to the course he now unreservedly adopted. The precariousness of his income, and a thousand little sources of anxiety and annoyance which a disposition less influenced by the philosophy of life than his would suffer to grow into corroding cares, might, had his mind been so disposed, have given him much disquietude;

but a reliance upon Providence, and a determination on his part to perform his daily duties to the utmost of his abilities, preserved in him an habitual and well-regulated cheerfulness.

His engagement with the "Annual Register" had now continued nearly three or four years, and been his principal source of income. But this, it appears, had proved an unfortunate speculation, the proprietors sustaining a loss of not less than one thousand pounds per annum. One result of this misfortune was the frequent irregularities of their remittances to Southey. As this delay caused no little embarrassment to his own affairs, he was obliged to intimate his intention of withdrawing altogether from the concern. In the "Quarterly," however, he found a channel through which to convey his sentiments to a more numerous as well as more influential class of readers, and where he could embrace a greater scope and variety of subjects, and depend upon a regular and profitable employment. this Review he therefore devoted his best powers, and had the satisfaction to find that his reputation rose higher from the articles he inserted in it than from his previous works either in poetry or prose.

To

He was also engaged upon the "Life of Nelson," and a new poem, to which he designed to give the title of Pelayo, though he eventually changed it for "Don Roderick, the last of the Goths." The "Life of Nelson,"

172

66

EVILS OF AUTHORSHIP.

which was an enlargement of one of his articles in the Quarterly," was not of his own selection. Mr. Murray had requested him to undertake the task, and he accordingly did so, although it might be reasonably thought out of his line. "However," states Southey, “I have satisfied myself in the execution far more than I could have expected to do." And on another occasion he talks of having walked among sea-terms as carefully as a cat does among crockery; of having succeeded in making the narrative continuous and clear the very reverse of what it was in the previous Lives,— and says that the materials were in themselves so full of character, so picturesque, and so sublime, that the book could not fail of being a good one. The judgment he passes upon the "Life" was fully justified by the event. Whether the subject insured its success, or the style of its execution satisfied the public taste, it proved to be one of his most popular works.

thus

66

The reputation of authorship not unfrequently entails upon a literary man the applications of a numerous body of youthful aspirants, who are eager to mount with a muse of fire the highest heaven of invention." They look to the successful and more experienced writer for approval, encouragement, and recommendation. The publication of "Kirke White's Remains" overwhelmed Southey with the production of

* No. V.