260 SOUTHEY VISITS THE WEST. Taunton, on his way to Bristol, where he had not been for twenty years. Having once more gazed upon the scenes of his childhood, the love of which still kindled in his bosom the fire of fancy and of poetry, he returned home, impatient to resume the quiet tenor of his life. THE ENDOWMENT OF LITERATURE. 261 CHAPTER XXI. Lord Brougham and the Endowment of Literature- Southey's Opinions on the Subject-Character of Education - Observance of the Sabbath-Reform Bill and the Conservatives— Dr. Bell-Professorship of Humanity, Glasgow-Essays, Moral and Political - The Doctor-Its Publication-Marriage of his eldest Daughter-Illness of his Wife-State of Southey's Feelings. ETAT. 57-61. DURING this tour Southey was not a little surprised to receive a letter from Lord Brougham. After commenting upon the neglected state of literature in this country, and acknowledging the justice of the censure. that lay against the Government for not having done more for its encouragement, his lordship proposed the two following questions, which contain the tenor of his letter for Southey's consideration. First. Whether or not letters will gain by the more avowed and active encouragement of the Government? Secondly. In what way that encouragement can be most safely and beneficially given ? 262 QUESTIONS CONSIDERED. The danger to be guarded against under the first head would naturally be the undue influence of Government, which, without very stringent regulations, could easily wield such a fund for its own political purposes, and against the liberties of the country. Under the second head was to be suggested the means whether, for instance, pecuniary assistance, the encouragement of societies, the judicious foundations of prizes, a more extended distribution of honours, or an order of merit, would be most calculated to produce the desired result. Southey, in his reply, began by taking a view of the pecuniary prospects of literature and literary men. He suggested that there were works of national importance which might be undertaken by the Government, but which private enterprise could never accomplish. He instanced, for example, the formation of an Entymological Dictionary, which naturally lay without the scope of individual speculation. He hints that literature might gain much by assistance devoted to such a cause, but the nation still more. The arguments which follow this are tinged with his own peculiar feelings, and founded upon an ill-judged opinion of his fellow-labourers in the field of literature. His political opinions or prejudices are unfortunately too strong to suffer him to weigh the matter in an equal balance, and he proceeds upon the exploded notion, that virtue rarely dwells with the needy. He presumes that liberal principles spring from poverty, and exist only amongst the poor; that a man might be kept virtuous, that is, free from mischief, by a timely encouragement; and that many clung solely to the popular cause because they were necessitous. In this reasoning Southey has confounded poverty and crime, and it is obvious that such an object in the encouragement of learning and learned men, "to withhold them from mischief," would be to corrupt, if not to destroy, truth-the great end and object of all inquiry. The letter further suggests, by way "not of retaining such persons to act as pamphleteers and journalists, but of preventing them from becoming such in hostility to the established order of things," a kind of academy, with salaries (in the nature of literary or lay benefices). A yearly grant of 10,000l. might endow ten appointments of 500l. each for the elder class, and twenty-five of 2001. each for the younger men.* Southey, however, disclaims all idea of honours for literary men. In the case of scientific men he finds a plea in precedent. Newton and Davy were knighted. He cannot, however, conceive it possible that a man of letters can find any accession of pleasure in the distinction of an honorary title and the acquisition of a bloody hand on his escutcheon. All that he demands is an alteration in the law of copyright as it then existed. Having given this opinion, by no means favourable to literary encouragement, unless upon the principle that it is necessary * See an amusing developement of a similar idea in a novel recently published, entitled "The Fortunes of Francis Croft." 264 A DIFFICULT QUESTION. to "purchase up" the silence and submission of opposition, the subject was pursued no further, and it was left to the late Sir Robert Peel to take the initiative in befriending the literature of his country. Southey's views upon the necessity and importance of education were frequently urged in his different writings and publications. He always advocated an extensive system, and never more fully than in a letter to his friend, the Rev. Neville White. In this letter he justly complains of an education that ends almost where it begins, teaching the children nothing, and sending them out into the world with misconceptions of their actual condition. In such instances he declares it to be an injury rather than a good, an evil springing out of the misapplication of the principle rather than the principle itself. He demands, that if there be an education it should be universal; and that it is just, it is the only safeguard to civil security, that there should be an equality of instruction. The difficult question that presented itself to his mind, however, was, how to make the religious instruction which children received at school of more effect, and how to deal with children of a very tender age. In the first case, he perceives the evil of children being taken from school before their manners are formed. In the second, he is afraid to act, lést we interfere too much with the duties and the privileges of the parents. Yet he laments the consequences of the alternative of non-interference, being convinced that |