by his own fireside; but that any human being, | Jew, delivered over to the secular arm after a after having made such a joke, should write it relapse. down, and copy it out, and transmit it to the We have always heard, and fully believe, printer, and correct the proof-sheets, and send that Mr. Southey is a very amiable and huit furth into the world, is enough to make us mane man; nor do we intend to apply to him ashamed of our species.

personally any of the remarks which we have The extraordinary bitterness of spirit which made on the spirit of his writings. Such are Mr. Southey manifests towards his opponents the caprices of human nature. Even Uncle is, no doubt, in a great measure to be attri-Toby troubled himseif very little about the buted to the manner in which he forms his opi- French grenadiers who fell on the glacis of nions. Differences of taste, it has often been Namur. And when Mr. Southey takes up his remarked, produce greater exasperation than pen, he changes his nature as much as Capdifferences on points of science. But this is tain Shandy when he girt on his sword. The not all. A peculiar austerity marks almost only opponents to whom he gives quarter are all Mr. Southey's judgments of men and ac- those in whom he finds something of his own tions. We are far from blaming him for fix- character reflected. He seenis to have an ining on a high standard of morals, and for stinctive antipathy for calm, moderate menapplying that standard to every case. But for men who shun extremes, and who render rigour ought to be accompanied by discern- reasons. He has treated Mr. Owen of Lanark, ment, and of discernment Mr. Southey seems for example, with infinitely more respect than to be utterly destitute. His mode of judging he has shown to Mr. Hallam or to Dr. Lin. is monkish; it is exactly what we should ex- gard; and this for no reason than we can dispect from a stern old Benedictine, who had cover except that Mr. Owen is more unreabeen preserved from many ordinary frailties sonably and hopelessly in the wrong than any by the restraints of his situation. No man speculator of our time. out of a cloister ever wrote about love, for ex- Mr. Southey's political system is just what ample, so coldly and at the same time so we might expect from a man who regards pogrossly. His descriptions of it are just what litics, not as a matter of science, but as a matwe should hear from a recluse, who knew the ter of taste and feeling. All his schemes of passion only from the details of the confes government have been inconsistent with themsional. Almost all his heroes make love selves. In his youth he was a republican; either like seraphim or like cattle. He seems yet, as he tells us in his preface to these Colto have no notion of any thing between the loquies, he was even then opposed to the CaPlatonic passion of the Glendoveer, who gazes tholic claims. He is now a violent Ultrawith rapture on his mistress's leprosy, and the Tory. Yet while he maintains, with vehemence brutal appetite of Arvalan and Roderick. In approaching to ferocity, all the sterner and Roderick, indeed, the two characters are united. harsher parts of the Ultra-Tory theory of goHe is first all clay, and then all spirit, he goes vernment, the baser and dirtier part of that forth a Tarquin, and comes back too ethereal theory disgusts him. Exclusion, persecution, to be married. The only love-scene, as far as severe punishments for libellers and demawe can recollect, in Madoc, consists of the gogues, proscriptions, massacres, civil war, if delicate attentions which a savage, who has necessary, rather than any concession to a drunk too much of the Prince's metheglin, discontented people—these are the measures offers to Goervyl. It would be the labour of a which he seems inclined to recommend. A week to find, in all the vast mass of Mr. Sou- severe and gloomy tyranny, crushing opposithey's poetry, a single passage indicating any tion, silencing remonstrance, drilling the minds sympathy with those feelings which have con- of the people into unreasoning obedience, has secrated the shades of Vaucluse and the rocks in it something of grandeur which delights his of Meillerie.

imagination. But there is nothing fine in the Indeed, if we except some very pleasing shabby tricks and jobs of office. And Mr. images of paternal tenderness and filial duty, Southey, accordingly, has no toleration for there is scarcely any thing soft or humane in them. When a democrat, he did not perceive Mr. Southey's poetry. What theologians call that his system led logically, and would have the spiritual sins are his cardinal virtues-led practically, to the removal of religious dishatred, pride, and the insatiable thirst of ven- tinctions. He now commits a similar error. geance. These passions he disguises under He renounces the abject and paltry part of the the name of duties; he purifies them from the creed of his party, without perceiving that it is alloy of vulgar interests; he ennobles them by also an essential part of that creed. He would uniting them with energy, fortitude, and a have tyranny and purity together; though the severe sanctity of manners, and then holds most superficial observation might have shown them up to the admiration of mankind. This him that there can be no tyranny with ut coris the spirit of Thalaba, of Ladurlad, of Ado- ruption. sinda, of Roderick after bis regeneration. It is It is high time, however, that we shou'd pro. the spirit which, in all his writings, Mr. Sou- ceed to the consideration of the work, which is they appears to effect. “I do well to be angry,” our more immediate subject, and which, in. seems to be the predominant feeling of his deed, illustrates in almost every page our mind. Almost the only mark of charity which general remarks on Mr. Southey's writings. he vouchsafes to his opponents is to pray for In the preface, we are informed that the authur, their conversion, and this he does in terms not notwithstanding some statements to the con unlike those in which we can imagine a Por- trary, was always opposed to the Catholic: tuguese priest interceding with Heaven for al claims. We fully believe this; both because

a

we are sure that Mr. Southey is incapable of is, and why he comes. The ghost turns out to publishing a deliberate falsehood, and because be Sir Thomas More. The traces of martyr. his averment is in itself probable. It is ex- dom, it seems, are worn in the other world, as actly what we should have expected that, even stars and ribands are worn in this. Sir Thomas in his wildest paroxysms of democratic enthu- shows the poet a red streak round his neck, siasm, Mr. Southey would have felt no wish to brighter than a ruby, and informs him that see a simple remedy applied to a great practical Cranmer wears a suit of flames Paradise, evil; that the only measure, which all the great the right-hand glove, we suppose, of peculiar statesmen of two generations have agreed with brilliancy. each other in supporting, would be the only Sir Thomas pays but a short visit on this measure which Mr. Southey would have agreed occasion, but promises to cultivate the new with himself in opposing. He had passed acquaintance which he has formed, and, after from one extreme of political opinion to an- begging that his visit may be kept secret from other, as Satan in Milton went round the globe, Mrs. Southey, vanishes into air. contriving constantly to “ ride with darkness.” The rest of the book consists of conversa. Wherever the thickest shadow of the night tions between Mr. Southey and the spirit about may at any moment chance to fall, there is trade, currency, Catholic emancipation, peri. Mr. Southey. It is not everybody who could odical literature, female nunneries, butchers, have so dexterously avoided blundering on the snuff, book-stalls, and a hundred other subjects. daylight in the course of a journey to the anti- Mr. Southey very hospitably takes an opportupodes.

nity to lionize the ghost round the lakes, and Mr. Southey has not been fortunate in the directs his attention to the most beautiful points plan of any of his fictitious narratives. But he of view. Why a spirit was to be evoked for has never failed so conspicuously as in the the purpose of talking over such matiers, and work before us; except, indeed, in the wretched seeing such sights, when the vicar of the parish, Vision of Judgment. In November, 1817, it a blue-stocking from London, or an American, seems, the laureate was sitting over his news such as Mr. Southey supposed his aërial paper, and meditating about the death of the visiter to be, might not have done as well, we Princess Charlotte. An elderly person, of are unable to conceive. Sir Thomas tells very dignified aspect, makes his appearance, Mr. Southey nothing about future events, and announces himself as a stranger from a dis- indeed absolutely disclaims the gift of pretant country, and apologizes very politely for science. He has learned to talk modern English: not having provided himself with letters of in- he has read all the new publications, and loves troduction. Mr. Southey supposes his visiter a jest as well as when he jested with the executo be some American gentleman, who has tioner, though we cannot say that the quality come to see the lakes and the lake-poets, and of his wit has materially improved in Paradise. accordingly proceeds to perform, with that His powers of reasoning, too, are by no means grace which only long experience can give, in as great vigour as when he sate on the wool. all the duties which authors owe to starers. sack; and though he boasts that he is “divested He assures his guest that some of the most of all those passions which cloud the intellects agreeable visits which he has received have and warp the understandings of men,” we been from Americans, and that he knows men think him, we must confess, far less stoical among them whose talents and virtues would than formerly. As to revelations, he tells Mr. do honour to any country. In passing, we may Southey at the outset to expect none from him. observe, to the honour of Mr. Southey, that, The laureate expresses some doubts, which though he evidently has no liking for the Ame- assuredly will not raise him in the opinion of rican institutions, he never speaks of the people our modern millenarians, as to the divine auof the United States with that pitiful affectation thority of the Apocalypse. But the ghost preof contempt, by which some members of his serves an impenetrable silence. As far as we party have done more than wars or tariffs can do remember, only one hint about the employto excite mutual enmity between two communi- ments of disembodied spirits escapes him. He ties formed for mutual friendship. Great as the encourages Mr. Southey to hope that there is a faults of his mind are, paltry spite like this has Paradise Press, at which all the valuable pubno place in it. Indeed, it is scarcely conceiv- lications of Mr. Murray and Mr. Colburn are able that a man of his sensibility and his ima- reprinted as regularly as at Philadelphia ; and gination should look without pleasure and delicately insinuates, that Thalaba and the national pride on the vigorous and splendid Curse of Kehama are among the number. youth of a great people, whose veins are filled What a contrast does this absurd fiction prewith our blood, whose minds are nourished sent to those charming narratives which Plato with our literature, and on whom is entailed and Cicero prefix to their dialogues! What the rich inheritance of our civilization, our cost in machinery, yet what poverty of effect! freedom, and our glory.

A ghost brought in to say what any man might But we must now return to Mr. Southey's study have said ! The glorised spirit of a great at Keswick. The visiter informs the hospitable statesman and philosopher dawdling, like a poet that he is not an American, but a spirit. bilious old nabob at a watering-place, over Mr. Southey, with more frankness than civility, quarterly reviews and novels, dropping in to tells hiri that he is a very queer one. The pay long calls, making excursions in search stranger holds out his hand. It has neither of the picturesque! The scene of St. George weight nor substance. Mr. Southey upon this and St. Denys in the Pucelle is hardly more lecomes more serious; his hair stands on end: ridiculous. We know what Voltaire meant. and ne adjures the spectre to tell him what he Nobody, however, can shippose that Mr

Southey means to make game of the mysteries with special favour on a soldier. He seeras of a higher state of existence. The fact is, highly to approve of the sentiment of General that in the work before us, in the Vision of Meadows, who swore that a grenadier was the Judgment, and in some of his other pieces, his highest character in this world or in the next; mode of treating the most solemn subjects and assures us, that a virtuous soldier is placed differs from that of open scoffers, only as the in the situation which most tends to his inn. extravagant representations of sacred persons provement, and will most promote his eternal and things in some grotesque Italian paintings interests. Human blood, indeed, is by no differ from the caricatures which Carlisle ex- means an object of so much loathing to Mr. poses in the front of his shop. We interpret Southey, as the hides and paunches of cattle. the particular act by the general character. In 1814, he poured forth poetical maledictions What in the window of a convicted blasphe- on all who talked of peace with Bonaparte. mer we call blasphemous, we call only absurd He went over the field of Waterloo, a field, be. and ill-judged in an altar-piece.

neath which twenty thousand of the sloutest We now come to the conversations which hearts that ever beat are mouldering, and came pass between Mr. Southey and Sir Thomas back in an ecstasy, which he mistook for poetMore, or rather between two Southeys equally ical inspiration. In most of his poems, partieloquent, eqnally angry, equally unreasonable, cularly in his best poem, Roderick, and in most and equally given to talking about what they of his prose works, particularly in The History do not understand. Perhaps we could not se- of the Peninsular War, he shows a delight in lect a better instance of the spirit which per- snuffing up carnage, which would not have vades the whole book than the discussion misbecome a Scandinavian bard, but which Iching butchers. These persons are repre- sometimes seems to harmonize ill with the Įted as castaways, as men whose employ- Christian morality. We do not, however,

ent hebetates the faculties and hardens the blame Mr. Southey for exulting, even a little heart. Not that the poet has any scruples ferociously, in the brave deeds of his country. about the use of animal food. He acknow- men, or for finding something “comely and ledges that it is for the good of the animals reviving" in the bloody vengeance inflicted by themselves that men should feed upon them. an oppressed people on its oppressors. Now, “Nevertheless,” says he, “I cannot but ac- surely, if we find that a man whose business is knowledge, like good old John Fox, that the to kill Frenchmen may be humane, we may sight of a slaughter-house or shambles, if it hope that means may be found to render a does not disturb this clear conviction, excites man humane whose business is to kill sheep. in me uneasiness and pain, as well as loathing. If the brutalizing effect of such scenes as the And that they produce a worse effect upon the storm of St. Sebastian may be counteracted, persons employed in them, is a fact acknow. we may hope that in a Christian Utopia, some ledged by the law or custom which excludes minds might be proof against the kennels and such persons from sitting on juries upon cases dresses of Aldgate. Mr. Southey's feeling, of life and death."

however, is easily explained. A butcher's This is a fair specimen of Mr. Southey's knife is by no means so elegant as a sabre, mode of looking at all moral questions. Here and a calf does not bleed with half the grace is a body of men engaged in an employment, of a poor wounded hussar. which, by his own account, is beneficial, not It is in the same manner that Mr. Southey only to mankind, but to the very creatures on appears to have formed his opinions of the whom we feed. Yet he represents them as manufacturing system.

There is nothing men who are necessarily reprobates, as men which he hates so bitterly. It is, according to who must necessarily be reprobates, even in him, a system more tyrannical than that of the the most improved state of society, even, to feudal ages, a system of actual servitude, a use his own phrase, in a Christián Utopia. system which destroys the bodies and de. And what reasons are given for a judgment so grades the minds of those who are engaged directly opposed to every principle of sound in it. He expresses a hope that the competiand manly morality? Merely this, that he can- tion of other nations may drive us out of the not abide the sight of their apparatus; that, field ; that our foreign trade may decline, and from certain peculiar associations, he is that we may thus enjoy a restoration of naaffected with disgust when he passes by their tional sanity and strength. But he seems to shops. He gives, indeed, another reason; a think that the extermination of the whole macertain law or custom, which never existed but nufacturing population would be a blessing, in the imaginations of old women, and which, if the evil could be removed in no other way. if it had existed, would have proved just as Mr. Southey does not bring forward a single much against butchers as the ancient preju- fact in support of these views, and, as it seems dice against the practice of taking interest for to us, there are facts which lead to a very money proves against the merchants of Eng. different conclusion. In the first place, the land.' is a surgeon a castaway! We believe poor-rate is very decidedly lower in the manu that nurses, when they instruct children in that facturing than in the agricultural distric's. venerable law or custom which Mr. Southey if Mr. Southey will look over the Parliamentso highly approves, generally join the surgeon ary returns on this subject, he will nnd that the to the butcher. A dissecting-room would, we amount of parish relief required by the la. should think, affect the nerves of most people bourers in the different counties of England, as much as a butcher's shambles. But the is almost exactly in inverse purportion to the most amusing circumstance is, that Mr. degree in which the manufacloring system Southey, who detests a butcher, should look has been introduced into those counties. The

returns for the year ending in March, 1825, “ We remained a while in silence, looking and in March, 1828, are now before us. In upon the assemblage of dwellings below. the former year, we find the poor-rates highest Here, and in the adjoining hamlet of Millbeck, in Sussex-about 20s. to every inhabitant. the effects of manufactures and of agriculture Then come Buckinghamshire, Essex, Suffolk, may be seen and compared. The old coitages Bedfordshire, Huntingdonshire, Kent and Nor- are such as the poet and the painter equally folk. In all these the rate is above 158. a head. delight in beholding. Substantially built of We will not go through the whole. Even in the native stone without mortar, dirtied with Westmoreland, and the North Riding of York- no white lime, and their long, low roofs covered shire, the rate is at more than 88. In Cumber- with slate ; if they had been raised by the land and Monmouthshire, the most fortunate magic of some indigenous Amphion's music, of all the agricultural districts, it is at 6s. the materials could not have adjusted themBut in the West Riding of Yorkshire, it is as selves more beautifully in accord with the low as 5s.; and when we come to Lancashire, surrounding scene; and time has still further we find it at 48.-one-fifth of what it is in Sussex. harmonized them with weather-stains, lichens, The returns of the year ending in March, 1828, and moss, short grasses, and short fern, and are a little, and but a little, more unfavourable to stone-plants of various kinds.

The ornathe manufacturing districts. Lancashire, even mented chimneys, round or square, less adornin that season of distress, required a smallered than those which, like little turrets, crest poor-rate than any other district, and little the houses of the Portuguese peasantry : and more than one-fourth of the poor-rate raised yet not less happily suited to their place, the in Sussex. Cumberland alone, of the agricul- hedge of clipt hox beneath the windows, the tural districts, was as well off as the West rose bushes beside the door, the little patch of Riding of Yorkshire. These facts seem to in- flower ground, with its tall hollyhock's in dicate that the manufacturer is both in a more front; the garden beside, the bee-hives, and comfortable and in a less dependent situation the orchard with its bank of daffodils and than the agricultural labourer.

snow-drops, the earliest and the profusest in As 10 the effect of the manufacturing system these parts, indicate in the owners some poron the bodily health, we must beg leave to tion of ease and leisure, some regard to neatestimate it by a standard far too low and vul- ness and comfort, some sense of natural, and gar for a mind so imaginative as that of Mr. innocent, and healthful enjoyment. The new Southey, the proportion of births and deaths. cottages of the manufacturers are upon the We know that, during the growth of this manufacturing pattern-naked, and in a row. atrocious system, this new misery, (we use “How is it, said I, that every thing which is the phrase of Mr. Southey,) this new enormity, connected with manufactures presents such this birth of an portentous age, this pest, which features of unqualified deformity ? From the no man can approve whose heart is not seared, largest of Mammon's temples down to the or whose understanding has not been darkened, poorest hovel in which his helotry are stalled, there has been a great diminution of mortality, these edifices have all one character. Time and that this diminution has been greater in will not mellow them; nature will never clothe the manufacturing towns than anywhere else. nor conceal them; and they will remain al. The mortality still is, as it always was, greater ways as offensive to the eye as to the mind.” in towns than in the country. But the differ- Here is wisdom. Here are the principles ence has diminished in an extraordinary de- on which nations are to be governed. Rose gree. There is the best reason to believe, that bushes and poor-rates, rather than steam-enthe annual mortality of Manchester, about the gines and independence. Mortality and coto middle of the last century, was one in twenty- tages with weather-stains, rather than health eight. It is now reckoned at one in forty-five. and long life with edifices which time cannot In Glasgow and Leeds a similar improvement mellow. We are told, that our age has in. has taken place. Nay, the rate of mortality vented atrocities beyond the imagination of in those three great capitals of the manufac- our fathers; that society has been brought into turing districts, is now considerably less than a sta:e, compared with which extermination it was fifty years ago over England and Wales would be a blessing; and all because the taken together, open country and all. We dwellings of cotton-spinners are naked and might with some plausibility maintain, that the rectangular. Mr. Southey has found out a people live longer because they are better fed, way, he tells us, in which the effects of manubetter lodged, better clothed, and better attend- factures and agriculture may be compared. ed in sickness; and that these improvements And what is this way? To stand on a hill, to are owing to that increase of national wealth look at a cottage and a manufactory, and to which the manufacturing system has produced. see which is the prettier. Does Mr. Southey

Much more might be said on this subject. think that the body of the English peasantry But to what end? It is not from bills of mor- live, or ever lived, in substantial and orna. tality and statistical tables that Mr. Southey mented cottages, with box hedges, flower gar. has learned his political creed. He cannot dens, bee-hives, and orchards? If not, what is : loop lo study the history of the system which his parallel worth? We despise those filoso he abuses, to strike the balance between the fastri, who think that they serve the cause of good and evil which it has produced, to com- science by depreciating literature and the fine paie district with district, or generation with arts. But if anything could excuse their nargeneration. We will give his own reason for rowness of mind, it would be such a book as his opinion, the only reason which he gives this. It is not strange that when one enthusifor il, in his own words:

ast makes the picturesque the test of political

good, another should feel inclined to proscribe creditor. Every man who sells goods for any altogether the pleasures of taste and imagina- thing but ready money, runs the risk of finding tion.

that what he considered as part of his wealih Thus it is that Mr. Southey reasons about one day, is nothing at all the next day. Mr. matters with which he thinks himself perfectly Southey refers to the picture-galleries of Hol. conversant. We cannot, therefore, be surprised land. The pictures were undoubtedly real and w find that he commits extraordinary blunders tangible possessions. But surely it might hapwhen lie writes on points of which he acknow- pen that a burgomaster might owe a picture. ledges himself to be ignorant. He confesses that dealer a thousand guilders for a Teniers. he is not versed in political economy, that he has What in this case corresponds to our paperneither liking nor aptitude for it; and he then money is not the picture, which is tangible, proceeds to read the public a lecture concern- but the claim of the picture-dealer on his cus. ing it, which fully bears out his confession. tomer for the price of the picture, which is not

“ All wealth," says Sir Thomas More, " in tangible. Now, would not the picture-dealer former times was tangible. It consisted in consider this claim as part of his wealth? land, money, or chattels, which were either of Would not a tradesman who knew of it give real or conventional value."

credit to the picture-dealer the more readily on Montesinos, as Mr. Southey somewhat affect- account of it? The burgomaster might be edly calls himself, answers:

ruined. If so, would not those consequences "Jewels, for example, and pictures, as in follow which, as Mr. Southey tells us, were Holland, where indeed at one time tulip bulbs never heard of till paper-money came into use? answered the same purpose.”

Yesterday this claim was worth a thousand " That bubble,” says Sir Thomas, “was one guilders. To-day what is it? The shadow of of those contagious insanities to which com- a shade. inunities are subject. All wealth was real, till It is true, that the more readily claims of the extent of commerce rendered a paper cur- this sort are transferred from hand to hand, the rency necessary; which differed from precious more extensive will be the injury produced by stores and pictures in this important point, a single failure. The laws of all nations sancthat there was no limit to its production.” tion, in certain cases, the transfer of rights not

“We regard it,” says Montesinos, “ as the yet reduced into possession. Mr. Southey representative of real wealth, and, therefore, would scarcely wish, we should think, that all limited always to the amount of what it repre- endorsements of bills and notes should be desents."

clared invalid. Yet even if this were done, the “Pursue that notion," answers the ghost, transfer of claims would imperceptibly take "and you will be in the dark presently. Your place to a very great extent. When the baker provincial bank-notes, which constituie almost trusts the butcher, for example, he is in fact, wholly the circulating medium of certain dis- though not in form, trusting the butcher's custricts, pass current to-day. To-morrow, tidings tomers. A man who owes large bills to tradesmay come that the house which issued them men, and fails to pay them, almost always prohas stopped payment, and what do they repre- duces distress through a very wide circle of sent then? You will find them the shadow of people whom he never dealt with. a shade."

In short, what Mr. Southey takes for a differWe scarcely know at which end to begin to ence in kind, is only a difference of form and disentangle this knot of absurdities. We might degree. In every society men have claims on ask why it should be a greater proof of insanity the property of others. In every society there in men to set a high value on rare tulips than on is a possibility that some deblors may not be rare stones, which are neither more useful nor able to fulfil their obligations. In every sociemore beautiful? We might ask how it can be ty, therefore, there is wealth which is not tansaid that there is no limit to the production of gible, and which may become the shadow of a paper-money, when a man is hanged if he shade. issues any in the name of another, and is forced Mr. Southey then proceeds to a dissertation to cash what he issues in his own ? But Mr. on the national debt, which he considers in a Southey's error lies deeper still. “All wealth,” new and most consolatory light, as a clear adsays he, “was tangible and real, till paper cur- dition to the income of the country. rency was introduced.” Now, was there ever, “ You can understand,” says Sir Thomas, since man emerged from a state of utter bar- “ that it constitutes a great part of the national barism, an age in which there were no debts? wealth." Is not a debt, wliile the solvency of the debtor “So large a part," answers Montesinos, “thar is undoubted, always reckoned as part of the the interest amounted, during the prosperous wealth of the creditor! Yet is it tangible and time of agriculture, to as much as the rental real wealth? Does it cease to be wealth, be- of all the land in Great Britain; and at present caose there is the security of a written acknow- to the rental of all lands, all houses, and all ledgment for it? And what else is paper cur- other fixed property put together.” rency? Did Mr. Sonthey ever read a bank- The ghost and the laureate agree that it is note? If he did, he would see that it is a writ- very desirable that there should be so secure len acknowledgment of a deot, and a promise and advantageous a deposit for wealth as the to pay that debt. The promise may be violated, funds afford. Sir Thomas then proceeds: the debt may remain unpaid, those to whom it “Another and far more momentous henelli was due may suffer: but this is a risk not con- must not be overlooked: the expenditure of an fined to cases of paper currency; it is a risk annual interest, equalling, as you have stareil, inseparable from the relation of debtor and the present rentai of all fixed property."

Vol. I.-14