Thalaba is equally colossal. We find, from the IN surveying the literary character of Southey, one is immediately struck with the magnitude of his undertakings with the vast scale on which his operations are conducted. The dramas, epics, romances, histories, novels, biographies, poems, and books of all descriptions which he at different times projected, it is beyond our power and our space to enumerate. But these designs, though far more numerous than any one life, though extended to patriarchal limits, could have accomplished, were yet not the dreams of a mere projector: he had the daily untiring industry which works out the scheme, as well as the bold facility which designs it. What he really has accomplished it takes away our breath to contemplate. But such was the manner of our artist. His work did not grow up, from small and timid commencements, into a work, as it were, entirely from within. magnitude which afterwards surprised In all they write, they are uttering the author himself. It was already themselves. Honey and wax, whatan epic in twenty books before a line ever they store, or build with, it is all was written. He delighted in a large their own: it has all passed through canvass; and, give him but daylight some quite personal process of elaboenough, it should every inch of it be ration. Southey was one of those filled. Whilst he was still finishing who appropriate materials from all the groups of one picture, he had sides, and materials ready for use; already drawn the outline of another his eye delighted in great propor It follows from this description of his style and manner of composition, that he was not one of those poets who dwell with intense interest on some one portion of their own personal experience, or some one aspect of human life that has almost exclusively attracted them. Such poets The Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey. Edited by his Son, the Rev. CHARLES CUTHBERT SOUTHEY. tions; he must have the forest and the quarry put at his disposal; and if there should be timber at hand already hewn, or blocks of stone from some overthrown temple, he knows how to take and apply them to his purpose. He is not the enamoured sculptor who is satisfied if in one beautiful figure he can carve out his own ideal; nor would one group suffice, or one niche in the temple, to occupy the labours of his hand and his heart. He must be architect and sculptor both; he must have a hundred niches, and a hundred pinnacles, to fill and to adorn with his statuary. Nor does repetition of the same figure displease him. In such a man you do not expect to find a Praxiteles. It is not a Medicean Venus, it is rather a cathedral of Milan that he dreams of creating. Southey loved great designs, and many of them-he liked the large book-and from this it followed also that he demanded of his readers large share of their time and patience. This confident claim to the prolonged attention of the reader becomes noticeable as a kindred peculiarity of his mind, growing partly out of a confident temper, and partly from the manner in which he prosecuted his art. Prolixity was his besetting sin-prolixity of detail, prolixity of style. On this rock the vessel of his fame has touched. Will it go down? Will it sink in the mighty waters of oblivion? If so, it is the most costly treasure that has yet enriched the deep. Oblivion will grow very wealthy if such a freight as this can be claimed as its due; and very rich, indeed, must that literature be which can afford to lose such a poem as Roderick. Prophecies, literary as well as political, are dangerous things to meddle with. All that Southey has written, whether of poetry or prose, cannot possibly endure; but much may live in fragment and in extract; and the stately vessel of Roderick, we think, though somewhat heavily built, will "ride tilting o'er the waves," and live upon the waters to the last. This prolixity, this unscrupulous demand upon the patience of his reader, was in some measure conneeted with his highest attributes as a poet; and it was also, unfortunately and most unnecessarily, favoured by certain criticel theories he appears to have adopted. The noblest attribute of Southey's poetry-that which, in our opinion, elevates it, at times, to the very highest order of excellence is the simple power which he manifests. Let but the occasion appear when the natural feelings of all mankind are to be strongly stirred, and Southey, without apparent effort, is always equal to the task. He can lay the naked palm upon the heart, and it always beats. Where a man of less genius would have exhausted trope and metaphor, or run into subtle refinement, Southey, depending only on the natural sympathies of all men, and confident that they will respond to his summons, pours forth his even, unadorned, melodious, and pathetic verse. Friend never meets friend after long absence, filial or maternal feelings are never to be expressed, nor any shade of homebred tenderness, or pure or gentle love, or any of the strong natural emotions of anger or revenge, but this poet touches the theme with that simple power which goes at once to the heart, because it comes directly from the heart. Fond as he is of vast machinery, and of startling and supernatural incident, it is this grand and simple pathos, this power over the natural sympathies of men, this vivid portraiture of what every eye has seen and every heart has felt, which gives the peculiar charm, and constitutes the high excellence of his poetry. Southey himself felt thishe knew his power-and when, in the unrestrained intercourse of letterwriting, he claims for himself a certain kindred and alliance with Homer, as sharing in his simplicity, he advances no unjustifiable claim; although the great difference between the Christian and the Pagan poet renders any comparison very difficult. That simplicity which consists in a power to control our emotions, without apparent artifice or labour, belongs to both. Whether Southey here had Homer in his view or not, he was clearly in the right path. But when, theorising upon his art, he allowed himself to imitate another kind of Homeric simplicity-that of mere de |