Gents Mag 1850 part 2 p.256

Gents Mag 1850 part 2 p.256




	introduction


	list, 3rd qtr 19th century


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	Gentleman's Magazine 1850 part 2 p.256 book review LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF ROBERT SOUTHEY* list, THE present volume opens with Mr. Southey's relinquishment of the hopes of being the historiographer royal, or even receiver of the rents of Greenwich Hospital; he therefore settled contentedly on the surer foundation of the Qtrly Review, which had lately commenced its career of rivalry with its elder brother in the North. He was also proceeding with his poem of Roderic and his popular Life of Nelson, which brought him in 300l. In this year, 1813, the office of poet laureate became vacant by Mr. Pye's death. The somewhat faded laurels were offered to Sir Walter Scott, who handed them over to Southey, and the Prince Regent, observing that "he had written some good things in favour of the Spaniards, said the office should be given him." Coming to London for this purpose, he dined at Holland House, and met Lord Byron, and was introduced to Mr. Rogers and Sir James Mackintosh. He had 90l. a-year in his pocket from the office, and was in high spirits; when Ben Jonson held it there was no income tax nor land tax, and so he received the full hundred. His first official effort, his Carmen Triumphale, was much injured "by advice of friends," for he was not permitted to abuse Bonaparte, and was sadly afraid he might be called on to praise Mrs. Clarke; however, he relieved himself by a stanza against Jeffrey and the Edinburgh Review. He also wrote three odes without rhyme, in Thalaba's verse, to the three greatest sovereigns of Europe. In 1814, writing to Bernard Barton, he thus sketches the character of Wordsworth: "Wordsworth's residence and mine are fifteen miles assunder, a sufficient distance to preclude any frequent interchange of visits. I have known him nearly twenty years, and for about half that time intimately. The strength and character of his mind you see in The Excursion, and his life does not belie his writings, for in every relation of life, and every point of view, he is a truly exemplary and admirable man. In conversation he is powerful beyond any of his contemporaries, and as a poet - I speak not from the partiality of friendship, nor because we have been so absurdly held up as both writing on one concerted system of poetry, but with the
	* "The Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey. Edited by his Son, the Rev. Charles Cuthbert Southey, M.A. Curate of Plumbland, Cumberland." Vol.IV. (To be completed in six volumes.)

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