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Gentleman's Magazine 1850 part 2 p.258
kind." As Mr. Southey stood in the foremost ranks of those
who denunciated all such doctrines as totally subversive of
government, and law, and order, and even of general security
and liberty, and as he never desisted from speaking boldly
what he strongly felt, and using terms fitted to the
necessities of the occasion, he was marked out for peculiar
enmity, and, as the hatred of party is not conducted or
guided by any principles but such as will best effect its
immediate purpose, so the means were now adopted of annoying
his feelings, injuring his character, and if possible
neutralising the effect of his writings by evidence of his
inconsistency and want of principle, by the republication of
a youthful work called Wat Tyler, written in 1794.
The whole affair was disgraceful only to those who schemed
it; it gave Southey some uneasiness; it caused a temporary
excitement; and it died away, leaving no path behind it; but
no less than 60,000 copies were sold at the time. Such is
the disposition of society to batten upon unwholesome food.
Among whom these copies went it would be curious to enquire.
Mr. William Smith, the member for Norwich, went out of his
way to attack him in the House of Commons, and, with Mr.
Southey's animated reply, the matter may be said to close.
In the autumn of 1817 he took a tour on the continent,
visiting Switzerland and the Italian lakes. On his return he
writes:
"The Life of Wesley is my favourite employment just
now, and a very curious book it will be, looking at
Methodism abroad as well as at home, and comprehending our
religious history for the last hundred years. I am sure I
shall treat the subject with moderation. I hope I come to it
with a sober judgment, a mature mind, and perfect freedom
from all unjust prepossessions of any kind. There is no
party which I am desirous of pleasing, none which I am
fearful of offending; nor am I aware of any possible
circumstance which might tend to bear me one way or the
other from the straight line of impartial truth. For the
bigot I shall be far too philosophical, for the
libertine far too serious. the ultra-Churchman will
think me little better than a Methodist, and the Methodists
will wonder what I am. "Αγια
άγίοις" will be my
motto."
Poor laws, police, and politics, and the libels of the press
seemed to have occupied at this time most of Southey's
attention. He declined the office of Librarian to the
Advocates Library at Edinburgh, with a salary of
400l. a-year, because he disliked great cities, and
was free, as he supposed, from pecuniary anxieties. His
picture of Mr. Wilberforce and his family, as he met them
about this time, is amusing:-
"Wilberforce has been here with all his household; and such
a household! The principle of the family seems to be, that,
provided the servants have faith, good works are not
to be expected from them, and the utter discord that
prevails in consequence is truly farcical. The old coachman
would figure upon the stage. Upon making some complaint
about the horses, he told his master and mistress that since
they had been in this country they had been so lake, and
river, and mountain, and valley mad, that they had thought
of nothing which they ought to think of. I have seen nothing
in such pell-mell, topsy-turvy, and chaotic confusion as
Wilberforce's apartments, since I used to see a certain
breakfast table in Skeleton Corner. His wife sits in the
midst of it like Patience on a monument, and he frisks about
as if every vein in his body was filled with quicksilver;
but withal there is such constant hilarity in every look and
motion, such a sweetness in all his tones, such a benignity
in all his thoughts, words, and actions, that all sense of
his grotesque appearance is presently overcome, and you can
feel nothing but love and admiration for a creature of so
happy and blessed a nature."
In a letter dated in 1808 to his friend Mr. May, he mentions
his being expelled Westminster School for the fifth number
of a periodical paper he wrote against flogging,
"proving it to be an invention of the devil, and therefore
unfit to be practised at schools;" and on the same account
he was refused admission at Christchurch, where otherwise he
would not have been refused a studentship. He seemed,
however, to retain more enmity to his old master, Dr.
Vincent, than the latter did to him; or at least to believe
that the pedagogue looked at the matter more as a personal
offence, than as a breach of discipline which could not be
overlooked. We knew Dr. Vincent sufficiently to vouch
for the amiableness of his temper, and the liberality of his
opinions. We shall now close
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