button to main menu  Gents Mag 1851 part 1 p.9

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Gentleman's Magazine 1851 part 1 p.9

LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF ROBERT SOUTHEY.*

THESE two volumes extend from the year 1820 to the period of Mr. Southey's death in 1843. As the history approaches nearer to our own times, the interest of the subjects increases. His opinion is given on most works of learning or talent that appeared; and few events of importance occurred, certainly none affecting the happiness and welfare of the community, in which his active mind and benevolent disposition did not take a commanding interest. His reading in this period of life had been very extensive, in some branches of literature almost complete, - his taste refined and elegant, and his observations and reflections those of a person of sagacity, clearness of view, and much experience. His favourite subjects, next perhaps to poetry, were those connected with history, with all that related to the religious opinions and the social being of the community, to political theories and the various interests which bear on the state of civilised life; and if the result of his long observation and manifold reflections produced a feeling of the unsatisfactory state of the present and gloomy apprehensions of the future, it was, we believe, what was then and is now shared by many who are looking with anxiety and sorrow to the unsettled principles, to the conflicting interests, and to the visionary projects, which are endangering all stability, weakening all authority, and placing the most valuable institutions of the country at the feet of selfishness, violence, and worldly cunning. Great, no doubt, have been the sins of our fathers, and various their errors. The bad seed then sown seems now springing up into rank and profuse growth. The eternal and unbroken law is, that the son suffers for the father's works, and heavy may be the penalty that we shall pay for them and for ourselves. It is not the part of a good man to despair of the republic; but it is hardly the part of a wise one to feel confident against all the dictates of experience, when we at once distrust the power of the present and disregard the wisdom of the past. During this period many of Mr. Southey's most popular works were published: his Life of Wesley, his Colloquies, his Book of the Church, his Life of Nelson, The Doctor, and the latest employment of his mind, the Life and Works of Cowper. To these are to be added many learned and valuable reviews of books; but his
* "the Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey. Edited by his Son, the Rev. Charles Cuthbert Southey, M.A. Crate of Plumbland, Cumberland." Vols. V. and VI.
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