button to main menu  Gents Mag 1851 part 1 p.10

button introduction
button list, 3rd qtr 19th century
button previous page button next page
Gentleman's Magazine 1851 part 1 p.10
but his poetry, we think, received no accession but that of the "Vision of Judgment." The result of this entire work is interesting and instructive, and we can scarcely regret its length, or the insertion of many unimportant portions. The career of a man of virtue and genius cannot be contemplated without benefit. In Mr. Southey the strictest principles and soundest views of religion were softened and rendered amiable by a lightness and cheerfulness of temper and mind, to which certainly they are not too often united. He wrote very warmly because he felt very strongly, and the depth of his impression was commensurate with the weight of the subject. He hated the mischievous and the mean, for he felt how much their evil doings would affect the public happiness and private welfare; but he never "broke butterflies on a wheel," and certainly his later works, as his Book of the Church and his Colloquies, shew with what force the realities of present things pressed upon him. Without saying that his views were always right and his opinions always justly formed, we must allow that his approaches to the discovery of truth shew a sagacious, clear, and reflective mind. To his poetic creed we have little to object, though we think there is in it a silent disparagement of the school of Pope, which we do not approve. We believe his political opinions to be in the main just, though perhaps if carried into practice they would have possessed, from a fond and just admiration of the past, too little flexibilty and accommodation for the rapidly advancing progress of the present. His theology was formed out of the great stores and treasure-houses of our best divinity in its best days, and consequently took root in the sound and stedfast doctrines of the Church of England.
Mr. Southey has filled a very eminent station in the literature of his day. Two poems, more especially Kehama and Roderick, bear lasting witness to his poetical talent. His prose writings are distinguished for their natural, idiomatic, and truly English style; his literature was formed of the very nest and most solid materials. Even mention of the books which he recommended must have been of service; and if he too early and too constantly left the waters of Elyssus and the banks of the Tiber to wander by his own wilder and more beloved streams, it arose from the impossibility in the present day of any one, however industrious, however indefatigable, being able to do more than select some partial and separate province from the boundless realms of knowledge, where his employment may be advantageous because commensurate with his strength - his discoveries, however bounded, far more useful and more praiseworthy than casual and uncertain glances over a wider sphere, ambitious sketches of unfinished projects, and a dream of intellectual conquests, magnificent indeed to the view, but requiring time, and leisure, and opportunities not often granted by the necessary duties, the varying occupations, and the uncertain tenure and general term of "our little life."
Vol.v. p.21. "A fashion for poetry has been imported which has had a great run, and is in a fair way of being worn out. It is of Italian growth, and adaptation of Pulci, Berni, and Ariosto in his sportive mood. Frere began it. What he produced was too good in itself, and too inoffensive, to become popular, for it attacked nothing and nobody, and it had the fault of his Italian models, that the transition from what was serious to what was burlesque was capricious," &c.
list, The poem alluded to, "The Monks and Giants. Prospectus and Specimen of an intended National Work, by William and Robert Whistlecraft, &c." was designed with admirable skill and elegant wit, but was far too refined and delicately executed to excire any feeling from the public, who did not understand it. As a composition, its beauties have been felt and acknowledged by all whose estimation is of value. See for instance Rose's Introd. to "Orlando Inamorato," p.xvii.; "Retrospective REview," vol.xii. p.107: "The glowing contrasts of which (Don Juan), compared to the easy shadowing of Whistlecraft, seem to illustrate the difference between a natural mode of writing and an unnatural one." See also another work, "Thoughts and Reflections, by One of the Last Century," pp.211-237; and "Qtrly Review," No.clxxiv. p.293: "Mr Frere, but for pension, indolence, and Malta, might have bequeathed a name second to few in the English library." Per-
button next page

button to main menu Lakes Guides menu.