|
Gentleman's Magazine 1851 part 1 p.14
I owe to his Notes. I owe him therefore some gratitude."
list, We do not know Hayley's life intimately enough to say
on what Southey forms his conclusion upon it. The
"something to blame may probably allude to his
apparent conviction, "Ne sitancillae tibi amor
pudori." The something to admire may be his kind
disposition and his unwearied attachment to literature. The
most to commiserate, the loss of his children - the
separation from his wife - and the diminution of his
fortune. It was with great reluctance that Gifford admitted
Southey's review of Hayley's Memoirs into the Qtrly, and
after long dispute and delay. I can remember him, riding
about the Sussex lanes, in a green veil, to defend
his eyes from the sun. His last intimate friend was Mr.
Mason, the respectable bookseller of Chichester. It is said
that Hayley published two editions of his Life of Milton,
one addressed to the King, and free from the leaven
of democratical principles; the other for his
friends, with notes strongly tinctured with their
pernicious infatuation. See Seward's Letters, vol.iv.
p.46; and see Wrangham's Life of Zouch, vol.i. p.lxxxv. In
his Bible, he had transcribed, we are informed by a friend,
the following lines from Tasso, as expressive of his faith.
Da cui s'impara
La via di gir al ben perfetto e vero
Fuggir l'ira del tempo, e della morte,
Felice cui, che son si fide scorte
Mandano al ciel il suo gentel pensiero
Vive la sua vita soave e chiara.
P.190. "I am reading Scaliger's Epistles at this time,
treading in my uncle's steps. Not long ago I finished
Isaac Casaubon's. Oh! what men were these," &c.
The Letters of Casaubon, which Southey read, were those
printed in a folio volume in 1719, and edited by Almeloveen.
The answers of his learned correspondents to these letters
have never been published, though extant in several folio
volumes. They were in the library of the late Dr. C. Burney,
and are now in the British Museum. His Ephemerides or Diary
has been lately printed by the University of Oxford, and
edited by Dr. Russell, of which we shall shortly give an
account to our readers.
P.202."Bishop Law, the present Bishop's father, advances an
opinion that the true nature of revealed religion is
gradually disclosed as men become capable of
receiving it. Generations, as they advance in knowledge and
civilisation, out-growing the errors of their forefathers,
so that in fulness of time there will remain neither doubt
nor difficulties. He was a great speculator, whether, like
one of his sons, he speculated too far I do not knnow, but
in this opinion I think he is borne out by history," &c.
See on this Theory of Progress or Development put forth by
Bishop Law, Palmer's Treatise on the Doctrine of Development
(called forth by Mr. Newman's book on the same subject),
1846, p.96. See also Grant's Bampton Lectures for 1844,
p.310, On Law's statement, "that the improvement of the
natural faculties and the cultivation and refinement of
natural genius are necessary to the reception of
Christianity." Bishop Watson refers to a short book of Law's
on the Nature and End of Death. See his Life, ii. p.408. The
object of Law in this treatise, if I recollect rightly, was
to impugn the physical immortality of man.
P.236. "My after supper book at present is Erasmus's
Letters, from which I know not whether I derive most
pleasure or profit."
In one of Erasmus's Letters I found a notice of Sir Thomas
More and his well-known wife, which, so far as I know, has
not been drawn into the biographhies of that celebrated man.
Erasmus is writing to Quirino Talesio, a pensionary of
Harlem and a learned man, and he says, "Quod viduam
duxisti, non est, quod te poeniteat. Id malunt, qui
uxorem ad usum rei domesticae ducunt, potius quam ad
voluptatem. Et qui equos ad usum quaerunt, malunt domitos,
quam indomitos. Quod si illa genuit priori marito, tu magni
mali liberatus es, ne sterilem duxeris. MORUS, mihi
saepenumero narrare solet, se, si centum, uxores ducturus,
nullam ducturus esse virginem. Nunc habet vetulam nimium
vivacem, quae si migrasset, potuisset ille opulentissimae
clarissimaeque feminae maritus ess." This desirable
migration of the old lady, however, like many other
forlorn husbands, More did not live to see.
P.283. "Here is a volume of Jackson's
|