“I dare say it will generally be felt that Mrs. Heber’s book does not support the pretensions which its title, and still more its appearance, seems to hold forth. The materials would have appeared to more advantage in a different arrangement.
“There is certainly an air of book-making about the
publication; which is not lessened by the funebrial verses that it contains.
Mine might have
accompanied the portrait, in which case they would have seemed to be
appropriately introduced; in fact, they were composed with that design. But
this book ought not to detract from his reputation, the estimate of which must
be taken from those things which he prepared for the press, and from his
exertions in India. He was a man of great reading, and in his Bampton Lectures has
treated a most important part
| Ætat. 56. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 109 |
“As a poet he could not have supported the reputation which his Palestine obtained; for it was greatly above its deserts, and the character of the poem, moreover, was not hopeful; it was too nicely fitted to the taste of the age. Poetry should have its lights and shades, like painting; like music, its sink and swell, its relief and its repose. So far as the piece was intended for success in a competition for a prize, and for effect in public recitation, it was certainly judiciously done to make every line tell upon the ear. But to all such poetry the motto under one of Quarles’s Emblems may be applied, ‘tinnit, inane est.’
“He had a hurried, nervous manner in private society, which covered much more ardour and feeling than you would have supposed him to possess. This I believe entirely disappeared when he was performing his functions; at which time, I have been assured, he seemed totally regardless of everything but the duty wherein he was engaged.
“Few persons took so much interest in my writings,
which may partly have arisen from the almost entire coincidence in our opinions
and ways of thinking upon all momentous subjects; the Catholic question alone
excepted. Mrs. Heber told me that I had
had no little influence in directing his thoughts and desires towards India:
and I have no doubt that some lines in Joan of Arc set him upon the scheme
| 110 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 56. |
“I am fond of irregular rhymeless lyrics, a measure wherein I have had few to approve and still fewer to imitate me. The proof of the poetry, however, is not like that of the pudding, in the taste of those who partake it. Thalaba might very probably have been popular had it been in rhyme. None of my lyrical pieces could have been so; and methinks it makes little difference whether there be three or four to admire them, or five or six.
“There are friendships of chance and friendships of choice; and it was of the former which I meant to speak; they are the more numerous, and probably the more lasting, because generally beginning earlier, they have time to strike root in us, and partake of the nature of a habit, as the latter may be said to do, in some degree, of a passion. For the same reason you are not so likely to be deceived in them. One whom you have known from early boyhood may disappoint your hopes and expectations; but you will seldom be deceived in your moral estimate of him; if he was ingenuous and kind-hearted he will continue so through life. A good apple tree may be blighted, or cankered in its growth, but it will never produce crabs.
“Ministers will delay the meeting of Parliament as
long as they can; just as schoolboys would prolong their holidays if they
could. But they may be
| Ætat. 56. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 111 |
“God bless you!
