Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 4.djvu/129

 12 S. IV. MAY, 1918.]

NOTES AND QUERIES.

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unfavourable opinion of Anderson* ; (2) the commendation of Ritson, of whom Southey always speaks highly t ; and (3) " the wish that it may be enlarged by one or more volumes of supplement, not by expanding them in an after edition," the same wish that had been expressed in the review of Anderson's ' British Poets.'

Pratt's ' Bread,' January, 1802. In this article we have not only the expression of a humane sympathy for the miseries of the poor, but a statement of the agencies by which their amelioration is to be effected. On this subject Southey 's known views are sufficiently specific and individual to be recognized in the following passage :

"It is not the interference of legislature that can awaken good feelings, or counteract the love of gain which is the main, spring, the very heart and life of the commercial system. The moralist may do something .... the clergyman may do more. Perhaps Mr. Pratt has chosen the "best mode of admonition, by appealing to the feelings -of individuals."

A more elaborate statement of these views by Southey is to be found in his ' Essays, Moral and Political : " On the State of the Poor." ' See Zeitlin, '.Select Prose of Robert Southey,' pp. 22-24.

' Little's [Thomas Moore's] Poetical Works,' February, 1802. This is a cen- sorious review, directed against the nn- forgivable sin, immoral tendency :

" The extracts that we have given abundantly prove the genius of the author. Why will he degrade himself by thus miserably misapplying it ? The age in which we live has imposed upon Mm the necessity of employing decent language ; but few ages have ever been disgraced by a volume more corrupt in its whole spirit and tendency."

We know that this expresses Southey' s feelings toward the book, for he uses it as the type of a vicious poem in a letter to Bedford dealing with the printing of his ' Specimens ' :

" Lord Chesterfield's song is in the style of Little Moore. You, I know, think me over- scrupulous ; but for that reason you should have been particularly cautious, how you selected anything immoral, and sent it into the world under the sanction of my name. As for my literary character, I am sufficiently careless about it .... but this is not the case with respect to my character as a moralist of that I am as jealous as a soldier of his honour." ' Select Letters,' ed. Warter, i. 419.

is " the last man in the world from whom, to quote an opinion in poetry " (Warter, i. 420).
 * Anderson, says Southey in one of his letters,

t See especially his article on Ritson's ' Ancient English Romances ' in the second volume of The Annual Review.

Bloomfield's ' Rural Tales,' May, 1802. This article is claimed by Southey in a letter to Coleridge, Aug. 4, 1802 :

" Bloom field I saw in London, and an interesting man he is .... even more than you would expect. I have reviewed his poems with the express object of serving him ; because, if his fame keeps up to another volume, he will have made money enough to support him comfortably in the country ; but in a work of criticism, how could you bring him to the touchstone ? and to lessen his reputation is to mar his fortune."

And this is how Southey went to work to carry out his charitable design :

" When we took up ' The Farmer's Boy,' no popular opinion had been pronounced upon its merits. Robert Bloomfield was a name unknown to us and to the world ; and amid the volumes of insipidity which it is our lot to examine, we were delighted to meet with excellence that we had not expected. The present volume appears with less advantage ; it has a more difficult task to encounter. Mr. Bloomfield's poems will now be compared with what he formerly produced ; and ' The Farmer's Boy ' is his most dangerous rival. . . .We hope and believe that the success of this volume will equal that of ' The Farmer's Boy ' ; as we are sure that its merits are not inferior. The manner in which the poem has been received is honourable to the public taste and to the public feeling. Neglected genius has too long been the reproach of England."

Mrs. Opie's ' Poems,' December, 1802. This review is seen to be Southey' s from a letter to 'William Taylor, in which he says that he is going to be very civil to Mrs. Opie (Robberds,' Memoir of William Taylor,' i. 437). According to the reviewer,

" The productions of this lady are always in a melancholy strain, and therefore more effectually convey their moral import. . . .On the whole we have derived considerable pleasure from this little volume."

But civility is stretched to the bursting- point in the judgment on Mrs. Opie's female contemporaries, Miss Seward, Mrs. Bar- bauld, and Charlotte Smith, who, we are assured, " will take their place^ among English poets for centuries to come."

Count de Noronia's ' Poems,' Appendix, vol. xxxvi. pp. 538-49. This review is claimed by Southey in a letter to Daniel Stuart :

" The Count de Noronia published two volumes of poems, which I reviewed for the Critical either in 1802 or 1803. They are of considerable merit, and that Review, or a portion of it, might be read with interest at present." ' Letters from the Lake Poets to Daniel Stuart,' privately printed, 1889, p. 410.

The first page is a condensed summary of the development of Spanish literature, and the article, like the one on Escoiquiz's