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somewhere the other day a contemptuous reference to Southey's letters. It gave me a shock, and yet, upon reflection, I had to admit that from a purely literary point of view it had some justification. In spite of this, I can always turn with pleasure to the ten volumes of correspondence. I might justify myself by the often quoted passage in which Thackeray contrasts Southey as the true gentleman with the spurious article called George IV. 'Southey's politics,' said Thackeray, 'are obsolete, and his poetry dead; but his private letters are worth piles of epics, and are sure to last among us as long as kind hearts like to sympathise with goodness and purity and love and upright life.' Professor Dowden's charming account of Southey (in the 'Men of Letters' Series) is a prolonged commentary upon the same theme. I should be glad if I could set down my own liking for the letters to sheer sympathy with goodness 45