A letter of mine to Mr. Foster, referring chiefly to Mr. Southey, may not
inappropriately be here introduced.
"July 6, 1842.
To the Rev. John Foster,
My dear Sir,--I sympathize with you on the comparatively recent loss of
so large a proportion of your early friends and acquaintance. I can, to a
great extent, participate in similar feelings. Yourself and Mr.
Wordsworth are the only two survivors, of all with whom in early life I
joined in familiar intercourse, for poor dear Southey since I last wrote
to you concerning him, is worse than dead. Mr. W., who dined with me last
summer, told me that he does not now know his own children. He said, he
had a short time previously called upon him, and he fancied that a slight
glimpse of remembrance crossed his mind, when, in a moment, he silently
passed to his library, and taking down a book, (from mechanical habit)
turned over the pages, without reading, or the power of reading. Pardon
prolixity, where the heart is so full. Surely the world does not present
a more melancholy, or a more humiliating sight, than the prostration of
so noble a mind as that of my old and highly-prized friend, Robert
Southey. When I first knew him, he had all that Westminster and Oxford
could give him. He was, as the Mores said, to whom I had introduced him,
'brimfull of literature:' decisive and enthusiastic in all his
sentiments, and impetuous in all his feelings, whether of approval or
dislike. I never knew one more uncompromising in what he believed either
to be right, or wrong; thereby marking the integrity of his mind, which
ever shrunk from the most distant approximation to duplicity or meanness.
This disposition manifested itself almost in infancy, for his mother, an
acute and very worthy woman, told me, in the year 1798, that whenever any
mischief or accident occurred amongst the children, which some might wish
to conceal, she always applied to Robert, who never hesitated, or
deviated from the truth, though he himself might have been implicated.
And in after life, whatever sentiments he avowed, none who knew the
confirmed fidelity of his mind, could possibly doubt that they were the
genuine dictates of his heart.
There was in Southey, alas! his sun is set!--I must, write in the third
person!--one other quality which commands admiration; an habitual
delicacy in his conversation, evidencing that cheerfulness and wit might
exist without ribaldry, grossness, or profanation. He neither violated
decorum himself, nor tolerated it in others. I have been present when a
trespasser of the looser class, has received, a rebuke, I might say a
castigation, well deserved, and not readily forgotten. His abhorrence
also of injustice, or unworthy conduct, in its diversified shapes, had
all the decision of a Roman censor; while this apparent austerity was
associated, when in the society he liked, with so bland and playful a
spirit, that it abolished all constraint, and rendered him one of the
most agreeable, as well as the most intelligent of companions.
It must occasionally have been exemplified in your experience, that some
writers who have acquired a transient popularity, perchance, more from
adventitious causes, than sterling merit, appear at once to occupy an
increased space, and fancy that he who fills his own field of vision,
occupies the same space in the view of others. This disposition will
almost invariably be found in those who most readily depreciate those
whom they cannot excel; as if every concession to the merits of another
subtracted from their own claims. Southey was eminently exempt from this
little feeling. He heartily encouraged genius, wherever it was
discoverable; whether, 'with all appliances,' the jewel shone forth from
academic bowers, or whether the gem was incrusted with extraneous matter,
and required the toil of polishing; indifferent to him, it met with the
encouraging smile, and the fostering care.
It may be truly said, Mr. Southey exacted nothing, and consequently his
excellencies were the more readily allowed; and this merit was the
greater, since, as Mr. Coleridge remarked, "he had written on so many
subjects, and so well on all." Although his company was sought by men of
the first rank and talent, from whom he always received that
acknowledgment, if not deference, which is due to great attainments and
indisputable genius, yet such honours excited no plebeian pride. It
produced none of that morbid inflation, which, wherever found,
instinctively excites a repulsive feeling. It was this unassuming air,
this suavity of deportment, which so attached Southey to his friends, and
gave such permanence to their regard.
It seems almost invidious to single out one distinguishing quality in his
mind, when so many deserve notice, but I have often been struck with the
quickness of his perception; the promptitude with which he discovered
whatever was good or bad in composition, either in prose or verse. When
reading the production of another, the tones of his voice became a
_merit-thermometer_, a sort of _Aeolian-harp-test_; in the flat parts his
voice was unimpassioned, but if the gust of genius swept over the wires,
his tones rose in intensity, till his own energy of feeling and
expression kindled in others a sympathetic impulse, which the dull were
forced to feel, whilst his animated recitations threw fresh meaning into
the minds of the more discerning.
What an emblem of human instability! The idea of Robert Southey's altered
state can hardly force itself on my imagination. The image of one lately
in full vigour, who appeared, but as yesterday, all thought and
animation, whose mind exhibited a sort of rocky firmness, and seemed made
almost for perpetuity; I say it is hard to conceive of faculties so
strong and richly matured, reduced now even to imbecility! The image of
death I could withstand, for it is the lot of mortals, but the spectacle
of such a mind associated with living extinction, appears incongruous,
and to exceed the power of possible combination. Those who witnessed the
progressive advances of this mournful condition were prepared for the
event by successive changes, but with my anterior impressions, if in his
present state I were to be abruptly presented to Robert Southey, and met
the vacant and cold glance of indifference, the concussion to my feelings
would so overwhelm, that--merciful indeed would be the power which
shielded me from a like calamity.
Southey spent a week with me, four or five years ago, when he manifested
the same kind and cordial behaviour, which he had uniformly displayed for
nearly half a century, and which had never during that long period been
interrupted for a moment. Nor was steadfastness in friendship one of his
least excellencies. From the kindliness of his spirit, he excited an
affectionate esteem in his friends, which they well knew no
capriciousness on his part would interrupt: to which, it might be added,
his mind was well balanced, presenting no unfavourable eccentricities,
and but few demands for the exercise of charity. Justly also, may it be
affirmed, that he was distinguished for the exemplary discharge of all
the social and relative virtues; disinterestedly generous, and
scrupulously conscientious, presenting in his general deportment,
courteousness without servility, and dignity without pride. There was in
him so much kindliness and sincerity, so much of upright purpose, and
generous feeling, that the belief is forced on the mind, that, through
the whole range of biographical annals, few men, endowed with the higher
order of intellect, have possessed more qualities commanding esteem than
Robert Southey; who so happily blended the great with the amiable, or
whose memory will become more permanently fragrant to the lovers of
genius, or the friends of virtue. Nor would Southey receive a fair
measure of justice by any display of personal worth, without noticing the
application of his talents. His multifarious writings, whilst they embody
such varied excellence, display wherever the exhibition was demanded, or
admissible, a moral grandeur, and reverence of religion, which indirectly
reflects on some, less prodigally endowed, who do, and have, corrupted by
their prose, or disseminated their pollutions through the sacred, but
desecrated medium of song.
It was always a luxury with Southey to talk of old times, places, and
persons; and Bristol, with its vicinities, he thought the most beautiful
city he had ever seen. When a boy he was almost a resident among St.
Vincent's rocks, and Leigh Woods. The view, from the Coronation Road, of
the Hotwells, with Clifton, and its triple crescents, he thought
surpassed any view of the kind in Europe. He loved also to extol his own
mountain scenery, and, at his last visit, upbraided me for not paying him
a visit at Greta Hall, where, he said, he would have shown me the glories
of the district, and also have given me a sail on the lake, in his own
boat, 'The Royal Noah.' After dwelling on his entrancing water-scenes,
and misty eminences, he wanted much, he said to show me his library,
which at that time consisted of fourteen thousand volumes, which he had
been accumulating all his life, from the rare catalogues of all nations:
but still, he remarked, he had a list of five hundred other volumes to
obtain, and after possessing these, he said, he should be satisfied.
Alas! he little knew, how soon the whole would appear to him--less than
the herbage of the desert!
At this time, Mr. S. mentioned a trifling occurrence, arising out of what
happened to be the nature of our conversation, although it is hardly
worth naming to you, who so lightly esteem human honours. He said, some
years before, when he chanced to be in London, he accepted an invitation
to dine with the Archbishop of Canterbury but, subsequently, he received
an invitation for the same day, from the Duchess of Kent, to dine at
Kensington Palace; and as invitations from Royalty supersede all others,
he sent an apology to the Archbishop, and dined with more Lords and
Ladies than he could remember. At the conclusion of the repast, before
the Ladies retired, _she_ who was destined to receive _homage_, on proper
occasions, had learnt to pay _respect_, for the young Princess (our
present gracious Queen Victoria) came up to him, and curtseying, very
prettily said, 'Mr. Southey, I thank you for the pleasure I have received
in reading your Life of Lord Nelson.'
I must mention one other trait in Southey, which did him peculiar honour,
I allude to the readiness with which he alluded to any little acts of
kindness which he might have received from any of his friends, in past
years. To the discredit of human nature, there is in general a laborious
endeavour to bury all such remembrances in the waters of Lethe: Southey's
mind was formed on a different model.
The tear which dims my eye, attests the affection which I still bear to
poor dear Southey. Few knew him better than myself, or more highly
estimated the fine qualities of his head and heart; and still fewer can
be oppressed with deeper commiseration for his present forlorn and
hopeless condition.... My dear sir,
Most truly yours,
Joseph Cottle.