Some of the critics of 'Robert the Rhymer, who lived at the lakes,'
seem to be of opinion, that his 'humour' is to be classed with such
nonentities as the philosopher's stone, pigeon's milk, and other
apocryphal myths and unknown quantities. In analysing the character of
his intellect, they would assign to the 'humorous' attribute some such
place as Van Troil did to the snaky tribe in his work on Iceland,
wherein the title of chapter xv. runs thus: 'Concerning Snakes in
Iceland' and the chapter itself thus: 'There are no snakes in
Iceland.' Accordingly, were they to have the composition of this
article, they would abbreviate it to the one terse sentence: 'Robert
Southey had no humour.' Now, we have no inclination to claim for the
Keswick bard any prodigious or pre-eminent powers of fun, or to give
him place beside the rollicking jesters and genial merry-makers, whose
humour gives English literature a distinctive character among the
nations. But that he is so void of the comic faculty as certain potent
authorities allege, we persistently doubt. Mr Macaulay affirms that
Southey may be always read with pleasure, except when he tries to be
droll; that a more insufferable jester never existed; and that, often
as he attempts to be humorous, he in no single occasion has succeeded
further than to be quaintly and flippantly dull. Another reviewer
warned the author of the _Doctor_, that there is no greater mistake
than that which a grave person falls into, when he fancies himself
humorous; adding, as a consolatory corollary to this proposition, that
unquestionably the doctor himself was in this predicament. But Southey
was not so rigorously grave a person as his graver writings might seem
to imply. 'I am quite as noisy as ever I was,' he writes to an old
Oxford chum, when in sober manhood. 'Oh, dear Lightfoot, what a
blessing it is to have a boy's heart! it is as great a blessing in
carrying one through this world, as to have a child's spirit will in
fitting us for the next.' On account of this boyish-heartedness, he is
compared by Justice Talfourd to Charles Lamb himself: 'In a certain
primness of style, bounding in the rich humour which overflowed it,
they were nearly akin; both alike reverenced childhood, and both had
preserved its best attributes unspotted from the world.' In the
fifty-fifth year of his age, he characterised himself as a man
----by nature merry,
Somewhat Tom-foolish, and comical, very;
Who has gone through the world, not unmindful of pelf,
Upon easy terms, thank Heaven, with himself,
Along bypaths, and in pleasant ways,
Caring as little for censure as praise;
Having some friends, whom he loves dearly,
And no lack of foes, whom he laughs at sincerely;
And never for great, nor for little things,
Has he fretted his guts[2] to fiddle-strings.
He might have made them by such folly
Most musical, most melancholy.
No one can dip into the _Doctor_ without being convinced of this
buoyancy of spirit, quickness of fancy, and blitheness of heart. It
even vents its exuberance in bubbles of levity and elaborate trifling,
so that all but the _very_ light-hearted are fain to say: Something
too much of this. Compared with our standard humorists--the peerage,
or Upper House, who sit sublimely aloft, like 'Jove in his chair, of
the sky my lord mayor'--Southey may be but a dull commoner, one of the
third or fourth estate. But for all that, he has a comfortable fund of
the _vis comica_, upon which he rubs along pleasantly enough,
hospitably entertaining not a few congenial spirits who can put up
with him as they find him, relish his simple and often racy fare, and
enjoy a decent quantum of jokes of his own growing, without pining
after the brilliant banquets of comedy spread by opulent barons of the
realm.
To support this apology for the worthy doctor by plenary proof, would
involve a larger expenditure of space and letter-press than befits the
economy of a discreet hebdomadal journal. We can but allude, and hint,
and suggest, and illustrate our position in an 'off-at-a-tangent' sort
of way. Look, for instance, at his ingenious quaintness in the matter
of _onomatology_. What a name, he would say, is Lamb for a soldier,
Joy for an undertaker, Rich for a pauper, or Noble for a tailor; Big
for a lean or little person, and Small for one who is broad in the
rear and abdominous in the van; Short for a fellow six feet without
his shoes, or Long for him whose high heels barely elevate him to the
height of five; Sweet for one who has either a vinegar face, or a foxy
complexion; Younghusband for an old bachelor; Merryweather for any one
in November or February, a black spring, a cold summer, or a wet
autumn; Goodenough for a person no better than he should be; Toogood
for _any_ human creature; and Best for a subject who is perhaps too
bad to be endured. Amusing, too, are the doctor's reasons for using
the customary _alias_ of female Christian names--never calling any
woman Mary, for example, though _Mare_, being the sea, was, he said,
too emblematic of the sex; but using a synonyme of better omen, and
Molly therefore was to be preferred as being soft. 'If he accosted a
vixen of that name in her worst mood, he _mollified_ her. Martha he
called Patty, because it came pat to the tongue. Dorothy remained
Dorothy, because it was neither fitting that women should be made
Dolls nor Idols. Susan with him was always Sue, because women were to
be sued; and Winifred Winny, because they were to be won.' Or refer to
that pleasant bit of erudite trifling upon the habits of rats,
beginning with the remark, that wheresoever Man goes Rat follows or
accompanies him, town or country being equally agreeable to him;
entering upon your house as a tenant-at-will--his own, not
yours--working out for himself a covered-way in your walls, ascending
by it from one storey to another, and leaving you the larger
apartments, while he takes possession of the space between floor and
ceiling, as an _entresol_ for himself. 'There he has his parties, and
his revels, and his gallopades--merry ones they are--when you would be
asleep, if it were not for the spirit with which the youth and belles
of Rat-land keep up the ball over your head. And you are more
fortunate than most of your neighbours, if he does not prepare for
himself a mausoleum behind your chimney-piece or under your
hearthstone, retire into it when he is about to die, and very soon
afford you full proof that though he may have lived like a hermit, his
relics are not in the odour of sanctity. You have then the additional
comfort of knowing, that the spot so appropriated will thenceforth be
used as a common cemetery or a family-vault.' In the same vein, homage
is paid to Rat's imitation of human enterprise: shewing how, when the
adventurous merchant ships a cargo for some foreign port, Rat goes
with it; how, when Great Britain plants a colony at the antipodes, Rat
takes the opportunity of colonising also; how, when ships are sent out
on a voyage of discovery, Rat embarks as a volunteer; doubling the
stormy Cape with Diaz, arriving at Malabar with Gama, discovering the
New World with Columbus, and taking possession of it at the same time,
and circumnavigating the globe with Magellan, and Drake, and Cook.
Few that have once read will forget the Doctor's philological
contributions towards an amended system of English orthography.
Assuming the propriety of discarding all reference to the etymology of
words, when engaged in spelling them, and desirous, as a philological
reformer, to establish a truly British language, he proposes
introducing a distinction of genders, in which the language has
hitherto been defective. Thus, in anglicising the orthography of
_chemise_, he resolves that foreign substantive into the home-grown
neologisms, masculine and feminine, of Hemise and Shemise. Again, in
letter-writing, every person, he remarks, is aware that male and
female letters have a distinct sexual character; they should,
therefore, be generally distinguished thus--Hepistle and Shepistle.
And as there is the same marked difference in the writing of the two
sexes, he proposes Penmanship and Penwomanship. Erroneous opinions in
religion being promulgated in this country by women as well as men,
the teachers of such false doctrines he would divide into Heresiarchs
and Sheresiarchs. That troublesome affection of the diaphragm, which
every person has experienced, is, upon the same principle, to be
called, according to the sex of the patient, Hecups and Shecups;
which, upon the above principle of making our language truly British,
is better than the more classical form of _Hicc_ups and _Hoe_ccups;
and then in its objective use we have Hiscups and Hercups; and in like
manner Histerics should be altered into Herterics, the complaint never
being masculine.
None but a 'humorist' would have announced the decease of a cat in
such mingled terms and tones of jest and earnest as the
following:--'Alas! Grosvenor,' writes Southey to his friend Mr Bedford
(1823), 'this day poor old Rumpel was found dead, after as long and
happy a life as cat could wish for, if cats form wishes on that
subject. His full titles were: "The Most Noble the Archduke
Rumpelstiltzchen, Earl Tomlemagne,[3] Baron Raticide, Waowhler and
Skaratch." There should be a court mourning in Catland; and if the
Dragon [a cat of Mr Bedford's] wear a black ribbon round his neck, or
a band of crape _à la militaire_ round one of the fore-paws, it will
be but a becoming mark of respect.... I believe we are, each and all,
servants included, more sorry for this loss than any of us would like
to confess. I should not have written to you at present had it not
been to notify this event.' The notification of such events, in print
too, appears to some thinkers _too_ absurd. Others find a special
interest in these 'trifles light as air,' because presenting
'confirmation strong' of the kindly nature of the man, taking no
unamiable or affected part in the presentment of _Every Man in His
Humour_. His correspondence is, indeed, rich in traits of quiet
humour, if by that word we understand a 'humane influence, softening
with mirth the ragged inequalities of existence'--the very 'juice of
the mind oozing from the brain, and enriching and fertilising wherever
it falls'--and seldom far removed from its kindred spirit, pathos,
with which, however, it is _not_ too closely akin to marry; for pathos
is bound up in mysterious ties with humour--bone of its bone, and
flesh of its flesh.
Nor can we assent to the assertion, that in his ballads, metrical
tales, and rhyming _jeux-d'esprit_, Southey's essay to be comic
results in merely 'quaint and flippant dulness.' Smartly enough he
tells the story of the Well of St Keyne, whereof the legend is, that
if the husband manage to secure a draught before his good dame, 'a
happy man henceforth is he, for he shall be master for life.' But if
the wife should drink of it first--'God help the husband _then_!' The
traveller to whom a Cornishman narrates the tradition, compliments him
with the assumption that _he_ has profited by it in his matrimonial
experience:--
'You drank of the well, I warrant, betimes,'
He to the Cornishman said;
But the Cornishman smiled as the stranger spake,
And sheepishly shook his head.
'I hastened as soon as the wedding was done,
And left my wife in the porch;
But, i' faith, she had been wiser than me,
For she took a bottle to church.'
And with all their extravagances of expression and questionable taste,
the numerous stories which Southey delighted to versify on themes
demoniac and diabolical, from the _Devil's Walk_ to the _True Ballad
of St Antidius_, are fraught with farcical import, and have an
individual ludicrousness all their own. That he could succeed
tolerably in the mock-heroic vein, may be seen in his parody on
Pindar's _ariston men hydor_, entitled _Gooseberry Pie_, and in some
of the occasional pieces called _Nondescripts_. Nor do we know any one
of superior ingenuity in that overwhelming profusion of epithets and
crowded creation of rhymes, which so tickle the ear and the fancy in
some of his verses, and of which we have specimens almost unrivalled
in the celebrated description of the cataract of Lodore, and the
vivaciously ridiculous chronicle of Napoleon's march to Moscow.