human foresight, 'judged well, and acted wisely;' but to his family it was peculiarly distasteful, except to one of its members, Edith May Southey, married to Mr Warter, the editor of the posthumous edition of Southey's Doctor and Commonplace Books. To this lady, Mrs Southey, in 1847-four years after the death of the laureate-dedicated a volume bearing the title of Robin Hood: a Fragment, by the late Robert Southey and Caroline Southey; with other Fragments and Poems by R. S. and C. S. So early as 1823, Southey had projected a poem on Robin Hood, and asked Caroline Bowles to form an intellectual union with him that it might be executed. Various efforts were made and abandoned. The metre selected by Southey was that of his poem of Thalaba-a measure not only difficult, but foreign to all the ballad associations called up by the name of Robin Hood. Caroline Bowles, however, persevered, and we subjoin two stanzas of the portion contributed by her.

The poem was never completed: 'clouds were gathering the while,' says Mrs Southey, 'and before the time came that our matured purpose should bear fruit, the fiat had gone forth, and "all was in the dust." The remaining years of the poetess were spent in close retirement. She left behind her, it is said, upwards of twelve hundred letters from the pen of Southey. The writings of Mrs Southey, both prose and verse, illustrate her love of retirement, her amiable character, and poetical susceptibilities. A vein of pathos runs through most of the little tales or novelettes, and colours her poetry.

Mariner's Hymn. Launch thy bark, mariner! Christian, God speed thee! Let loose the rudder-bandsGood angels lead thee! Set thy sails warily, Tempests will come ;

Steer thy course steadily;
Christian, steer home!
Look to the weather-bow,
Breakers are round thee;
Let fall the plummet now,
Shallows may ground thee.
Reef in the foresail, there!
Hold the helm fast!
So-let the vessel wear-
There swept the blast.

'What of the night, watchman?
What of the night?'
'Cloudy-all quiet-

No land yet-all's right.'
Be wakeful, be vigilant-
Danger may be

At an hour when all seemeth
Securest to thee.

IIow! gains the leak so fast?
Clean out the hold-
Hoist up thy merchandise,
Heave out thy gold;
There-let the ingots go-
Now the ship rights;
Hurrah! the harbour 's near-

Lo! the red lights!

Slacken not sail yet

At inlet or island;

Straight for the beacon steer,
Straight for the high land;
Crowd all thy canvas on,
Cut through the foam-
Christian! cast anchor now-
Heaven is thy home!

Once upon a Time.

I mind me of a pleasant time,
A season long ago;

The pleasantest I've ever known,
Or ever now shall know.

Bees, birds, and little tinkling rills,
So merrily did chime;

The year was in its sweet spring-tide,
And I was in my prime.

I've never heard such music since,
From every bending spray;
I've never plucked such primroses,
Set thick on bank and brae;
I've never smelt such violets

As all that pleasant time

I found by every hawthorn-root-
When I was in my prime.

Yon moory down, so black and bare,
Was gorgeous then and gay
With golden gorse-bright blossoming-
As none blooms nowaday.
The blackbird sings but seldom now
Up there in the old lime,

Where hours and hours he used to sing-
When I was in my prime.

Such cutting winds came never then

To pierce one through and through;
More softly fell the silent shower,
More balmily the dew.

The morning mist and evening haze--
Unlike this cold gray rime-
Seemed woven warm of golden air-
When I was in my prime.

And blackberries-so mawkish now-
Were finely flavoured then ;
And nuts-such reddening clusters ripe
I ne'er shall pull again;

Nor strawberries blushing bright-as rich
As fruits of sunniest clime;

How all is altered for the worse
Since I was in my prime!

The Pauper's Death-bed.

Tread softly-bow the head-
In reverent silence bow-
No passing-bell doth toll-
Yet an immortal soul
Is passing now.

Stranger! however great,

With lowly reverence bow; There's one in that poor shedOne by that paltry bed

Greater than thou.

Beneath that beggar's roof,

Lo! Death doth keep his state:
Enter-no crowds attend-
Enter-no guards defend
This palace-gate.

That pavement damp and cold
No smiling courtiers tread;
One silent woman stands
Lifting with meagre hands
A dying head.

No mingling voices sound-
An infant wail alone;
A sob suppressed-again
That short deep gasp, and then
The parting groan.

O change-O wondrous change!—
Burst are the prison bars-
This moment there, so low,
So agonised, and now
Beyond the stars!

O change-stupendous change!
There lies the soulless clod:
The sun eternal breaks-
The new immortal wakes-
Wakes with his God.

JOHN EDMUND READE.

The first production of MR READE appears to have been a volume entitled The Broken Heart and other Poems, 1825. From that period up to 1868 he has published a long series of poems and dramas. Cain the Wanderer and the Revolt of the Angels in 1830; Italy, 1838; Catiline and The Deluge, 1839; Sacred Poems, 1843; Memnon, 1844; Revelations of Life, 1849; &c. Mr Reade has lived to superintend and publish four collective editions of his poetical works (1851-1865). He has also written some novels, and two volumes of Continental Impressions (1847). The poem of Italy, in the Spenserian stanza, recalls Byron's Childe Harold, while the Revelations resemble Wordsworth's Excursion. We subjoin a few lines of description:

We looked toward

The sun, rayless and red; emerging slow From a black canopy that lowered above. O'er a blue sky it hung where fleecy clouds 79

Swelled like low hills along the horizon's verge,
Down slanting to a sea of glory, or

O'er infinite plains in luminous repose.

Eastward the sulphurous thunder-clouds were rolled:
While on the lurid sky beneath was marked
The visibly falling storm. The western rays
Braided its molten edges, rising up

Like battlemented towers, their brazen fronts
Changing perturbedly: from which, half seen,
The imaginative eye could body forth
Spiritual forms of thrones and fallen powers,
Reflecting on their scarred and fiery fronts,
The splendours left behind them.

Catiline, a drama, is well conceived and executed; but here also Mr Reade follows another poetical master, Ben Jonson.

WINTHROP MACKWORTH PRAED.

This gentleman (1802-1839) was early distinguished for scholarship and poetic talent. In conjunction with a school-fellow-the Rev. John Moultrie, who also wrote some pleasing poetry— Mr Praed set up a paper called The Etonian; and he was associated with Macaulay as a writer in Knight's Quarterly Magazine. The son of a wealthy London banker, Mr Praed was educated at Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge; he studied for the bar, and, having entered public life as a Conservative politician, sat in the House of Commons for English boroughs, and for a short period in 1835 held the office of Secretary of the Board of Control. His poetical pieces were contributed to periodicals, and were first collected by an American publisher in 1844. "They are light, fashionable sketches, yet executed with great truth and sprightliness. The following is an excellent portrait of a wealthy English bachelor and humorist:

It was his doctrine that the poor

Were always able, never willing; And so the beggar at the door

Had first abuse, and then a shilling.

Some public principles he had,

But was no flatterer nor fretter;
He rapped his box when things were bad,
And said: 'I cannot make them better.'
And much he loathed the patriot's snort,

And much he scorned the placeman's snuffle, And cut the fiercest quarrels short

With, 'Patience, gentlemen, and shuffle!'

For full ten years his pointer, Speed,

Had couched beneath his master's table; For twice ten years his old white steed Had fattened in his master's stable. Old Quince averred upon his troth

They were the ugliest beasts in Devon ; And none knew why he fed them both With his own hands, six days in seven.

Whene'er they heard his ring or knock, Quicker than thought the village slatterns Flung down the novel, smoothed the frock, And took up Mrs Glasse or patterns. Alice was studying baker's bills;

Louisa looked the queen of knitters; Jane happened to be hemming frills;

And Nell by chance was making fritters.

But all was vain. And while decay

Came like a tranquil moonlight o'er him, And found him gouty still and gay,

With no fair nurse to bless or bore him; His rugged smile and easy chair,

His dread of matrimonial lectures, His wig, his stick, his powdered hair, Were themes for very strange conjectures.

Some sages thought the stars above

Had crazed him with excess of knowledge; Some heard he had been crossed in love Before he came away from college; Some darkly hinted that His Grace Did nothing, great or small, without him; Some whispered, with a solemn face,

That there was something odd about him.

I found him at threescore and ten
A single man, but bent quite double ;
Sickness was coming on him then

To take him from a world of trouble.
He prosed of sliding down the hill,
Discovered he grew older daily;
One frosty day he made his will,

The next he sent for Dr Baillie.

And so he lived, and so he died;

When last I sat beside his pillow,

He shook my hand: Ah me!' he cried, 'Penelope must wear the willow! Tell her I hugged her rosy chain

While life was flickering in the socket, And say that when I call again

I'll bring a license in my pocket.

'I've left my house and grounds to FagI hope his master's shoes will suit him! And I've bequeathed to you my nag,

To feed him for my sake, or shoot him. The vicar's wife will take old Fox;

She'll find him an uncommon mouser; And let her husband have my box, My Bible, and my Assmanshäuser.

'Whether I ought to die or not,

My doctors cannot quite determine; It's only clear that I shall rot,

And be, like Priam, food for vermin. My debts are paid. But Nature's debt Almost escaped my recollection! Tom, we shall meet again; and yet I cannot leave you my direction!'

THOMAS HOOD.

THOMAS HOOD (1798–1845) appeared before the public chiefly as a comic poet and humorist; but several of his compositions, of a different nature, shew that he was also capable of excelling in the grave, pathetic, and sentimental. He had thoughts too deep for tears,' and rich imaginative dreams and fancies, which were at times embodied in continuous strains of pure and exquisite poetry, but more frequently thrown in, like momentary shadows, among his light and fantastic effusions. His wit and sarcasm were always well applied. This ingenious and gifted man was a native of London, son of one of the partners in the bookselling firm of Vernor, Hood, and Sharpe. He was educated for the counting-house, and at an early age was placed under the charge of a City merchant. His health, however, was found unequal to the close confinement and application required at the merchant's desk, and he was sent to reside with some relatives in Dundee, of which town his father was a native. While resident there, Mr Hood evinced his taste for literature. He contributed to the local newspapers, and also to the Dundee Magazine, a periodical of considerable merit. On the re-establishment of his health, he returned to London, and was put apprentice to a relation, an engraver. At this employment he remained just long enough to acquire a taste for drawing, which was afterwards of essential service to him in illustrating his poetical productions. About the year 1821 he had adopted literature as a profession, and was installed as regular assistant to the London Magazine, which at that time was left without its founder and ornament, Mr John Scott, who was unhappily killed in a duel. On the cessation of this work, Mr Hood wrote for various periodicals. He was some time editor of the New Monthly Magazine, and also of a magazine which bore his own name. His life was one of incessant exertion, embittered by ill health and all the disquiets and uncertainties incidental to authorship. When almost prostrated by disease, the government stepped in to relieve him with a small pension; and after his premature death in May 1845, his literary friends contributed liberally towards the support of his widow and family. The following lines, written a few weeks before his death, possess a peculiar and melancholy interest: Farewell, Life! my senses swim, And the world is growing dim: Thronging shadows cloud the light, Like the advent of the nightColder, colder, colder still, Upwards steals a vapour chill; Strong the earthy odour growsI smell the mould above the rose !

Welcome, Life! the spirit strives:
Strength returns, and hope revives;
Cloudy fears and shapes forlorn
Fly like shadows at the morn-

O'er the earth there comes a bloom;
Sunny light for sullen gloom,
Warm perfume for vapour cold-

I smell the rose above the mould!

April 1845.

Mr Hood's productions are in various styles and forms. His first work, Whims and Oddities, attained to great popularity. Their most original feature was the use which the author made of puns a figure generally too contemptible for literature, but which, in Hood's hands, became the basis of genuine humour, and often of the purest pathos. He afterwards (1827) tried a series of National Tales; but his prose was less attractive than his verse. A regular novel, Tylney Hall, was a more decided failure. In poetry he made a great advance. The Plea of the Midsummer Fairies is a rich imaginative work, superior to his other productions. As editor of the Comic Annual, and also of some of the literary annuals, Mr Hood increased his reputation for sportive humour and poetical fancy; and he continued the same vein in his Up the Rhine-a satire on the absurdities of English travellers. In 1843, he issued two volumes of Whimsicalities, a Periodical Gathering, collected chiefly from the New Monthly Magazine. His last production of any importance was the Song of the Shirt, which first appeared in Punch (1844), and is as admirable in spirit as in composition. This striking picture of the miseries of the poor London sempstresses struck home to the heart, and aroused the benevolent feelings of the public. In most of Hood's works, even in his puns and levities, there is a 'spirit of good' directed to some kindly or philanthropic object. He had serious and mournful jests, which were the more effective from their strange and unexpected combinations. Those who came to laugh at folly, remained to sympathise with want and suffering. The 'various pen' of Hood, said Douglas Jerrold, 'touched alike the springs of laughter and the sources of tears.' Charles Lamb said Hood carried two faces under his namesake, a tragic one and a comic.

Of Hood's graceful and poetical puns, it would be easy to give abundant specimens. The following stanzas form part of an inimitable burlesque :

Lament for the Decline of Chivalry.

Well hast thou said, departed Burke,
All chivalrous romantic work

Is ended now and past!

That iron age, which some have thought

Of mettle rather overwrought,

Is now all over-cast.

Ay! where are those heroic knights
Of old-those armadillo wights

Who wore the plated vest?
Great Charlemagne and all his peers
Are cold-enjoying with their spears
An everlasting rest.

The bold King Arthur sleepeth sound;
So sleep his knights who gave that Round
Old Table such éclat !

Oh, Time has plucked the plumy brow!
And none engage at turneys now

But those that go to law!... Where are those old and feudal clans, Their pikes, and bills, and partisans ; Their hauberks, jerkins, buffs?

A battle was a battle then,
A breathing piece of work; but men
Fight now with powder puffs!

The curtal-axe is out of date!
The good old cross-bow bends to Fate;
'Tis gone the archer's craft!
No tough arm bends the springing yew,
And jolly draymen ride, in lieu

Of Death, upon the shaft. ...
In cavils when will cavaliers
Set ringing helmets by the ears,

And scatter plumes about?
Or blood-if they are in the vein ?
That tap will never run again-
Alas, the casque is out!

No iron crackling now is scored
By dint of battle-axe or sword,
To find a vital place;
Though certain doctors still pretend,
Awhile, before they kill a friend,
To labour through his case!

Farewell, then, ancient men of might!
Crusader, errant squire, and knight!
Our coats and customs soften;
To rise would only make you weep;
Sleep on in rusty iron, sleep

As in a safety coffin !

The grave, lofty, and sustained style of Hood is much more rare than this punning vein; but a few verses will shew how truly poetical at times was his imagination-how rapt his fancy. The diction of the subjoined stanzas is rich and musical, and may recall some of the finest flights of the Elizabethan poets. We quote from an Ode to the Moon.

Mother of light! how fairly dost thou go
Over those hoary crests, divinely led !
Art thou that huntress of the silver bow
Fabled of old? Or rather dost thou tread
Those cloudy summits thence to gaze below,
Like the wild chamois on her Alpine snow,
Where hunter never climbed-secure from dread?
A thousand ancient fancies I have read

Of that fair presence, and a thousand wrought,
Wondrous and bright,

Upon the silver light,

Tracing fresh figures with the artist thought.

What art thou like? Sometimes I see thee ride
A far-bound galley on its perilous way;
Whilst breezy waves toss up their silvery spray :
Sometimes behold thee glide,

Clustered by all thy family of stars,

Like a lone widow through the welkin wide,
Whose pallid cheek the midnight sorrow mars:
Sometimes I watch thee on from steep to steep,
Timidly lighted by thy vestal torch,

Till in some Latinian cave I see thee creep,
To catch the young Endymion asleep,
Leaving thy splendour at the jagged porch.

Oh, thou art beautiful, howe'er it be !
Huntress, or Dian, or whatever named-
And he the veriest Pagan who first framed
A silver idol, and ne'er worshipped thee;
It is too late, or thou shouldst have my knee-
Too late now for the old Ephesian vows,
And not divine the crescent on thy brows;
Yet, call thee nothing but the mere mild moon,
Behind those chestnut boughs,

Casting their dappled shadows at my feet ;
I will be grateful for that simple boon,
In many a thoughtful verse and anthem sweet,
And bless thy dainty face whene'er we meet.

In the Gem, a literary annual for 1829, Mr Hood published a ballad entitled The Dream of Eugene Aram, which is also remarkable for its exhibition of the secrets of the human heart, and its deep and powerful moral feeling. It is perhaps to be regretted that an author who had undoubted command of the higher passions and emotions, should so seldom have frequented this sacred ground, but have preferred the gaieties of mirth and fancy. He probably saw that his originality was more apparent in the latter, and that popularity was in this way more easily attained. Immediate success was of importance to him; and until the position of literary men be rendered more secure and unassailable, we must often be content to lose works which can only be the ripened fruits of wise delay.'

The following is one of Hood's most popular effusions in that style which the public identified as peculiarly his own :

A Parental Ode to my Son, aged Three Years and Five Months.

Thou happy, happy elf!

(But stop-first let me kiss away that tear)

Thou tiny image of myself!

(My love, he's poking peas into his ear!)
Thou merry, laughing sprite!
With spirits feather-light,

Untouched by sorrow, and unsoiled by sin,
(Good heavens! the child is swallowing a pin !)

Thou little tricksy Puck!

With antic toys so funnily bestuck,

Light as the singing bird that wings the air,

(The door! the door! he 'll tumble down the stair!) Thou darling of thy sire!

(Why, Jane, he'll set his pinafore afire !)

Thou imp of mirth and joy!

In Love's dear chain so strong and bright a link,
Thou idol of thy parents (Drat the boy!
There goes my ink !)

Thou cherub-but of earth;
Fit playfellow for fays by moonlight pale,
In harmless sport and mirth,

(That dog will bite him if he pulls its tail!)
Thou human humming-bee, extracting honey
From every blossom in the world that blows,
Singing in youth's Elysium ever sunny,
(Another tumble-that 's his precious nose!)
Thy father's pride and hope!
(He 'll break the mirror with that skipping-rope!)
With pure heart newly stamped from Nature's mint,
(Where did he learn that squint ?)

Play on, play on,

My elfin John!

Toss the light ball-bestride the stick,

(I knew so many cakes would make him sick!) With fancies buoyant as the thistle-down, Prompting the face grotesque, and antic brisk With many a lamb-like frisk,

(He's got the scissors, snipping at your gown!) Thou pretty opening rose !

(Go to your mother, child, and wipe your nose!) Balmy, and breathing music like the south, (He really brings my heart into my mouth!) Fresh as the morn, and brilliant as its star, (I wish that window had an iron bar!) Bold as the hawk, yet gentle as the dove, (I'll tell you what, my love,

I cannot write, unless he 's sent above!)

The Song of the Shirt.

With fingers weary and worn,

With eyelids heavy and red,
A woman sat, in unwomanly rags,
Plying her needle and thread.
Stitch-stitch-stitch!

In poverty, hunger, and dirt;
And still, with a voice of dolorous pitch,
She sang the 'Song of the Shirt!'

'Work-work-work!

While the cock is crowing aloof!
And work-work-work!

Till the stars shine through the roof!
It's oh! to be a slave,

Along with the barbarous Turk, Where woman has never a soul to save, If this is Christian work!

'Work-work-work!

Till the brain begins to swim ; Work-work-work!

Till the eyes are heavy and dim! Seam, and gusset, and band, Band, and gusset, and seam, Till over the buttons I fall asleep, And sew them on in a dream!

"O men, with sisters dear!

O men, with mothers and wives, It is not linen you 're wearing out! But human creatures' lives! Stitch-stitch-stitch!

In poverty, hunger, and dirt; Sewing at once, with a double thread, A shroud as well as a shirt.

'But why do I talk of Death?
That phantom of grisly bone;
I hardly fear its terrible shape,
It seems so like my own.

It seems so like my own,
Because of the fasts I keep;

O God! that bread should be so dear,
And flesh and blood so cheap!

'Work-work-work!

My labour never flags;

And what are its wages? A bed of straw,
A crust of bread, and rags.

That shattered roof-and this naked floorA table-a broken chair;

And a wall so blank, my shadow I thank
For sometimes falling there!

'Work-work-work!

From weary chime to chime, Work-work-work

As prisoners work for crime !