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forming a judgment. 'Do not ask yourself,' he says in a letter to Ebenezer Elliot, what are the causes cf the failure or success of your contemporaries; their failure or success is not determined yet; a generation, an age, a century, will not suffice to determine it! This is a truth to which past history will be found to testify. We read now with astonishment the opinion which Dryden, evidently conscious that he was flying in the face of prevailing senti. ments, ventured to express, towards the end of the seventeenth century, about two poets who had written in the beginning of it -For my own part, I consider Shakespeare equal to Ben Jonson, if not superior?

Southey's belief in his own posthumous renown has led some persons to call him conceited. In his youth he was sanguine and presumptuous; in his after-life sanguine and confident; at no time of life was he ever vain. He took great delight in his own works. Why should he not? Wordsworth once spoke to me of the value he had himself attached to ethical poetry as possibly excessive, but not on that account to be found fault with; inasmuch as it had given encouragement and animation to his endeavours. Southey in a letter to Grosvenor Bedford (Feb. 12, 1809) says,—'Young lady never felt more desirous to see herself in a new ball-dress than I do to see my own performances in print. . . . There are a great many philosophical reasons for this fancy of mine, and one of the best of all reasons is, that I hold it good to make everything a pleasure which it is possible to make so.' And in a letter to me (April 13, 1829) twenty years later, he iilustrates the same principle by a story of a Spaniard he had known who always put on his spectacles when he was about to eat cherries, that they might look the bigger and more tempting.'

...

He was not in the habit of guarding himself against misconstruction. Except on rare occasions, such as Lord Byron's invectives in the Press or those of Mr. W. Smith in the House of Commons, he left his character to take care of itself. He had a high opinion, especially in his earlier years, of his powers. He believed too in the high and permanent place which some portion of his work would take in the literature of his country. Such expectations are probably indulged by many young poets who make no mention of it. As abstinence is easier than moderation, and egoism in soliloquy than outspoken egoism, so is it not seldom the Life and Letters, vol. iv. Jan. 30, 1819.

refuge of the weak. And whether the aspirants be weak or strong, their aspirations are not ignoble, and their hopes make them happy. If they succeed, the world is the better; if they fail, it is

no worse.

Whatever tendency to excess there may have been on Southey's part in the estimate of his own works will be found to prevail quite as much in his estimate of the works of his friends, or indeed of many other works, old and new, which he approved and admired. In a letter to me of Oct. 1829, he writes,-'A greater poet than Wordsworth there never has been nor ever will be.' And if he expected for himself a larger measure of attention from posterity than may now seem likely to be accorded him, it should be remembered, that though as long as his mind lasted he 'lived laborious days' for the sake of his family and of others whom, in the generosity of his heart, he helped to support, yet all the labours of all the days did not enable him to do more than make preparations for the three great works which it was the object and ambition of his life to accomplish.

Of what he did accomplish, a portion will not soon be forgotten. There were greater poets in his generation, and there were men of a deeper and more far-reaching philosophic faculty; but take him for all in all, his ardent and genial piety, his moral strength, the magnitude and variety of his powers, the field which he covered in literature, and the beauty of his life,-it may be said of him, justly and with no straining of the truth, that of all his contemporaries he was the greatest MAN.

HENRY TAYLOR

FROM RODERICK.'

[The King is in disguise on his final mission to exterminate the Moors.]

On foot they came,

Chieftains and men alike; the Oaken Cross,
Triumphant borne on high, precedes their march,
And broad and bright the argent banner shone.
Roderick, who dealing death from side to side,
Had through the Moorish army now made way,
Beheld it flash, and judging well what aid
Approach'd, with sudden impulse that way rode,
To tell of what had pass'd, . . lest in the strife
They should engage with Julian's men, and mar
The mighty consummation. One ran on

To meet him fleet of foot, and having given
His tale to this swift messenger, the Goth
Halted awhile to let Orelio breathe.
Siverian, quoth Pelayo, if mine eyes

Deceive me not, yon horse, whose reeking sides
Are red with slaughter, is the same on whom

The apostate Orpas in his vauntery

Wont to parade the streets of Cordoba.

But thou shouldst know him best; regard him well:
Is't not Orelio?

Either it is he,

The old man replied, or one so like to him,
Whom all thought matchless, that similitude
Would be the greater wonder. But behold,
What man is he who in that disarray
Doth with such power and majesty bestride
The noble steed, as if he felt himself

In his own proper seat? Look how he leans
To cherish him; and how the gallant horse
Curves up his stately neck, and bends his head,
As if again to court that gentle touch,

And answer to the voice which praises him.
Can it be Maccabee? rejoin'd the King,

Or are the secret wishes of my soul

Indeed fulfill'd, and hath the grave given up

Its dead?... So saying, on the old man he turn'd
Eyes full of wide astonishment, which told
The incipient thought that for incredible
He spake no farther. But enough had past;
For old Siverian started at the words
Like one who sees a spectre, and exclaim'd,
Blind that I was to know him not till now!
My Master, O my Master!

He meantime

With easy pace moved on to meet their march.
King, to Pelayo he began, this day.

By means scarce less than miracle, thy throne
Is stablish'd, and the wrongs of Spain revenged.
Orpas the accursed, upon yonder field.
Lies ready for the ravens. By the Moors
Treacherously slain, Count Julian will be found
Before Saint Peter's altar; unto him

Grace was vouchsafed; and by that holy power
Which at Visonia from the Primate's hand

Of his own proper act to me was given,
Unworthy as I am, . . yet sure I think

Not without mystery, as the event hath shown, . .
Did I accept Count Julian's penitence,
And reconcile the dying man to Heaven.
Beside him hath his daughter fallen asleep;

Deal honourably with his remains, and let

One grave with Christian rites receive them both. Is it not written that as falls the Tree

So it shall lie?

In this and all things else,

Pelayo answered, looking wistfully

Upon the Goth, thy pleasure shall be done.
Then Roderick saw that he was known, and turn'd

His head away in silence. But the old man
Laid hold upon his bridle, and look'd up
In his master's face, weeping and silently.
Thereat the Goth with fervent pressure took
His hand, and bending down toward him, said,

My good Siverian, go not thou this day

To war! I charge thee keep thyself from harm!
Thou art past the age for battles, and with whom
Hereafter should thy mistress talk of me

If thou wert gone?.. Thou seest I am unarm'd;
Thus disarray'd as thou beholdest me,

Clean through yon miscreant army have I cut
My way unhurt; but being once by Heaven
Preserved, I would not perish with the guilt
Of having wilfully provoked my death.

Give me thy helmet and thy cuirass! . . nay, .
Thou wert not wont to let me ask in vain,
Nor to gainsay me when my will was known!
To thee methinks I should be still the King.

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O who could tell what deeds were wrought that day, Or who endure to hear the tale of rage,

Hatred, and madness, and despair, and fear,
Horror, and wounds, and agony, and death,

The cries, the blasphemies, the shrieks, and groans,
And prayers, which mingled with the din of arms
In one wild uproar of terrific sounds;

While over all predominant was heard,

Reiterate from the conquerors o'er the field,
Roderick the Goth! Roderick and Victory!
Roderick and Vengeance! ...

The evening darken'd, but the avenging sword
Turned not away its edge till night had closed
Upon the field of blood. The Chieftains then
Blew the recall, and from their perfect work
Return'd rejoicing, all but he for whom
All look'd with most expectance. He full sure
Had thought upon that field to find his end
Desired, and with Florinda in the grave
Rest, in indissoluble union joined.

But still where through the press of war he went
Half-arm'd, and like a lover seeking death,
The arrows past him by to right and left,

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