Weave a circle round him thrice, And close your eyes with holy dread, LONDON PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY, SCOT'S CORPORATION HALL, CRANE COURT, FLEET STREET, (ENTRANCE FROM FETTER LANE.) MR. COLERIDGE WILL COMMENCE ON MONDAY, NOV. 18th, A COURSE OF LECTURES ON SHAKESPEAR AND MILTON, IN ILLUSTRATION OF THE PRINCIPLES OF POETRY, AND THEIR Application as Grounds of Criticism to the most popular Works of later English Poets, those of the Living included. AFTER an introductory Lecture on False Criticism, (especially in Poetry.) and on its Causes: two thirds of the remaining course, will be assigned, 1st, to a philosophic Analysis and Explanation of all the principal Characters of our great Dramatist, as OTHELLO, FALSTAFF, RICHARD 3d, IAGO, HAMLET, &c.: and 2nd, to a critical Comparison of SHAKESPEAR, in respect of Diction, Imagery, management of the Passions, Judgment in the construction of his Dramas, in short, of all that belongs to him as a Poet, and as a dramatic Poet, with his contemporaries, or immediate successors, JONSON, BEAUMONT and FLETCHER, FORD, MASSINGER, &c. in the endeavour to determine what of SHAKESPEAR'S Merits and Defects are common to him with other Writers of the same ago, and what remain peculiar to his own Genius. The Course will extend to fifteen Lectures, which will be given on Monday and Thursday evenings successively. The Lectures to commence at past 7 o'clock. Single Tickets for the whole Course, 2 Guineas; or 3 Guineas with the privi lege of introducing a Lady: may be procured at J. Hutchards, 190, Piccadilly; J. Murray's, Fleet Street; J. and A. Arch's, Booksellers and Stationers, Cornhill; Godwin's Juvenile Library, Skinner Street; W. Pople's, 67, Chancery Lane; or by Letter (post paid) to Mr. S. T. Coleridge, J. J. Morgan's, Esq. No. 7, Portland Place, Hammersmith. Programme of Coleridge's Lectures of 1808 WORK WITHOUT HOPE. Lines Composed 21st February 1827. All Nature seems at work. Slugs leave their lair- And Winter slumbering in the open air Yet well I ken the banks where amaranths blow, BOATMEN'S SONG FROM "REMORSE." Hear, sweet spirit, hear the spell, So shall the midnight breezes swell And at evening evermore, In a chapel on the shore, Shall the chaunter, sad and saintly, Miserere Domine ! Hark! the cadence dies away On the quiet moonlight sea: The boatmen rest their oars and say, Robert Southey (1774-1843) was the eldest son of a linen-draper in Bristol, where, in a house in Wine Street, he was born on the 12th of August 1774. He was a Robert Southey After the Portrait by Henry Edridge sensitive child, whose idiosyncracies were encouraged by his being brought up, after the fashion of Rousseau's Emile, by an eccentric maiden aunt at Bath. He went to a school at Corston and elsewhere, and then at the age of fourteen to Westminster, already dreaming of becoming a poet. Here he stayed until 1792, when he was expelled for a literary jocosity at the expense of the headmaster. He returned to Bristol to find his father's business bankrupt; still, some months later he was able, at an uncle's cost, to proceed to Balliol College. He was now on fire with the principles of the French Republic; all he learned at Oxford, he says, was "a little swimming and boating." In 1793 he wrote in a few weeks the epic of Joan of Arc, and then "another epic poem and then another." His terrible fluency had already taken hold of him. In June of 1794 he met and was instantly fascinated by S. T. Coleridge, who communicated to him the dream of pantisocracy; the lads agreed to emigrate together to America. This was prevented by their extreme poverty, but in 1795 they found a publisher in Bristol as enthusiastic as themselves, and a poet to boot, Joseph Cottle (1770-1853), who consented to publish their poems and give them money too. Joan of Arc was not issued until 1796, but in November Southey had married his boyhood's love, Mrs. Coleridge's sister, Edith Fricker, and a few days later had started alone for Madrid by sea from Falmouth to Corunna. In Spain he threw himself with ardour into the study of Spanish life and literature. Returning by Lisbon to Bristol, he tried in vain to live by journalism. The next months were vaguely spent, but in 1797-98 the Southeys are found residing in a little house at Westbury, Wilts, where he produced poetry with vehemence and volume, cheered by the companionship of Humphry Davy (1778-1829), the natural philosopher. His health broke down under excess of cerebral excitement, and in 1800 he went with his wife to Portugal to rest; but Southey could never be still, and at Lisbon and Cintra he wrote reams of verses. Next year Southey returned to England, published Thalaba, and presently visited journeys of his youth had awakened in him a passion for stability, Southey settled himself into Greta Hall like a tree. He filled it with his possessions and his interests, the fibres of his heart fitted into it and became part of it. It was not, however, until he had been its tenant for some four years that he realised that this was to be his final resting-place. It was also the home of the deserted wife and children of Coleridge, to whom Southey showed a most unselfish devotion. He sat down at his desk to punctual and almost mechanical literary labour, publishing many epics-Madoc in 1805, The Curse of Kehama in 1810, Roderick in 1814--and becoming, as he said, "a quiet, patient, easy-going hack of the mule breed, regular as clockwork in my pace," but cheerful and happy at all times. In a luckier age he would have soon been rich, but for few, and those the least important, of his works was Southey even decently paid. His only extravagance was books, of which he made an enormous and miscellaneous collection, especially rich in the Spanish and Portuguese languages. He was of all the men of letters of that age the most sedulous and deliberate craftsman; he made literature the trade of his life, and his multitude of books were his tools. He made many acquaintances, few friends; one of the most important of the latter being Landor, whom he met at Bristol in 1808-"the only man living," Southey declared, "of whose praise I was ambitious, or whose censure would have humbled me." Their sympathy was mutually invaluable to both until the death of Southey. About this time Southey, who had refused to write for the Edinburgh Review, began his long course of contributions to the newly founded Quarterly; he had become quite a politician now, and a droll description is preserved of Wordsworth, Southey, and Coleridge laying down the law in conversation about the Convention of Cintra, like three Wise Men of the East. Southey became an effective political writer, and for some time the Quarterly Review and he were supposed to represent exactly the same views. In 1813 Southey succeeded a poetaster called Pye as Poet Laureate, thus raising the office from the ridiculous obscurity in which it had lain since the days of Dryden. In 1816 he suffered the terrible anguish of losing his son Herbert, the only being on whom he had dared to dote without restraint. He was never quite the same man again; he said he was to make "no more great attempts, only a few autumnal flowers, like second primroses." He went on steadily, however, with his tale of bricks, and the vast heap of his writings mounted up in prose and verse. Already it began to be seen by the clairvoyant that his genius lay in the former, not in the latter. Byron, who met him in 1813, and who boldly mocked at Southey's poetry, confessed "his prose is perfect." With certain exceptions, and these not fortunate ones, the remainder of Southey's life was devoted to prose, and mainly to history and biography. He abandoned the vast scheme of a History of Portugal, at which he had been working for many years, but in 1819 he completed a History of Brazil. His History of the Peninsular War extended over from 1822 to 1832. Meanwhile his admirable lives of Nelson (1813) and of John Wesley (1820) were being read with universal pleasure. His Book of the Church (18:4) and his Naval History (Lives of the British Admirals), (1833-40) were more ambitious. In 1834 another great sorrow attacked him his wife became insane, and in 1837 she died. In 1835 Southey refused a baronetcy, an honour foolishly offered to so poor a man, but he accepted a further pension of £300 a year. His only other production of importance was The Doctor, the seven volumes of which appeared between 1834 and 1847. Southey did not see its completion. Reduced to absolute loneliness at Greta Hall, he Robert Southey After the Portrait by T. Phillips in the possession of John Murray, Esq. |