Southey wrote innumerable reviews and magazine articles; and, indeed, tried his pen at every sort of literary work. His diction—in prose, at least—is almost perfect, and his poetical style not unpleasing. His industry, his learning, and his care in production must be acknowledged; but his poems are very little read, and, in spite of his own prophecies, are doomed to the shelf rather than retained upon the table. Like Wordsworth, he was one of the most egotistical of men; he had no greater admirer than Robert Southey; and had his exertions not been equal to his self-laudation, he would have been intolerable.
The most singular instance of perverted taste and unmerited eulogy is to be found in his Vision of Judgment, which, as poet-laureate, he produced to the memory of George the Third. The severest criticism upon it is Lord Byron's Vision of Judgment—reckless, but clever and trenchant. The consistency and industry of Southey's life caused him to be appointed poet-laureate upon the death of Pye; and in 1835, having declined a baronetcy, he received an annual pension of £300. Having lost his first wife in 1837, he married Miss Bowles, the poetess, in 1839; but soon after his mind began to fail, and he had reached a state of imbecility which ended in death on the 21st of March, 1843. In 1837, at the age of sixty-three, he collected and edited his complete poetical works, with copious and valuable historical notes.
Historical Value.—It is easy to see in what manner Southey, as a literary man, has reflected the spirit of the age. Politically, he exhibits partisanship from Radical to Tory, which may be clearly discerned by comparing his Wat Tyler with his Vision of Judgment and his Odes. As to literary and poetic canons, his varied metre, and his stories in the style of Wordsworth, show that he had abandoned all former schools. In his histories and biographies he is professedly historical; and in his epics he shows that greater range of learned investigation which is so characteristic of that age. The Curse of Kehama and Thalaba would have been impossible in a former age. He himself objected to be ranked with the Lakers; but Wordsworth, Southey, and Coleridge have too much in common, notwithstanding much individual difference, not to be classed together as innovators and asserters, whether we call them Lakers or something else.
It was on the occasion of his publishing Thalaba, that his name was first coupled with that of Wordsworth. His own words are, "I happened to be residing at Keswick when Mr. Wordsworth and I began to be acquainted. Mr. Coleridge also had resided there; and this was reason enough for classing us together as a school of poets." There is not much external resemblance, it is true, between Thalaba and the Excursion; but the same poetical motives will cause both to remain unread by the multitude—unnatural comparisons, recondite theology, and a great lack of common humanity. That there was a mutual admiration is found in Southey's declaration that Wordsworth's sonnets contain the profoundest poetical wisdom, and that the Preface is the quintessence of the philosophy of poetry.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge.—More individual, more eccentric, less commonplace, in short, a far greater genius than either of his fellows, Coleridge accomplished less, had less system, was more visionary and fragmentary than they: he had an amorphous mind of vast proportions. The man, in his life and conversation, was great; the author has left little of value which will last when the memory of his person has disappeared. He was born on the 21st of October, 1772, at Ottery St. Mary. His father was a clergyman and vicar of the parish. He received his education at Christ's Hospital in London, where, among others, he had Charles Lamb as a comrade, and formed with him a friendship which lasted as long as they both lived.
Early Life.—There he was an erratic student, but always a great reader; and while he was yet a lad, at the age of fourteen, he might have been called a learned man.
He had little self-respect, and from stress of poverty he intended to apprentice himself to a shoemaker; but friends who admired his learning interfered to prevent this, and he was sent with a scholarship to Jesus College, Cambridge, in 1791. Like Wordsworth and Southey, he was an intense Radical at first; and on this account left college without his degree in 1793. He then enlisted as a private in the 15th Light Dragoons; but, although he was a favorite with his comrades, whose letters he wrote, he made a very poor soldier. Having written a Latin sentence under his saddle on the stable wall, his superior education was recognized; and he was discharged from the service after only four months' duty. Eager for adventure, he joined Southey and Lloyd in their scheme of pantisocracy, to which we have already referred; and when that failed for want of money, he married the sister-in-law of Southey—Miss Fricker, of Bristol. He was at this time a Unitarian as well as a Radical, and officiated frequently as a Unitarian minister. His sermons were extremely eloquent. He had already published some juvenile poems, and a drama on the fall of Robespierre, and had endeavored to establish a periodical called The Watchman. He was always erratic, and dependent upon the patronage of his friends; in short, he always presented the sad spectacle of a man who could not take care of himself.
His Writings.—After a residence at Stowey, in Somersetshire, where he wrote some of his finest poems, among which were the first part of Christabel, The Ancient Mariner, and Remorse, a tragedy, he was enabled, through the kindness of friends, to go, in 1798, to Germany, where he spent fourteen months in the study of literature and metaphysics. In the year 1800 he returned to the Lake country, where he for some time resided with Southey at Keswick; Wordsworth being then at Grasmere. Then was established as a fixed fact in English literature the Lake school of poetry. These three poets acted and reacted upon each other. From having been great Radicals they became Royalists, and Coleridge's Unitarian belief was changed into orthodox churchmanship. His translation of Schiller's Wallenstein should rather be called an expansion of that drama, and is full of his own poetic fancies. After writing for some time for the Morning Post, he went to Malta as the Secretary to the Governor in 1804, at a salary of £800 per annum. But his restless spirit soon drove him back to Grasmere, and to desultory efforts to make a livelihood.
In 1816 he published the two parts of Christabel, an unfinished poem, which, for the wildness of the conceit, exquisite imagery, and charming poetic diction, stands quite alone in English literature. In a periodical called The Friend, which he issued, are found many of his original ideas; but it was discontinued after twenty-seven numbers. His Biographia Literaria, published in 1817, contains valuable sketches of literary men, living and dead, written with rare critical power.
In his Aids to Reflection, published in 1825, are found his metaphysical tenets; his Table-Talk is also of great literary value; but his lectures on Shakspeare show him to have been the most remarkable critic of the great dramatist whom the world has produced.