At college his industry was still of the same vagrant self-directed description that it had hitherto been. He read much, but he did not distinguish himself in the special studies of the place, nor desired to do so. Now his uncle, the Rev. H. Hill, had designed that his nephew should enter the Church, where only he had the means of assisting his future advancement in life. When Southey first came to Oxford, he contemplated this as his future destination, though probably with no very good will. But it is quite evident that his course of reading and thinking has not been fitting him for the Church; and we are not at all surprised to find that this disinclination to take holy orders amounts at length to a decided and unconquerable repugnance. We might be rather surprised to find, as we do, that, throughout this era of the reign of liberty and equality, he retains his fervent and deep-rooted sentiments of piety. What exactly his theological creed had become, we have no distinct evidence before us: probably it was unsettled enough. But it is quite remarkable how strong a faith he has, throughout the whole of his career, in the great fundamental doctrine of religion—a future state of existence. It is no mere doctrinal belief, no dim and shadowy foreboding; it was such a belief as a European has in the existence of the continent of America. No emigrant can have a stronger conviction that he shall reach the new country he has embarked for, or that he shall meet such of his friends as have preceded him on the same voyage, than Southey has in that future world to which we are sailing over the ocean of time.
Mr Cuthbert Southey very wisely refrains from speaking decidedly upon his father's religious opinions. He leaves the impression on our mind that, according to his view, the Unitarian heresy was the utmost limit of his divergence from the orthodox standard. We doubt if Southey, at this time, had formed any doctrinal system full and precise enough to be classed under the name of Unitarianism. However that may be, it was impossible for him, with his relaxed creed, and his high sense of moral rectitude, to think of entering the Church. Such unhappily being the state of his opinions, he very properly abandoned all idea of taking orders. At a subsequent period of his life, we may remark that his repugnance to subscribe the articles of the Church of England may very fairly be attributed far more to the moral feelings than to the religious opinions of the man, far more to an extreme scrupulosity and the reluctance to fetter himself, than to any absolute heresy. This we may have an opportunity of showing as we advance farther in the correspondence.
But the Church being resigned, it was necessary to look out for some other career. He thinks of physic, and studies anatomy for a short time, but the dissecting-room disgusts him. He thinks, as doubtless many others have thought, and are thinking still, that some official appointment which would occupy his mornings with business, and leave his evenings for philosophy and poetry, would be a very suitable position, and he writes to his friend Bedford for his advice and interest in the matter. His friend bids him reflect whether he, with his burning republicanism, was exactly the person most likely to obtain the much sought for patronage of Government. At last he thinks of emigration. Rousseau and Coleridge convert the scheme of emigration into the project of Pantisocracy. Here is the provision for life, and liberty, and equality. The scheme is perfect. It will be house and home—it will be philosophy put in action.
The letters of Southey are not at this time the interesting compositions which some may have expected to find them; neither do they give us much insight into the details of this great scheme (though tried on a small scale) of a community of goods. The earlier letters—say those which, immediately succeeding the autobiography, occupy the remaining part of the first volume of the work—are indeed anything but pleasing or agreeable. The editor himself speaks of them in the following manner: "His letters, which at this time seem to have been exercises in composition, give evidence of his industry, and at the same time indicate a mind imbued with heathen philosophy and Grecian republicanism. They are written often in a style of inflated declamation, which, as we shall see, before many years had passed, subsided into a more natural and tranquil tone under the influence of his matured taste." They are the letters of a clever confident youth, and quite as disagreeable as such effusions usually are; full of flippant absurd judgments on men and things, varied with that affected self-disparagement which never fails to form a conspicuous part of such compositions. Their writers are profound philosophers at one moment, and rail at philosophy the next; full of their future fame, yet despising the only occupation that they love. "I am ready," says Southey, "to quarrel with my friends for not making me a carpenter, and with myself for devoting myself to pursuits certainly unimportant, and of no real utility either to myself or to others." One gets nothing from letters of this description. Our account of Pantisocracy we must take from the words of the editor himself:—
"We have seen," he says, "that in one or two of his early letters my father speaks of emigration to America as having entered his mind; and the failure of the plans I have just mentioned now caused him to turn his thoughts more decidedly in that direction; and the result was a scheme of emigration, to which those who conceived it gave the euphonious name of 'Pantisocracy.' This idea, it appears, was first originated by Mr Coleridge and one or two of his friends; and he mentioned it to my father, on becoming acquainted with him at Oxford. Their plan was to collect as many brother adventurers as they could, and to establish a community in the New World upon the most thoroughly social basis. Land was to be purchased with their common contributions, and to be cultivated by their common labour. Each was to have his portion of work assigned him; and they calculated that a large part of their time would still remain for social converse and literary pursuits. The females of the party—for all were to be married men—were to cook, and perform all domestic affairs; and having even gone so far as to plan the architecture of their cottages, and the form of their settlement, they had pictured as pleasant a Utopia as ever entered an ardent mind."—(P. 211.)
We nowhere gather what provision was made for any other branch of industry than the agricultural. Was each man to be his own tailor, shoemaker, carpenter, &c.? Or was each Pantisocrat to train himself for one special art, to be practised for the benefit of the whole? Or were they to export raw produce, or poetry, the results of their much literary leisure, and so obtain from the old civilised countries the necessary articles for a commodious life? If the last was their plan, their colony, by still being dependent upon other countries, would lose its character as a complete experiment of a new social organisation. The projectors seem to have thought of nothing beyond the cultivation of the soil, (if they had even studied this,) and the building or the architecture of their cottages. Never surely was such a scheme of colonisation devised. Amongst the whole number of emigrants, there were only two who, apparently, had ever handled anything but books. Shad, the servant lad, and one "Heath an apothecary!" They were all students, poets, or scholars; if they had ever reached the banks of the Susquehanna, they would have found, on unpacking their boxes, that they had all brought nothing but books.
Southey having had some notions of emigrating before he became a Pantisocrat, is heard now and then to talk about the price of "blue trousers and cloth jackets;" but Coleridge had a fixed idea, that all was to be done—at least all his part was to be done—by irresistible force of argument. "Pantisocracy!" he exclaims, in a letter which is here quoted; "Oh! I shall have such a scheme of it! My head, my heart, are all alive. I have drawn up my arguments in battle array." His head and his heart! As to what hands could do, that was to be left to others. He, on the banks of the Susquehanna, would still draw up arguments in battle array. "Up I rose," he says a little further on, speaking of one who had ventured to laugh at their project, "up I rose terrible in reasoning!" We can well believe it; and if terrible reasoning would have founded a colony, he would have been the most successful of emigrants. But it is palpable that in no other way, and by no other labour, would he have assisted the new settlement. Yet when Southey, coming to his senses, relinquished the scheme, Coleridge was grievously offended. He might well, indeed, be the last to resign the project. He would have gloriously defended the little band of zealots to the latest hour of their departure; he would have stood upon the beach, and protected their retreat from every logical assailant; he would have seen the last man safely on board; and still he would have stood, and reasoned, till the vessel was out of sight; then would he have returned home, and triumphed in the great Pantisocratic settlement he had founded in America!
Very absurd, indeed, was this scheme—very like what children plan after reading Robinson Crusoe. But we must observe, that there was nothing in it worse than its folly. There was no moral obliquity. If these enthusiasts formed a perilous scheme, they took upon themselves the whole of the peril. In these days, when bold theories of social organisation are more rife than ever, it may be well to remark, that this is the only honest way to put such theories to the test of experiment. It is not fair of the speculative man to sit at home, secure of the enjoyments which the present order of things procures for him, and, from his library-table and his easy-chair, to promulgate doctrines that may be preparing the way for future revolutions of the most disastrous description. Unless he is quite sure of his speculations, such an act is of the nature of a crime. But to go forth, as Southey and Coleridge, and the rest of the fraternal band intended, to the banks of the Susquehanna, and there, unaided and uninterrupted, reduce into practice their own theories, this would be of the nature of heroism. Now, if there are a certain number of thinking intelligent men and women, who have a firm faith in the possibility of a communistic organisation of society, we should much like them to make the experiment in the manner these Pantisocrats designed, but, of course, with vastly better preparations for their undertaking. This would be fair; and the experiment, though it failed, would not be without good result. Let a certain number of such educated men and women, willing and able to work with their hands, as well as with their brains, each one previously trained to some necessary or useful handicraft, club their fortunes together. Let them purchase a track of land on the banks of the Mississippi, or wherever they think fit, and then go forth with all the necessary implements of agriculture and manufacture, and the requisite skill to use them, and abundant store of provision, and there let them put to shame, by their brilliant example of equality and fraternity, the old civilisation of mankind, founded hitherto on the law of individual property and self-reliance. Who would not wish them success? Even those who would prophesy nothing but failure for the experiment, would admire the courage and good faith of those who made it. There are few of us who would not like such an experiment to be made—by others—always presuming, that the worst result to those who embarked in it would be the blundering commencement of a new colony, which would soon mould itself on the pattern of the old societies of Europe.
But to return to the course of our biography. This visionary project, while it lasted, was not without its real results on the career and fortunes of Southey. Funds were to be raised, and therefore a poem was to be written. He composed with redoubled zeal his Joan of Arc, his first epic, and the first performance which rendered him famous in the world. It was not, however, published till after the vision of Pantisocracy had vanished into thin air. The history of its publication is well known, and how Joseph Cottle, who generously purchased the copyright, has for ever linked his name with those of Southey and Coleridge, by this and other good services rendered to the young poets, when as yet the world knew nothing of their greatness.
The next result of his project was of a more serious description. All the Pantisocrats were to be married. Whether, in Southey's case, a previous attachment was thus suddenly matured into a formal engagement, or whether he had been engaged to Miss Fricker even before this notable scheme had been set on foot, we nowhere learn. Nothing is said of the early love of the young poet—how it rose and grew and flourished. This momentous chapter of his life is summed up in the following brief sentence. It was all, we suppose, that the son knew of the matter.