Chapter 6

So Southey pleaded in theQuarterly Review. With reference to Emancipation and to the Reform Bill, he and Wordsworth—who, perhaps, had not kept themselves sufficiently in relation with living men and the public sentiment of the day—were in their solitude gifted with a measure of the prophetic spirit, which in some degree explains their alarms. For the prophet who knows little of expediency and nothing of the manipulation of parties, nothing of the tangled skein of contending interests, sees the future in its moral causes, and he sees it in a vision. But he cannot date the appearances in his vision. Battle, and garments rolled in blood, and trouble, and dimness of anguishpass before him, and he proclaims what it is given him to see. It matters not a little, however, in the actual event, whether the battle be on the morrow or half a century hence; and the prophet furnishes us with no chronology, or at best with some vague time and times and half a time. New forces have arisen before the terrors of his prediction come to pass, and therefore, when they come to pass, their effect is often altogether different from that anticipated. Wordsworth and Southey were right in declaring that a vast and formidable change was taking place in the England of their day: many things which they, amid incredulous scoffs, announced, have become actual; others remain to be fulfilled. But the events have taken up their place in an order of things foreign to the conceptions of the prophets; the fire from heaven descends, but meanwhile we, ingenious sons of men, have set up a lightning-conductor.

Southey and theQuarterly Reviewwere often spoken of as a single entity. But theReview, in truth, never precisely represented his feelings and convictions. With Gifford he had no literary sympathies. Gifford’s heart was full of kindness, says Southey, for all living creatures except authors;themhe regarded as Isaac Walton did the worm. Against the indulgence of that temper Southey always protested; yet he was chosen to bear the reproach of having tortured Keats, and of having anonymously glorified himself at the expense of Shelley. Gifford’s omissions, additions, substitutions, often caused Southey’s article in theReviewto be very unlike the article which he had despatched to the editor in manuscript. Probably these changes were often made on warrantable grounds. Southey’s confidence in his own opinions, which always seemed to him to be based upon moral principles, washigh; and he was not in the habit of diluting his ink. Phrases which sounded well in the library of Greta Hall had quite another sound in Mr. Murray’s office in Fleet Street.

On arriving in London for a short visit in the autumn of 1813, Southey learnt that the Prince Regent wished to confer on him the Laureateship, vacant by the death of Pye. Without consulting the Regent, Lord Liverpool had previously directed that the office should be offered to Walter Scott. On the moment came a letter from Scott informing Southey that he had declined the appointment, not from any foolish prejudice against holding it, but because he was already provided for, and would not engross emoluments which ought to be awarded to a man of letters who had no other views in life. Southey hesitated, having ceased for several years to produce occasional verses; but his friend Croker assured him that he would not be compelled to write odes as boys write exercises at stated times on stated subjects; that it would suffice if he wrote on great public events, or did not write, as the spirit moved him; and thus his scruples were overcome. In a little, low, dark room in the purlieus of St. James’—a solitary clerk being witness—the oath was duly administered by a fat old gentleman-usher in full buckle, Robert Southey swearing to be a faithful servant to the King, to reveal all treasons which might come to his knowledge, and to obey the Lord Chamberlain in all matters of the King’s service. It was Scott’s belief that his generosity had provided for his poorer brother bard an income of three or four hundred pounds a year. In reality the emolument was smaller and the task-work more irksome than had been supposed. The tierce of Canary, swilled by Ben Jonson and his poetic sons, had been wickedly commuted for a small sum;the whole net income amounted to 90l.But this, “the very least of Providence’s mercies,” as a poor clergyman said when pronouncing grace over a herring, secured an important happiness for Southey: he did not employ it, as Byron puts it, to butter his bread on both sides; he added twelve pounds to it, and vested it forthwith in an insurance upon his own life. “I have never felt any painful anxiety about providing for my family, ...” he writes to Scott; “but it is with the deepest feeling of thanksgiving that I have secured this legacy for my wife and children, and it is to you that I am primarily and chiefly indebted.”

Croker’s assurance was too hastily given. The birthday Ode, indeed, fell into abeyance during the long malady of George III.; but the New-Year’s Ode had still to be provided. Southey was fortunate in 1814; events worthy of celebration had taken place; a dithyramb, or rather an oration in lines of irregular length, was accordingly produced, and was forwarded to his musical yoke-fellow, Sir William Parsons. But the sight of Southey’s page, over which the longs and shorts meandered seemingly at their own sweet will, shocked the orderly mind of the chief musician. What kind of ear could Mr. Southey have? His predecessor, the lamented Mr. Pye, had written his Odes always in regular stanzas. What kind of action was this exhibited by the unbroken State Pegasus? Duly as each New Year approached, Southey set himself to what he called hisodeous job; it was the price he paid for the future comfort of his children. While his political assailants pictured the author ofJoan of Arcas a court-lacquey following in the train of the fat Adonis, he, with grim cheerfulness, was earning a provision for his girls; and had it not been a duty to kiss hands on the appointment, HisRoyal Highness the Prince Regent would never have seen his poet. Gradually the New-Year’s Ode ceased to be looked for, and Southey was emancipated. His verse-making as laureate occasionally rose into something higher than journeyman work; when public events stirred his heart to joy, or grief, or indignation, he wrote many admirable periods of measured rhetoric.The Funeral Song for the Princess Charlotteis of a higher strain; a knell, heavy yet clear-toned, is tolled by its finely wrought octosyllabics.

A few months after the battle of Waterloo, which had so deeply moved Southey, he started with his wife, a rare voyager from Keswick, and his little daughter Edith May, on a pilgrimage to the scene of victory. The aunts remained to take care of Bertha, Kate, and Isabel, with the nine-years-old darling of all, the only boy, Herbert. With Bruges, “like a city of Elizabeth’s age—you expect to see a head with a ruff looking from the window,” Southey was beyond measure delighted. At Ghent he ransacked bookshops, and was pleased to see in the Beguinage the realization of his own and Rickman’s ideas on Sisterhoods. On a clear September day the travellers visited the battlefield; the autumnal sunshine with soft airs, and now and again a falling leaf, while the bees were busy with the year’s last flowers, suited well with the poet’s mood of thankfulness, tempered by solemn thought. When, early in December, they returned with a lading of toys to their beloved lake-country, little Edith had hardly recovered from an illness which had attacked her at Aix. It was seven o’clock in the evening by the time they reached Rydal, and to press forward and arrive while the children were asleep would be to defraud everyone of the first reward earned by so long absence. “A return home under fortunate circumstances hassomething of the character of a triumph, and requires daylight.” The glorious presence of Skiddaw, and Derwent bright under the winter sky, asked also for a greeting at noon rather than at night. A depth of grave and tender thankfulness lay below Southey’s joy that morning; it was twelve years since he had pitched his tent here beside the Greta; twelve years had made him feel the touch of time; but what blessings they had brought! all his heart’s desire was here—books, children, leisure, and a peace that passeth understanding. The instant hour, however, was not for meditation but for triumph:—

“O joyful hour, when to our longing homeThe long-expected wheels at length drew nigh!When the first sound went forth, ‘they come! they come!’And hope’s impatience quicken’d every eye!‘Never had man whom Heaven would heap with blissMore glad return, more happy hour than this.’“Aloft on yonder bench, with arms dispread,My boy stood, shouting there his father’s name,Waving his hat around his happy head;And there a younger group his sisters came:Smiling they stood with looks of pleased surpriseWhile tears of joy were seen in elder eyes.“Soon all and each came crowding round to shareThe cordial greeting, the beloved sight;What welcomings of hand and lip were there!And when those overflowings of delightSubsided to a sense of quiet bliss,Life hath no purer, deeper happiness.“The young companion of our weary wayFound here the end desired of all her ills;She who in sickness pining many a dayHunger’d and thirsted for her native hills.Forgetful now of suffering past and pain,Rejoiced to see her own dear home again.“Recovered now the homesick mountaineerSate by the playmate of her infancy,The twin-like comrade,[11]—render’d doubly dearFor that long absence; full of life was sheWith voluble discourse and eager mienTelling of all the wonders she had seen.“Here silently between her parents stoodMy dark-eyed Bertha, timid as a dove;And gently oft from time to time she woo’dPressure of hand, or word, or look of love,With impulse shy of bashful tenderness,Soliciting again the wished caress.“The younger twain in wonder lost were they,My gentle Kate and my sweet Isabel:Long of our promised coming, day by day,It had been their delight to hear and tell;And now when that long-promised hour was come,Surprise and wakening memory held them dumb....“Soon they grew blithe as they were wont to be;Her old endearments each began to seek;And Isabel drew near to climb my knee,And pat with fondling hand her father’s cheek;With voice and touch and look reviving thusThe feelings which had slept in long disuse.“But there stood one whose heart could entertainAnd comprehend the fulness of the joy;The father, teacher, playmate, was againCome to his only and his studious boy;And he beheld again that mother’s eyeWhich with such ceaseless care had watched his infancy.“Bring forth the treasures now—a proud display—For rich as Eastern merchants we return!Behold the black Beguine, the Sister grey,The Friars whose heads with sober motion turn,The Ark well filled with all its numerous hives,Noah, and Shem, and Ham, and Japhet, and their wives.“The tumbler loose of limb; the wrestlers twain;And many a toy beside of quaint device,Which, when his fleecy flocks no more can gainTheir pasture on the mountains hoar with ice,The German shepherd carves with curious knife,Earning in easy toil the food of frugal life.“It was a group which Richter, had he viewed,Might have deemed worthy of his perfect skill;The keen impatience of the younger brood,Their eager eyes and fingers never still;The hope, the wonder, and the restless joyOf those glad girls and that vociferous boy.“The aged friend[12]serene with quiet smile,Who in their pleasure finds her own delight;The mother’s heart-felt happiness the while;The aunt’s rejoicing in the joyful sight;And he who in his gaiety of heart,With glib and noisy tongue performed the showman’s part.”

“O joyful hour, when to our longing home

The long-expected wheels at length drew nigh!

When the first sound went forth, ‘they come! they come!’

And hope’s impatience quicken’d every eye!

‘Never had man whom Heaven would heap with bliss

More glad return, more happy hour than this.’

“Aloft on yonder bench, with arms dispread,My boy stood, shouting there his father’s name,Waving his hat around his happy head;And there a younger group his sisters came:Smiling they stood with looks of pleased surpriseWhile tears of joy were seen in elder eyes.

“Aloft on yonder bench, with arms dispread,

My boy stood, shouting there his father’s name,

Waving his hat around his happy head;

And there a younger group his sisters came:

Smiling they stood with looks of pleased surprise

While tears of joy were seen in elder eyes.

“Soon all and each came crowding round to shareThe cordial greeting, the beloved sight;What welcomings of hand and lip were there!And when those overflowings of delightSubsided to a sense of quiet bliss,Life hath no purer, deeper happiness.

“Soon all and each came crowding round to share

The cordial greeting, the beloved sight;

What welcomings of hand and lip were there!

And when those overflowings of delight

Subsided to a sense of quiet bliss,

Life hath no purer, deeper happiness.

“The young companion of our weary wayFound here the end desired of all her ills;She who in sickness pining many a dayHunger’d and thirsted for her native hills.Forgetful now of suffering past and pain,Rejoiced to see her own dear home again.

“The young companion of our weary way

Found here the end desired of all her ills;

She who in sickness pining many a day

Hunger’d and thirsted for her native hills.

Forgetful now of suffering past and pain,

Rejoiced to see her own dear home again.

“Recovered now the homesick mountaineerSate by the playmate of her infancy,The twin-like comrade,[11]—render’d doubly dearFor that long absence; full of life was sheWith voluble discourse and eager mienTelling of all the wonders she had seen.

“Recovered now the homesick mountaineer

Sate by the playmate of her infancy,

The twin-like comrade,[11]—render’d doubly dear

For that long absence; full of life was she

With voluble discourse and eager mien

Telling of all the wonders she had seen.

“Here silently between her parents stoodMy dark-eyed Bertha, timid as a dove;And gently oft from time to time she woo’dPressure of hand, or word, or look of love,With impulse shy of bashful tenderness,Soliciting again the wished caress.

“Here silently between her parents stood

My dark-eyed Bertha, timid as a dove;

And gently oft from time to time she woo’d

Pressure of hand, or word, or look of love,

With impulse shy of bashful tenderness,

Soliciting again the wished caress.

“The younger twain in wonder lost were they,My gentle Kate and my sweet Isabel:Long of our promised coming, day by day,It had been their delight to hear and tell;And now when that long-promised hour was come,Surprise and wakening memory held them dumb.

“The younger twain in wonder lost were they,

My gentle Kate and my sweet Isabel:

Long of our promised coming, day by day,

It had been their delight to hear and tell;

And now when that long-promised hour was come,

Surprise and wakening memory held them dumb.

...

“Soon they grew blithe as they were wont to be;Her old endearments each began to seek;And Isabel drew near to climb my knee,And pat with fondling hand her father’s cheek;With voice and touch and look reviving thusThe feelings which had slept in long disuse.

“Soon they grew blithe as they were wont to be;

Her old endearments each began to seek;

And Isabel drew near to climb my knee,

And pat with fondling hand her father’s cheek;

With voice and touch and look reviving thus

The feelings which had slept in long disuse.

“But there stood one whose heart could entertainAnd comprehend the fulness of the joy;The father, teacher, playmate, was againCome to his only and his studious boy;And he beheld again that mother’s eyeWhich with such ceaseless care had watched his infancy.

“But there stood one whose heart could entertain

And comprehend the fulness of the joy;

The father, teacher, playmate, was again

Come to his only and his studious boy;

And he beheld again that mother’s eye

Which with such ceaseless care had watched his infancy.

“Bring forth the treasures now—a proud display—For rich as Eastern merchants we return!Behold the black Beguine, the Sister grey,The Friars whose heads with sober motion turn,The Ark well filled with all its numerous hives,Noah, and Shem, and Ham, and Japhet, and their wives.

“Bring forth the treasures now—a proud display—

For rich as Eastern merchants we return!

Behold the black Beguine, the Sister grey,

The Friars whose heads with sober motion turn,

The Ark well filled with all its numerous hives,

Noah, and Shem, and Ham, and Japhet, and their wives.

“The tumbler loose of limb; the wrestlers twain;And many a toy beside of quaint device,Which, when his fleecy flocks no more can gainTheir pasture on the mountains hoar with ice,The German shepherd carves with curious knife,Earning in easy toil the food of frugal life.

“The tumbler loose of limb; the wrestlers twain;

And many a toy beside of quaint device,

Which, when his fleecy flocks no more can gain

Their pasture on the mountains hoar with ice,

The German shepherd carves with curious knife,

Earning in easy toil the food of frugal life.

“It was a group which Richter, had he viewed,Might have deemed worthy of his perfect skill;The keen impatience of the younger brood,Their eager eyes and fingers never still;The hope, the wonder, and the restless joyOf those glad girls and that vociferous boy.

“It was a group which Richter, had he viewed,

Might have deemed worthy of his perfect skill;

The keen impatience of the younger brood,

Their eager eyes and fingers never still;

The hope, the wonder, and the restless joy

Of those glad girls and that vociferous boy.

“The aged friend[12]serene with quiet smile,Who in their pleasure finds her own delight;The mother’s heart-felt happiness the while;The aunt’s rejoicing in the joyful sight;And he who in his gaiety of heart,With glib and noisy tongue performed the showman’s part.”

“The aged friend[12]serene with quiet smile,

Who in their pleasure finds her own delight;

The mother’s heart-felt happiness the while;

The aunt’s rejoicing in the joyful sight;

And he who in his gaiety of heart,

With glib and noisy tongue performed the showman’s part.”

It was manifest to a thoughtful observer, says De Quincey, that Southey’s golden equanimity was bound up in a trinity of chords, a threefold chain—in a conscience clear of offence, in the recurring enjoyments from his honourable industry, and in the gratification of his parental affections.In the light of Herbert’s smiles his father almost lived; the very pulses of his heart played in unison with the sound of his son’s laughter. “There was,” De Quincey goes on, “in his manner towards this child, and towards this only, something that marked an excess of delirious doating, perfectly unlike the ordinary chastened movement of Southey’s affections; and something also which indicated a vague fear about him; a premature unhappiness, as if already the inaudible tread of calamity could be divined, as if already he had lost him.” As a baby, while Edith was only “like an old book, ugly and good,” Herbert, in spite of his Tartar eyes, a characteristic of Southey babyhood, was already beautiful. At six he was more gentle and more loving, says Southey, than you can almost conceive. “He has just learnt his Greek alphabet, and is so desirous of learning, so attentive and so quick of apprehension, that, if it please God he should live, there is little doubt but that something will come out of him.” In April, 1809, Southey writes to Landor, twenty-four hours after an attack of croup which seized his boy had been subdued: “Even now I am far, very far, from being at ease. There is a love which passeth the love of women, and which is more lightly alarmed than the lightest jealousy. Landor, I am not a Stoic at home; I feel as you do about the fall of an old tree! but, O Christ! what a pang it is to look upon the young shoot and think it will be cut down! And this is the thought which almost at all times haunts me; it comes upon me in moments when I know not whether the tears that start are of love or of bitterness.”

The alarm of 1809 passed away, and Herbert grew to the age of nine, active and bright of spirit, yet too pale, and, like his father, hanging too constantly over his books;a finely organized being, delicate in his sensibilities, and prematurely accomplished. Before the snow had melted which shone on Skiddaw that day when the children welcomed home their parents, Herbert Southey lay in his grave. His disease was an affection of the heart, and for weeks his father, palsied by apprehension, and unable to put hand to his regular work, stood by the bedside, with composed countenance, with words of hope, and agonized heart. Each day of trial made his boy more dear. With a trembling pride Southey saw the sufferer’s behaviour, beautiful in this illness as in all his life; nothing could be more calm, more patient, more collected, more dutiful, more admirable. At last, worn with watching, Southey and his wife were prevailed upon to lie down. The good Mary Barker watched, and it is she who writes the following lines:—“Herbert!—that sweetest and most perfect of all children on this earth, who died in my arms at nine years of age, whose death I announced to his father and mother in their bed, where I had prayed and persuaded them to go. When Southey could speak, his first words were, ‘The Lord hath given, and the Lord hath taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord!’ Never can I forget that moment” (1816).

“I am perfectly resigned,” Southey wrote to Bedford on the most mournful of all days, “and do not give way to grief. Thank God I can control myself for the sake of others.” But next morning found him weak as a child, even weaker in body than in mind, for long anxiety had worn him to the bone, and while he tried to calm and console the rest, his limbs trembled under him. His first wild wish to fly from Keswick passed away; it was good to be there near the boy’s grave. Weak as he was, he flung himself upon his work. “I employ myself incessantly,taking, however, every day as much exercise as I can bear without injurious fatigue, which is not much.” “It would surprise you were you to see what I get through in a day.” “For the first week I did as much every day as would at other times have seemed the full and overflowing produce of three.” From his early discipline in the stoical philosophy some help now was gained; from his active and elastic mind the gain was more; but these would have been insufficient to support him without a heart-felt and ever-present faith that what he had lost was not lost for ever. A great change had indeed come upon him. He set his house in order, and made arrangements as if his own death were at hand. He resolved not to be unhappy, but the joyousness of his disposition had received its death-wound; he felt as if he had passed at once from boyhood to the decline of life. He tried dutifully to make head against his depression, but at times with poor success. “I employ myself, and have recovered strength, but in point of spirits I rather lose ground.” Still, there are hidden springs of comfort. “The head and flower of my earthly happiness is cut off. But I amnotunhappy.” “When I give way to tears, which is only in darkness or solitude, they are not tears of unmingled pain.” All beloved ones grew more precious; the noble fortitude of his wife made her more than ever a portion of his best self. His uncle’s boy, Edward, he could not love more than he had loved him before; but, “as far as possible, he will be to me hereafter,” writes Southey, “in the place of my son.” And in truth the blessing of Herbert’s boyhood remained with him still; a most happy, a most beautiful boyhood it had been; he was thankful for having possessed the child so long; “for worlds I would not but have been his father.” “I have abundant blessings left; for each and all of these Iam truly thankful; but of all the blessings which God has given me, this child, who is removed, is the one Istillprize the most.” To relieve feelings which he dared not utter with his lips, he thought of setting about a monument in verse for Herbert and himself, which might make one inseparable memory for father and son. A page or two of fragmentary thoughts in verse and prose for this poetic monument exists, but Southey could not keep his imagination enough above his heart to dare to go on with it; to do so would have dissolved his heart anew. One or two of these holy scriptures of woe, truly red drops of Southey’s life-blood, will tell enough of this love passing the love of women.

“Thy life was a day; and sum it well, life is but a week of such days—with how much storm and cold and darkness! Thine was a sweet spring day—a vernal Sabbath, all sunshine, hope, and promise.”

“And that nameIn sacred silence buried, which was stillAt morn and eve the never-wearying themeOf dear discourse.”

“And that name

In sacred silence buried, which was still

At morn and eve the never-wearying theme

Of dear discourse.”

“Playful thoughtsTurned now to gall and esil.”

“Playful thoughts

Turned now to gall and esil.”

“No more great attempts, only a few autumnal flowers like second primroses, etc.”

“They who look for me in our Father’s kingdomWill look for him also; inseparablyShall we be remembered.”

“They who look for me in our Father’s kingdom

Will look for him also; inseparably

Shall we be remembered.”

“Come, then,Pain and Infirmity—appointed guests,My heart is ready.”

“Come, then,

Pain and Infirmity—appointed guests,

My heart is ready.”

From the day of his son’s death Southey began to step down from the heights of life, with a steadfast foot, and head still held erect. He recovered cheerfulness, but it was as one who has undergone an amputation seeks the sunshine. Herbert’s grave anchored him in Keswick. An offer of 2000l.a year for a daily article in theTimesdid not tempt him to London. His home, his books, his literary work, Skiddaw, Derwentwater, and Crosthwaite churchyard were too dear. Three years later came the unlooked-for birth of a second boy; and Cuthbert was loved by his father; but the love was chastened and controlled of autumnal beauty and seriousness.

When the war with France had ended, depression of trade was acutely felt in England; party spirit ran high, and popular passions were dangerously roused. In the spring of 1817, the Laureate saw to his astonishment a poem entitledWat Tyler, by Robert Southey, advertised as just published. He had written this lively dramatic sketch in the full fervour of Republicanism twenty-three years previously; the manuscript had passed into other hands, and he had long ceased to think of it. The skulking rogue and the knavish publisher who now gave it to the world had chosen their time judiciously; this rebuke to the apostate of theQuarterlywould be a sweet morsel for gossip-mongers to roll under the tongue, an infallible pill to purge melancholy with all true children of progress. No fewer than sixty thousand copies, it is said, were sold.Wat Tylersuited well with Southey’s nonage; it has a Bright rhetorical fierceness of humanity. The speech-making radical blacksmith, “still toiling, yet still poor,” his insulted daughter, her virtuous lover, the communist priest John Ball, whose amiable theology might be that of Mr. Belsham in his later days, stand over against the tyrantking, his Archiepiscopal absolver from oaths, the haughty nobles, and the servile minions of the law. There was nothing in the poem that could be remembered with shame, unless it is shameful to be generous and inexperienced at the age of twenty. But England in 1817 seemed charged with combustibles, and even so small a spark as this was not to be blown about without a care. The Prince Regent had been fired at; there were committals for treason; there were riots in Somersetshire; the swarm of Manchester Blanketeers announced a march to London; the Habeas Corpus was suspended; before the year was out, Brandreth and his fellows had been executed at Derby. Southey applied to the Court of Chancery for an injunction to restrain the publication of his poem. It was refused by Lord Eldon, on the ground that the publication being one calculated to do injury to society, the author could not reclaim his property in it. There the matter might have dropped; but it seemed good to Mr. William Smith, representing liberal Norwich, where Southey had many friends, to take his seat in the House of Commons one evening with theQuarterly Reviewin one pocket andWat Tylerin the other, and to read aloud contrasted extracts showing how the malignant renegade could play the parts, as it suited him, of a seditious firebrand and a servile courtier. Wynn on the spot administered a well-deserved rebuke; Wilberforce wrote to Southey that, had he been present, his voice would also have been heard. Coleridge vindicated him in theCourier. Seldom, indeed, was Southey drawn into controversy. When pelted with abuse, he walked on with uplifted head, and did not turn round; it seemed to him that he was of a stature to invite bespattering. His self-confidence was high and calm; that he possessed no common abilities, was certain: andthe amount of toil which went into his books gave him a continual assurance of their worth which nothing could gainsay; he had no time for moods of dejection and self-distrust. But if Southey struck, he struck with force, and tried to leave his mark on his antagonist. To repel this attack made in the House of Commons, was a duty.A Letter to William Smith, Esq., M.P., was written, as Wordsworth wished, with the strength of masculine indignation; blow after blow is planted with sure effect; no word is wasted; there is skill in the hard hitting; and the antagonist fairly overthrown, Southey, with one glance of scorn, turns on his heel, and moves lightly away. “I wish you joy,” wrote Walter Scott, “of your triumphant answer.... Enough of this gentleman, who I think will not walk out of the round again to slander the conduct of individuals.” The concluding sentences of the Letter give in brief Southey’s fearless review of his unstained career.

“How far the writings of Mr. Southey may be found to deserve a favourable acceptance from after-ages, time will decide; but a name which, whether worthily or not, has been conspicuous in the literary history of its age, will certainly not perish.... It will be related that he lived in the bosom of his family, in absolute retirement; that in all his writings there breathed the same abhorrence of oppression and immorality, the same spirit of devotion, and the same ardent wishes for the melioration of mankind; and that the only charge which malice could bring against him was, that as he grew older, his opinions altered concerning the means by which that melioration was to be effected, and that as he learnt to understand the institutions of his country, he learnt to appreciate them rightly, to love, and to revere, and to defend them. It will be said of him that in an age of personality he abstained from satire; and that during the course of his literary life, often as he was assailed, the only occasion on whichhe ever condescended to reply was when a certain Mr. William Smith insulted him in Parliament with the appellation of renegade. On that occasion, it will be said, he vindicated himself, as it became him to do, and treated his calumniator with just and memorable severity. Whether it shall be added that Mr. William Smith redeemed his own character by coming forward with honest manliness, and acknowledging but is not of the slightest importance to me.”

One other personal strife is worthy of notice. When visiting London in 1813, he made the acquaintance of Byron. “Is Southey magnanimous?” Byron asked Rogers, remembering how he had tried his wit in early days onThalabaandMadoc. Rogers could answer for Southey’s magnanimity, and the two poets met, Southey finding in Byron very much more to like than he had expected, and Byron being greatly struck by Southey’s “epic appearance.” “To have that poet’s head and shoulders,” he said, “I would almost have written his Sapphics.” And in his diary he wrote:—“Southey’s talents are of the first order. His prose is perfect.... He has probably written too much of poetry for the present generation; posterity will probably select; but he has passages equal to anything.” At a later date Byron thought Southey’sRoderick“the first poem of the time.” But when about to publishDon Juan, a work “too free for these very modest days,” what better mode of saucily meeting public opinion, and getting a first laugh on his side, than to dedicate such a poem to a virtuous Laureate, and show that he and his fellows, who had uttered nothing base, were yet political turncoats, not entitled by any superfine morality to assume airs of indignation against him and his reprobate hero? The dedication was shown about and laughed overthough not yet printed. Southey heard of these things, and felt released from that restraint of good feeling which made him deal tenderly in his writings with every one to whom he had once given his hand. An attack upon himself would not alone have roused Southey; no man received abuse with more self-possession. Political antagonism would still have left him able to meet a fellow-poet on the common ground of literature. When distress fastened upon Leigh Hunt, whoseExaminerandLiberalhad never spared the Laureate, Mr. Forster did not hesitate to apply to Southey for assistance, which was declined solely because the circular put forward Leigh Hunt’s political services as those chiefly entitling him to relief. “Those who are acquainted with me,” Southey wrote, “know that I am neither resentful nor intolerant;” and after expressing admiration of Leigh Hunt’s powers, the letter goes on to suggest that his friends should draw up a circular in which, without compromising any of his opinions, the appeal might be made solely upon the score of literary merit, “placing him thus, as it were, within the sacred territory which ought always to be considered and respected as neutral ground.” Wise and admirable words! But there was one offence which was to Southey the unforgivable sin against the holy spirit of a nation’s literature. To entice poetry from the altar, and to degrade her for the pleasure of wanton imaginations, seemed to Southey, feeling as he did the sanctity of the love of husband and wife, of father and child, to be treason against humanity. Southey was, indeed, tolerant of a certain Rabelaisian freedom in playing with some of the enclosed incidents of our life. “All the greatest of poets,” he says, “have had a spice of Pantagruelism in their composition, which I verily believe was essential to their greatness.” But to take an extravagantfling in costume of asans-culotte, and to play the part of “pander-general to the youth of Great Britain,” were different things. In his preface toA Vision of Judgment, Southey deplored the recent fall in the ethical spirit of English literature, “which for half a century had been distinguished for its moral purity,” and much of the guilt he laid on the leaders of “the Satanic School.” In the long-run the interests of art, as of all high endeavour, are invariably proved to be one with the interest of a nation’s morality. It had taken many lives of men to lift literature out of the beast. From prudential virtue and the lighter ethics of Addison it had risen to the grave moral dignity of Johnson, and from that to the impassioned spirituality of Wordsworth. Should all this be abandoned, and should literature now be permitted to reel back into the brute? We know that the title “Satanic School” struck home, that Byron was moved, and replied with brilliant play of wit in hisVision of Judgment. The laughers went over to Byron’s side. One who would be witty has certain advantages, if content to disregard honesty and good manners. To be witty was not Southey’s concern. “I saw,” he said, many years after, “that Byron was a man of quick impulses, strong passions, and great powers. I saw him abuse these powers; and, looking at the effect of his writings on the public mind, it was my duty to denounce such of them as aimed at the injury of morals and religion. This was all.” If continental critics find in what he set down a characteristic example of the bourgeois morality of England, we note with interest their point of view.[13]

“Bertha, Kate, and Isabel,” wrote Southey on June 26, 1820, “you have been very good girls, and have written me very nice letters, with which I was much pleased. This is the last letter which I can write in return; and as I happen to have a quiet hour to myself here at Streatham, on Monday noon, I will employ that hour in relating to you the whole history and manner of my being ell-ell-deed at Oxford by the Vice-Chancellor.” Public distinctions of this kind he rated, perhaps, below their true value. To stand well with Murray and Longman was more to him than any handle to his name. A similar honour from Cambridge he declined. His gold medal from the Royal Society of Literature he changed for a silver coffee-pot for Mrs. Southey. To “be be-doctored and called everything that ends in issimus,” was neither any harm nor much good; but to take his seat between such doctors as the Duke of Wellington, and—perhaps—Sir Walter Scott was a temptation. When his old schoolfellow Phillimore presented Southey, the theatre rang with applause. Yet the day was, indeed, one of the heaviest in his life. Never had he stopped for a night in Oxford since he left it in 1794, intending to bid farewell to Europe for an Utopia in some back settlement of America. Not one who really loved him—for Scott could not appear—was present. When in the morning he went to look at Balliol, no one remembered him except old Adams, who had attempted to dress his hair as a freshman, and old Mrs. Adams, the laundress, both now infirm. From the tumultuous theatre Southey strolled into Christ Church walks alone. What changes time had made! Many of the friends with whom he had sauntered there were in their graves. So brooding, he chewed the bitter-sweet of remembrance, until at length a serious gratitude prevailed. “Little girls,” the letterends, “you know it might be proper for me now to wear a large wig, and to be called Doctor Southey, and to become very severe, and leave off being a comical papa. And if you should find that ell-ell-deeing has made this difference in me, you will not be surprised. However, I shall not come down in my wig, neither shall I wear my robes at home.”

While in Holland, in the summer of 1826, a more conspicuous honour was unexpectedly thrust upon Southey. The previous year he had gone abroad with Henry Taylor, and at Douay was bitten on the foot by Satan, according to his conjecture, sitting squat at his great toe; at Leyden he was obliged to rest his inflamed foot, and there it was his good fortune to be received into the house of the poet Bilderdijk, a delightful old erudite and enthusiast, whose charming wife was the translator ofRoderick. In 1826 he visited his kind friends once more, and at Brussels received the surprising intelligence that during his absence he had been elected a member of Parliament. Lord Radnor, an entire stranger, had read with admiration Southey’s confession of faith concerning Church and State, in the last paragraph of hisBook of the Church. By his influence the poet had been elected for the borough of Downton: the return, however, was null, for Southey held a pension during pleasure; and even if this were resigned, where was the property qualification? This latter objection was met by Sir Robert Inglis, who desired to know whether Southey would sit in Parliament if an estate of 300l.a year were purchased for him. An estate of 300l.a year would be a very agreeable thing to Robert Lackland; but he had no mind to enter on a new public sphere for which he was ill qualified by his previous life, to risk the loss of health by midnight debates, to abandon theeducation of his little boy, and to separate himself more or less from his wife and daughters. He could not be wrong, he believed, in the quiet confidence which assured him that he was in his proper place.

Now more than ever before, Edith Southey needed her husband’s sustaining love. On the day of his return to Keswick, while amused to find himself the object of mob popularity, he learnt that one of his daughters was ailing; the illness, however, already seemed to have passed the worst. This appearance of amendment quickly proved deceptive; and, on a Sunday evening in mid July, Isabel, “the most radiant creature that I ever beheld or shall behold,” passed away, while her father was on his knees in the room below, praying that she might be released from suffering either by recovery or by death. All that had been gone through ten years before, renewed itself with dread exactness. Now, as then, the first day was one of stunned insensibility; now, as then, the next morning found him weak as a child, and striving in his weakness to comfort those who needed his support; now, as then, he turned to Grosvenor Bedford for a heart on which he might lay his own heart prone, letting his sorrow have its way. “Nothing that has assailed my character, or affected my worldly fortune, ever gave me an hour’s vexation, or deprived me of an hour’s rest. My happiness has been in my family, and there only was I vulnerable; that family is now divided between earth and heaven, and I must pray to remain with those who are left, so long as I can contribute to their welfare and comfort, rather than be gathered (as otherwise I would fain be) to those who are gone.” On that day of which the word Τετέλεσται is the record, the day on which the body of his bright Isabel was committed to earth, Southey wrote a letter to his threeliving daughters, copied with his own hand for each. It said what he could not bear to say of consolation and admonishment by word of mouth; it prepared them for the inevitable partings to come; it urged on them with measureless tenderness the duty of self-watchfulness, of guarding against little faults, of bearing and forbearing; it told them of his own grief to think that he should ever by a harsh or hasty word have given their dead sister even a momentary sorrow which might have been spared; it ended with the blessing of their afflicted father.

Sorrows of this kind, as Southey has truly said, come the heavier when they are repeated; under such strokes a courageous heart may turn coward. On Mrs. Southey a weight as of years had been laid; her spirits sank, her firmness gave way, a breath of danger shook her. Southey’s way of bearing himself towards the dead is that saddest way—their names were never uttered; each one of the household had, as it were, a separate chamber in which the images of their dead ones lay, and each went in alone and veiled. The truth is, Southey had little native hardihood of temperament; self-control with him was painfully acquired. In solitude and darkness his tears flowed; when in his slumbers the images of the dead came to him, he could not choose but weep. Therefore, all the more among those whom he wished to lead into the cheerful ways of life, he had need to keep a guard upon his tenderness. He feared to preserve relics, and did not like to bear in mind birthdays, lest they should afterwards become too dangerously charged with remembrance and grief. “Look,” he writes, “at some verses in theLiterary Souvenir, p. 113; they are written by a dear friend of mine on the death of—you will know who”—for his pen would have trembled in tracing the name Isabel.And yet his habitual feelings with respect to those who had departed were not bitter; the dead were absent—that was all; he thought of them and of living friends at a distance with the same complacency, the same affection, only with more tenderness of the dead.

Greta Hall, once resounding with cheerful voices, had been growing silent. Herbert was gone; Isabel was gone. In 1829 Sara Coleridge went, a bride, tearful yet glad, her mother accompanying her, to distant London. Five years later, Edith May Southey became the wife of the Rev. John Warter. Her father fell back, even more than in former years, upon the never-failing friends of his library. It was in these darkening years that he sought relief in carrying out the idea, conceived long before, of a story which should be no story, but a spacious receptacle for mingled wit and wisdom, experience and book-lore, wholesome nonsense and solemn meditation.The Doctor, begun in jest after merry talks with Grosvenor Bedford, grew more and more earnest as Southey proceeded. “He dreamt over it and brooded over it, laid it aside for months and years, resumed it after long intervals, and more often, latterly, in thoughtfulness than in mirth, and fancied at last that he could put into it more of his mind than could conveniently be produced in any other form.” The secret of its authorship was carefully kept. Southey amused himself somewhat laboriously with ascribing it now to this hand and now to that. When the first two volumes arrived, as if from the anonymous author, Southey thrust them away with well-assumed impatience, and the disdainful words, “Some novel, I suppose.” Yet several of his friends had shrewd suspicions that the manuscript lay somewhere hidden in Greta Hall, and on receiving their copies wrote to thank the veritable donor; these thanks were forwarded by Southey, not withouta smile in which something of irony mingled, to Theodore Hook, who was not pleased to enter into the jest. “I see inThe Doctor,” says its author, playing the part of an impartial critic, “a little of Rabelais, but not much; more of Tristram Shandy, somewhat of Burton, and perhaps more of Montaigne; but methinks thequintum quidpredominates?” Thequintum quidis that wisdom of the heart, that temper of loyal and cheerful acquiescence in the rule of life as appointed by a Divine Master, which characterizes Southey.

For the third volume ofThe Doctor, in that chapter which tells of Leonard Bacon’s sorrow for his Margaret, Southey wrote as follows:

“Leonard had looked for consolation, where, when sincerely sought, it is always to be found; and he had experienced that religion effects in a true believer all that philosophy professes, and more than all that mere philosophy can perform. The wounds which stoicism would cauterize, religion heals.“There is a resignation with which, it may be feared, most of us deceive ourselves. To bear what must be borne, and submit to what cannot be resisted, is no more than what the unregenerate heart is taught by the instinct of animal nature. But to acquiesce in the afflictive dispensations of Providence—to make one’s own will conform in all things to that of our Heavenly Father—to say to him in the sincerity of faith, when we drink of the bitter cup, ‘Thy will be done!’—to bless the name of the Lord as much from the heart when he takes away as when he gives, and with a depth of feeling of which, perhaps, none but the afflicted heart is capable—this is the resignation which religion teaches, this is the sacrifice which it requires.”

“There is a resignation with which, it may be feared, most of us deceive ourselves. To bear what must be borne, and submit to what cannot be resisted, is no more than what the unregenerate heart is taught by the instinct of animal nature. But to acquiesce in the afflictive dispensations of Providence—to make one’s own will conform in all things to that of our Heavenly Father—to say to him in the sincerity of faith, when we drink of the bitter cup, ‘Thy will be done!’—to bless the name of the Lord as much from the heart when he takes away as when he gives, and with a depth of feeling of which, perhaps, none but the afflicted heart is capable—this is the resignation which religion teaches, this is the sacrifice which it requires.”

These words, written with no forefeeling, were the last put on paper before the great calamity burst upon Southey. “I have been parted from my wife,” he tells GrosvenorBedford on October 2, 1834, “by something worse than death. Forty years she has been the life of my life; and I have left her this day in a lunatic asylum.”

Southey’s union with his wife had been at the first one of love, and use and wont had made her a portion of his very being. Their provinces in the household had soon defined themselves. He in the library earned their means of support; all else might be left to her with absolute confidence in her wise contrivance and quiet energy. Beneath the divided work in their respective provinces their lives ran on in deep and still accord. Now he felt for the first time shrunk into the limits of a solitary will. All that had grown out of the past was deranged by a central disturbance; no branch had been lopped away, but the main trunk was struck, and seared, and shaken to the roots. “Mine is a strong heart,” Southey writes; “I will not say that the last week has been the most trying of my life; but I will say that the heart which could bear it can bear anything.” Yet, when he once more set himself to work, a common observer, says his son, would have noticed little change in him, though to his family the change was great indeed. His most wretched hour was when he woke at dawn from broken slumbers; but a word of hope was enough to counteract the mischief of a night’s unrest. No means were neglected which might serve to keep him in mental and bodily health; he walked in all weathers; he pursued his task-work diligently, yet not over-diligently; he collected materials for work of his choice. When, in the spring of 1835, it was found that the sufferer might return to wear out the body of this death in her own home, it was marvellous, declares Cuthbert Southey, how much of his old elasticity remained, and how, though no longer happy, he could be contented and cheerful, and take pleasurein the pleasures of others. He still could contribute something to his wife’s comfort. Through the weary dream which was now her life she knew him, and took pleasure in his coming and going.

When Herbert died, Southey had to ask a friend to lend him money to tide over the short period of want which followed his weeks of enforced inaction. Happily now, for the first time in his life, his income was beforehand with his expenses. A bequest of some hundreds of pounds had come in; hisNaval Biographieswere paying him well; and during part of Mrs. Southey’s illness he was earning a respectable sum, intended for his son’s education, by hisLife of Cowper—a work to which a painful interest was added by the study of mental alienation forced upon him in his own household. So the days passed, not altogether cheerlessly, in work if possible more arduous than ever. “One morning,” writes his son, “shortly after the letters had arrived, he called me into his study. ‘You will be surprised,’ he said, ‘to hear that Sir Robert Peel has recommended me to the King for the distinction of a baronetcy, and will probably feel some disappointment when I tell you that I shall not accept it.’” Accompanying Sir Robert Peel’s official communication came a private letter asking in the kindest manner how he could be of use to Southey. “Will you tell me,” he said, “without reserve, whether the possession of power puts within my reach the means of doing anything which can be serviceable or acceptable to you; and whether you will allow me to find some compensation for the many sacrifices which office imposes upon me, in the opportunity of marking my gratitude, as a public man, for the eminent services you have rendered, not only to literature, but to the higher interests of virtue and religion?” Southey’s answerstated simply what his circumstances were, showing how unbecoming and unwise it would be to accept the proffered honour: it told the friendly statesman of the provision made for his family—no inconsiderable one—in the event of his death; it went on to speak of his recent affliction; how this had sapped his former confidence in himself; how it had made him an old man, and forced upon him the reflection that a sudden stroke might deprive him of those faculties by which his family had hitherto been supported. “I could afford to die, but not to be disabled,” he wrote in his first draft; but fearing that these words would look as if he wanted to trick out pathetically a plain statement, he removed them. Finally, if such an increase of his pension as would relieve him from anxiety on behalf of his family could form part of a plan for the encouragement of literature, it would satisfy all his desires. “Young as I then was,” Cuthbert Southey writes, “I could not, without tears, hear him read with his deep and faltering voice, his wise refusal and touching expression of those feelings and fears he had never before given utterance to, to any of his own family.” Two months later Sir Robert Peel signed a warrant adding 300l.annually to Southey’s existing pension. He had resolved to recognize literary and scientific eminence as a national claim; the act was done upon public grounds, and Southey had the happiness of knowing that others beside himself would partake of the benefit.

“Our domestic prospects are darkening upon us daily,” Southey wrote in July, 1835. “I know not whether the past or the present seems most like a dream to me, so great and strange is the difference. But yet a little while, and all will again be at the best.” While Mrs. Southey lived, a daily demand was made upon his sympathies andsolicitude which it was his happiness to fulfil. But from all except his wife he seemed already to be dropping away into a state of passive abstraction. Kate and Bertha silently ministered to his wants, laid the books he wanted in his way, replenished his ink-bottle, mended his pens, stirred the fire, and said nothing. A visit to the south-west of England in company with his son broke the long monotony of endurance. It was a happiness to meet Landor at Bristol, and Mrs. Bray at Tavistock, and Mrs. Bray’s friend, the humble poet, Mary Colling, whose verses he had reviewed in theQuarterly. Yet to return to his sorrowful home was best of all; there is a leap up of the old spirits in a letter to his daughters announcing his approach. It is almost the last gleam of brightness. In the autumn of that year (1835) Edith Southey wasted away, growing weaker and weaker. The strong arm on which she had leaned for two-and-forty years, supported her down stairs each day and bore her up again at evening. When the morning of November 16th broke, she passed quietly “from death unto life.”

From that day Southey was an altered man. His spirits fell to a still lower range. For the first time he was conscious of the distance which years had set between him and his children. Yet his physical strength was unbroken; nothing but snow deterred him from his walk; he could still circle the lake, or penetrate into Borrowdale on foot. But Echo, whom he had summoned to rejoice, was not roused by any call of his. Within-doors it was only by a certain violence to himself that he could speak. In the library he read aloud his proof-sheets alone; but for this he might almost have forgotten the sound of his own voice. Still, he was not wholly abandoned to grief; he looked back and saw that life had been good; its hardest moraldiscipline had served to train the heart: much still remained that was of worth—Cuthbert was quietly pursuing his Oxford studies; Bertha was about to be united in marriage to her cousin, Herbert Hill, son of that good uncle who had done so much to shape Southey’s career. “If not hopeful,” he writes, “I am more than contented, and disposed to welcome and entertain any good that may yet be in store for me, without any danger of being disappointed if there should be none.” Hope of a sober kind indeed had come to him. For twenty years he had known Caroline Bowles; they had long been in constant correspondence; their acquaintance had matured into friendship. She was now in her fifty-second year; he in his sixty-fifth. It seemed to Southey natural that, without making any breach with his past life, he should accept her companionship in the nearest way possible, should give to her all he could of what remained, and save himself from that forlorn feeling which he feared might render old age miserable and useless.

But already the past had subdued Southey, and if any future lay before him it was a cloud lifeless and grey. In the autumn of 1838 he started for a short tour on the Continent with his old friend Senhouse, his son Cuthbert, John Kenyon, their master of the horse, Captain Jones, the chamberlain, and Crabb Robinson, who was intendant and paid the bills. On the way from Boulogne they turned aside to visit Chinon, for Southey wished to stand on the spot where his first heroine, Joan of Arc, had recognized the French king. At Paris he roamed along the quays and hunted book-stalls. The change and excitement seemed to have served him; he talked freely and was cheerful. “Still,” writes his son, “I could not fail to perceive a considerable change in him from the time we had last travelledtogether—all his movements were slower, he was subject to frequent fits of absence, and there was an indecision in his manner and an unsteadiness in his step which was wholly unusual with him.” He often lost his way, even in the hotels; then laughed at his own mistakes, and yet was painfully conscious of his failing memory. His journal breaks off abruptly when not more than two-thirds of the tour had been accomplished. In February, 1839, his brother, Dr. Southey—ever a true comrade—describes him as working slowly and with an abstraction not usual to him; sometimes to write even a letter seemed an effort. In midsummer his marriage to Caroline Bowles took place, and with her he returned to Keswick in August. On the way home his friends in London saw that he was much altered. “The animation and peculiar clearness of his mind,” wrote Henry Taylor, “was quite gone, except a gleam or two now and then.... The appearance was that of a placid languor, sometimes approaching to torpor, but not otherwise than cheerful. He is thin and shrunk in person, and that extraordinary face of his has no longer the fire and strength it used to have, though the singular cast of the features and the habitual expressions make it still a most remarkable phenomenon.” Still, his friends had not ceased to hope that tranquillity would restore mental tone, and he himself was planning the completion of great designs. “As soon as we are settled at Keswick, I shall resolutely begin upon theHistory of Portugal, as a duty which I owe to my uncle’s memory. Half of the labour I consider as done. But I have long since found the advantage of doing more than one thing at a time, and theHistory of the Monastic Ordersis the other thing to which I shall set to with hearty good-will. Both these are works of great pith and moment.”

Alas! the current of these enterprises was already turned awry. In August it was not without an occasional uncertainty that he sustained conversation. “He lost himself for a moment; he was conscious of it, and an expression passed over his countenance which was very touching—an expression of pain and also of resignation.... The charm of his manner is perhaps even enhanced at present (at least when one knows the circumstances) by the gentleness and patience which pervade it.” Before long the character of his handwriting, which had been so exquisite, was changed to something like the laboured scrawl of a child; then he ceased to write. Still he could read, and, even when he could no longer take in the meaning of what was before him, his eye followed the lines of the printed page. At last even this was beyond his power. He would walk slowly round his library, pleased with the presence of his cherished possessions, taking some volume down mechanically from the shelf. In 1840 Wordsworth went over to Greta Hall. “Southey did not recognize me,” he writes, “till he was told. Then his eyes flashed for a moment with their former brightness, but he sank into the state in which I had found him, patting with both hands his books affectionately like a child.” In theLife of Cowperhe had spoken of the distress of one who suffers from mental disease as being that of a dream—“a dream, indeed, from which the sufferer can neither wake nor be awakened; but it pierces no deeper, and there seems to be the same dim consciousness of its unreality.” So was it now with himself. Until near the end he retained considerable bodily strength; his snow-white hair grew darker; it was the spirit which had endured shattering strokes of fate, and which had spent itself in studying to be quiet.

After a short attack of fever, the end came on the 21stof March, 1843. Never was that “Well done!” the guerdon of the good and faithful servant, pronounced amid a deeper consent of those who attended and had ears to hear. On a dark and stormy morning Southey’s body was borne to the beautiful churchyard of Crosthwaite, towards which he had long looked affectionately as his place of rest. There lay his three children and she who was the life of his life. Skiddaw gloomed solemnly overhead. A grey-haired, venerable man who had crossed the hills stood there leaning on the arm of his son-in-law; these two, Wordsworth and Quillinan, were the only strangers present. As the words, “ashes to ashes,” were uttered, a sudden gleam of sunshine touched the grave; the wind dropped, the rain was over, and the birds had begun their songs of spring. The mourners turned away thinking of a good man’s life and death with peace—

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