SPECTATOR'S LIBRARY.

BIOG1LATHY, A Memoir of the Life and Writings of the late William Taylor, of Norwich, Author of" English Synonymes Discriminated," "An Historic Survey of German Poetry," &e. Ike. Containing his Correspondence of many years with the late Robert Southey. Esq.. and Original Letters from Sir Walter Scott, and other eminent literary men. Compiled and editedby J. W. Robberds. F.G.S. In two volumes.

POILTRY, Murray. Faust; a Tragedy. Part the Second. Rendered from the German of Goethe by Archer Gurney Senior, Heaeheote, and Senior.

MR. RODBERDS'S MEMOIR OF WILLIAM TAYLOR OF NORWICH.

WILLIAM TAYLOR of Norwich is one of those men who have excited expectations they did not fulfil, and to whom the living genera- tion will not award so high a place (for the world only judges by works accomplished) or form so lofty an estimate as his friends. Not that his intimates were misled, as is often the case, by qualities merely personal, or by some single faculty, that was rather an excrescence than a feature. WILLIAM TAYLOR, on the contrary, was a man of vast and varied acquirements: connected for upwards of thirty years with some of the chief periodicals of the day, be exhibited amazing industry both in reading and composition, having published no fewer than 1750 original articles and reviews within that period ; and his manner of writing, though somewhat heavy in effect, and quaint and peculiar in diction, to a degree that acquired for it the nickname of " Taylorian," was often just in thought and powerful in style. Nor can it be said that he lived without producing a direct influence upon the public mind, beyond that which an active periodical writer must of necessity exercise according to his powers. Without yielding implicit credence to Scores polite remark to a mutual friend, that WILLIAM TAYLOR'S translation of the ballad of Lenore first made him a poet, we have no doubt that this and other translations, together with his reviews of German books, were a means of exciting attention in this country to the German language and literature. He is also said by HAzLrrr, and the opinion is echoed by a notice in the last number ef the Quarterly Review, to have been the first to introduce the modern style of reviewing, which, instead of criticizing a book, makes it the text on which to write an original article. But, if this was meant to apply to the Edinburgh Review, the statement may be doubted. A love of paradox, a disposition to dogmatize, with a tendency to pour out, seem to have been characteristics of the mind of WILLIAM TAYLOR. Add to these dispositions a desire to use his multifarious knowledge relating to the subject, and perhaps a want of determined judgment as to the art of rejection, and the kind of article that WILLIAM TArLon wrote, when he wrote in the way alluded to, may be imagined. It strikes us as resembling the essay-like notices of JomesoN, or the more cumbrous dis- quisitions of PARR, rather than the rapid, brilliant, and somewhat superficial articles of the Edinburgh in its best day, and its imi- tator the Quarterly. He did this, however : he set the example which has since been followed by many—by FRANCIS JEFFREY, SYDNEY SMITH, MACKINTOSH, BROUGHAM, MACAULAY, and THomrscee—of devoting great abilities and great acquirements chiefly to periodical literature.

Besides his 1750 articles, WILLIAM TAYLOR published in the book form translations of Bettont'senore,.GOETHE'S Iphigenia in Tauris, and LESSING'S Nathan the,Wise,-as well as a selection of foreign stories under the title of 7'4les of -Yore. The work by which he is likely to be best known, his English Sylanzymes Dis- criminated, though published as a book, had for the most part ap- peared periodically ; and his Historic Survey of German Poetry was only a selected and revised reprint of articles from the Reviews and Magazines.

All this was the produce of his mornings ; for his family dined at the early hour of three o'clock, and WILLIAM TAYLOR spent the rest of the day in the pleasures of conviviality and discourse, and, the Quarterly intimates, in hearing the incense of provincial clubs and coteries, somewhat after the fashion of ADDISON at Button's : 1 "Like Cato, give his little senate laws,

And sit attentive—to his own applause."

He thought himself, and was thought by his most intimate friends, idle,—rather, we conceive, in the sense of not resolutely and vigorously applying his faculties to a continuous labour than in the notion of non-occupation ; for the employment of his time was the same as GIBBON'S, substituting a game of cards and " unbending " chat for the cups and incense and more ambitious talk of Norwich. Why he did not fulfil the hopes of his friends and the exhortations of SOUTHEY, it is almost hopeless to inquire. So many excellencies, moral. as well as mental, are required for the production of a great work, that it is wonderful great works are so often produced. WILLIAM TAYLOR had nothing of mere genius, such as was pos- sessed by BYRON, by Beams, and perhaps by some of our earlier dramatists and lyrical writers—nothing of that temperament which, receiving strong impressions from outward occurrences and inward feelings, is enabled by the same temperament to throw them out with impressive effect. From the precision, comprehension, force, and truth of particular parts of his writings, it may be inferred that he possessed ability to produce one of those _works which are the result of laborious research directed by judgment and animated by spirit. Why he never executed, or, it would seem, attempted this, we know not. Perhaps as good an explanation as can be given may be found in his own remarks, introductory to a review of SOUTHEY S llfadoc, on some of the causes which render it difficult to produce an epic. " A recurrence to trains of thought repeatedly laid aside seldom continues to interest long : they can indeed be recalled at will, but the more familiar they becorce the more feebly does their presence arouse attention. Hence the ex- treme difficulty of persevering through so vast an undertaking as an epopeia. Schiller observed that a drama ought to be completed in a summer. The very personages which, while new, would excite in the mind of their creator the

highest interest, are likely by degrees to come in and go out of his head without notice. When this state of indifference approaches, there is a necessary end of lively composition concerning their adventures. In the . interest

flags the flags long before the work terminates, evidently because the poet has too much of his task. Dryden projected an epic poem on the restoration of Peter, King of Castile, by Edward the Black Prince ; and Pope, on the colonization of Albion by Brutus and Corineus. Both poets felt that they had executed single passages and scenes in a manner to answer the highest claims of art : but they gave up these long undertakings, as likely to outlast the spirit, the rapture, the enthusiasm of enditement, and consequently to want the power of attaching the reader perpetually. The rarity of that combination of intellec- tual aptitudes which can produce an heroic epopeia, will be the more apparent if one considers how few such works have yet been executed. Spreading lan- guages, as the Hebrew, have flourished and have faded, without wording one eminent narrative poem. Whole millenniums have rolled by, as from Claudian to Ariosto, without producing a distinguished epic poet. Vast nations, as the

French, have been celebrated for their literary culture, and yet have failed to grow among their various specimens of eloquence a truly classical epopeia."

In literary compilation or scientific discovery less genius is re- quired than for an epic, and therefore the poetical power must be the rarer ; but "the recurrence to the same trains of thought" must be far more wearying in composition depending upon present research than past observation. It is possible that health might have something to do with WILLIAM TAYLOR'S avoidance of a long task.

"The feast of reason and the flow of soul,"

in which the "friendly bowl" was not forgotten, at the Norwich meetings, though not perceptibly affecting his health, might de- prive him of that healthy vigour requisite for a long-sustained labour, though it might not interfere with the production of a re- view, that must be finished by a certain time. If this conjecture is correct, WILLIAM TAYLOR'S industry was wonderful, especially as for a great part of his career the remuneration was not an object to him.

In thus referring to a "great work," it may be, however, that we

are falling in with a great prejudice, regard being had to the change i of literature in our times. JEFFREY, n his review of the life of MACKINTOSH, combats the idea that his friend misused his talent and wasted his time, on the plea of the greater usefulness of con- stantly attending to " that which before us lies in daily life," by means of Parliament and the press, rather than producing a "great work" for the studious few. It may be questioned, indeed, whether the greatness is not altogether visionary. Unless the work is the very first of its class, its duration is really brief. Books upon manners and opinions virtually perish with the state of society, if not

with the generation in which they originate secondary discoveries

in science, and second-rate productions in history, criticism or phi- losophy, are superseded by others better adapted to the wants of the new age : the operation upon the public mind is about equal in either case, for what the book has in duration the periodi- cal writer gains in intensity and extent ; and when each passes away with the fulfilment of its task, much the same fate attends upon both—" stat nominis umbra." BAYLE and LE CLEac spent their lives in editing, compiling, and what is now called reviewing; yet their names are as well known as those of the secondary class of " great" book-writers' and their pages perhaps as much explored, and by those who filch from them a good deal oftener. A fate which SOUTHEY predicted for his friend WILLIAM. The life of WILLIAM TAYLOR was long, but uneventful, and, after his early youth, of great uniformity. He was born in 1765, and died in 1836. His father was an eminent manufacturer of Norwich ; and designed WILLIAM, his only son, for the same pur- suit. After a good education at private schools, the precocious boy was sent to travel on the Continent, in his fourteenth year. The object was to acquire a knowledge of trade and "the lan- guages" for business correspondence ; and he travelled under the superintendence of his father's foreign clerk. He passed through the Netherlands, France, and Italy ; and his letters home excited great attention from his family and friends,—which they might well do as the production of a boy, though we cannot rate them so highly as Mr. BOBBERDS, or trace in them any germs of his manly character, beyond a reflective habit. After sojourning abroad about a year and a half (August 1779—January 1781) heveturned home ; having acquired the power not merely of writing fluently in French and Italian, but of thinking in their idioms. After a brief stay in Norwich, where he figured as a young lion, he was again (May 1781) sent abroad, and settled with a clergyman at Detmold in Westphalia, to add German to his other tongues. At first he disliked the sound of the language which was to be the peculiar means of his own distinction.

" In one of his first letters from Detmold, giving an account of the manner

in which his time was employed, he says, with more of sarcasm than he was wont to indulge, that a portion of each morning was occupied 'in widening his throat to afford an easy passage to the German gutturals.' Bat as soon as the cha- racter of the language began to disclose itself to him, it became an agreeable and interesting study. Be was struck with the copiousness Of its resources, with its flexible adaptation to every sensible or abstract idea, with its unborrowed dignity and self-derived force of expression. Its close affinity to the ascendant portion of his mother-tongue made him for the first time observant of the dis- tinction between the Gothic and the Latin forms of speech, and taught him the practical application of those principles of which Mr. Bruckner had imparted to him his earliest glimpse."

Having acquired a knowledge of the German language and literature—as well as a taste for a pipe, which he always in- dulged in—he made a tour through part of Northern Ger- many ; narrowly escaped shipwreck on the coast of Norway ; and arrived in November 1782 at Norwich ; where, with a few brief intervals, the remainder of his life was spent.

Norwich was at that time the residence of many men of science and letters; among whom young WILLIAM Taimoit was readily

received,—and not the less readily, perhaps, for his father's reputed wealth and almost extravagant hospitality. At first the young scholar went through the form of going to business ; and on coming of age he was admitted a partner. But his attendance gradually became nominal : he first withdrew altogether from the counting- house, and eventually persuaded his father to retire from trade and live upon his property.

With the exception of two excursions to Edinburgh, the seven years after his return from Germany seem to have been passed in studious reading, and in adding Spanish to his stock of languages. On the breaking out of the French Revolution, both he and his father embarked in the red-hot politics of the day ; joining the Norwich Revolution Society, of which old Mr. TAYLOR became Secretary, whilst WILLIAM fulfilled the functions of the office and drew up the papers. In 1790, his enthusiasm carried him to Paris ; where the reality of things, as usually happens, somewhat modi- fied his ideas. On his return be joined or originated other Norwich societies, of the nature of debating clubs ; to which he ever after gave too much of his time : and about this period he seems to have commenced author. His earlier productions, including the trans- lations of Nathan the Wise and Iphigenia in Tauris, were privately printed, or circulated in manuscript ; and his old schoolmistress, Mrs. BARBAULD going to Edinburgh, carried with her the ballad of Lenore, and read it in company. A lady repeated such parts as she remembered to WALTER SCOTT; who says it suggested to him the line of poetry in which he might succeed, having already attempted some others without success. At all events, SCOTT him- self translated that ballad, and a few others; transferring to his own version the well-known lines of TAYLOR'S, that so forcibly struck him,

"Tramp, tramp, along the land he rode, Splash, splash, along the sea."

In 1793, WiLiaam TAYLOR joined the Monthly Review, through the medium of Dr. ENFIELD, his father and mother's Unitarian pastor. His knowledge of German rendered him at that time an unique reviewer,—much more so, indeed, than THOMAS CARLYLE now; - and he had this advantage over CARLYLE, that though in- clined to disquisition running into prosiness, he stuck more closely to his subject than his successor, and handled it more "like a man of this world." Hence he was much sought for as a contributor; and the next thirty years and upwards of his life were passed in writing for what were, when he began, the leading periodicals,—the Monthly and Critical Reviews, the Monthly Magazine, when started, and several other works that have long since been discontinued : for a short time also be gratuitously edited a paper projected at Norwich in opposition to the two established journals. Till de- caying health and growing infirmities enforced a change, his life was as uniform as his occupation ; and, with the exception of an occasional journey, it seems to have passed in the way here recorded by his biographer.

"The performance of these tasks was the result of a most methodical dis- tribution of his time. He rose earls, and his studies usually engaged his un- divided attention till noon ; when it was his almost daily practice at all sea-

sons to bathe in the river, at a subscription bath-house constructed on the bank of the stream, near its entrance into the city. After this, he invariably exercised himself by walking ; for which purpose he always selected a road on the Western side of Norwich, leading to the bridge over the Wensum at Bel- lesdon. For a public thoroughfare in the vicinity of a large population, this was a comparatively unfrequented and retired way : it passed through a quiet rural distuct, affording agreeable prospects over the narrow valley, where the bright river winds through a lawn of meadows, bounded on the South by the hamlet of Heigham, and on the North by a range of bolder slopes, on which the village of Hellesdon is situated : at one end the view is closed by distant glimpses of the city, surmounted by its ancient castle, and at the other the dark line of Costcssey woods skirts the horizon. On this road he was seen almost every day for many years between the hours of one and three. Pro- fessing to be no admirer of natural scenery, and to take his chief delight in 'towered cities and the busy hum of men,' be was once asked why he always made choice of so secluded and solitary a walk. The quaint reason which be assigned for his preference was, that on this road no fit of indolence could at any time shorten his allotted term of exercise, as there were no means of cross- ing the river at any nearer point, and he was therefore compelled to go round by the bridge, which was about three miles distant from his residence in Surrey Street. Indeed, it must be owned that he never seemed to regard the objects around him, but pursued his course in deep mental abstraction, conversing the while most animatedly with himself. There was something singular too in his appearance: his dress was a complete suit of brown, with silk stockings of the same colour: in this Quaker-like attire, with a full cambric frill protruding from his waistcoat, and armed with a most capacious umbrella in defiance of the storm, muttering his wayward fancies he would rove,' and fixed the astonished wse and curious attention of the few passengers whom he met. Sometimes he extended his walk to the adjacent village of Drayton, where on a gentle eminence stood the mouldering walls of an ancient structure, on whose origin even tradition has no fable, and which is now only known by the name of

Drayton Lodge. • From these rambles be always returned punctually at three o'clock, and de- voted the remainder of the day to the pleasures of society. He rarely dined alone; either entertaining a small company at his own table, or 'sharing the feast' at that of one of his friends. His conversational powers were now in their fullest rigour: the diffidence of youth was past, and the prolixity of age was not come on; no pedantic attempts at studied eloquence dimmed or de- flected their brightness; their course was free and natural, their flow lively and sparkling, and the motes of fancy that fluttered in the beam threw a prismatic halo round the sober form on which learning directed the light to fall.

- "These qualities made him everywhere an acceptable companion, and aided his generous hospitality and love of social intercourse to awaken corresponding dispositions in others. Beside his almost daily dinner-engagements, there were various clubs and societies which he regularly attended."

The chief thing which ruffled this smoothness was pecuniary

troubles, increased, we cannot but think, by thoughtless expendi- ture ; for, so far as we understand, the amount of the losses was not very great for a man of competence ; and when the " crisis" came, it left matters substantially where it found them. On re- tiring from business, old Mr. TAYLOR had some American debts, which the owners practically repudiated, though a compromise was eventually made. The old man had persuaded his son to join him in investing money in a neighbouring canal ; which, instead of imme- diately producing the promised profit, only gave rise to a series of " calls," though it eventually yielded an income. To add to their means, they deposited 1,500/. with an agent at Lloyd's to be used in underwriting : this man failed ; the risks of outstanding in- surances were unknown, and a removal to a smaller house became desirable. The sale of their first residence, however, all but re- placed the loss of the capital; the real extent of the evil was a re- moval, and a more regulated hospitality,—which growing years and changes in Norwich might have equally rendered necessary. In the first moment of alarm, however, WILLIAM 'Etvimoit's complaints were deep and desponding. To SOUTHEY he writes—" We [him- self and his parents] cannot subsist, in our contracted shape, on the interest of what remains. The capital will last our joint lives; but I shall be abandoned at once to solitarity and penury. To what can I look forwards, but to a voluntary interment in the same grave with my parents ? Oh that Nature would realize this most convenient doom !"—Expressions that have been rashly held to imply a formed determination to commit suicide. These fears, however, rallied his friends round him ; among whom, his old friend ROBERT SOUTHEY, and the poet's brother Dr. HENRY SOUTHEY, were the foremost. But the whole state of affairs will be best shown in a reply of WILLI/via TAYLOR to HENRY SOUTHEY.

" Norwich, 17th January 1812.

" My dear Henry—Your generous letter of the 13th of January is before me. I have not occasion for pecuniary assistance. The sale of our premises in Surrey Street produced 2,000!.; the compromise of our American lawsuit pro- duced 1,100/.; and these matters have provided us with more than all the ready cash which the outstanding risks at Lloyd's can possibly absorb. We have bought for 600/. a small house in King Street, within seven doors of Mr. Mar- tineau's surgery, in the direction toward Tombland. It was occupied in your time by a Mr. Shreeve. We are not quite arranged and packed into our nar- rower quarters, but we begin to call ourselves settled. John Corsbie Barnari' whom you remember in St. Austin's and accompanied to Cromer, is become' our boarder. He is to pass three or four of the summer-months with his father and brother, and to allow us 100/. a year for the eight or nine months of his residence here. During his late illness in St. Austin's, he dictated a will in which he bequeated me 5001. His kindness to our adversity has known how to put his services in an acceptable form. My friend and cousin, Thomas Dyson of Dios, told me he had given me a legacy in his will, and would have me sell the reversion. 'I will buy it of you,' he added, 'and will allow you for it an an- nuity of 100/. for your life, or of 200/. for the lives of your father and mother.' I admire, though I declined, his offer. Our friends have been competitors, not in soothing attentions merely, but in active services. Mrs. Crowe's kindness to my mother has been truly friendly. I was preparing, out of frugality, to leave off wine : our acquaintance have chosen to stock our new cellar. Mr. Southwell, Mr. Sparrow, Mr. Bolingbroke, have all sent. Our attorney, Mr. Grand, has behaved with real friendship. A surprising but enthusiasti- cally generous proposal was that of Elton Hamond, Gooch's friend, who wrote to offer me a hundred a year during my mother's life. We are not in circum- stances to require any effort of our friends; but the memory of his liberality I shall always preserve. I prate to you about these things, because you are worthy to know them; but am as yet too full of my own cares to comment your project of settling in London. In fact, it is a place I do not know, and cannot judge of soundly. I will put your case, and come to an opinion. Dr. Sayers's health has undergone an alarming shock. The sunset of Norwich is arrived. Our society is not what it was. By Hudson Gurney's removal to London, and Mr. Trafford Southa ell's into the country, the men of wealth and rank who were chiefly hospitable to talent are withdrawn. Some of us are too ill, and some of us too poor, to convene one another as formerly. My father is in good health and spirits; my mother suffers from a catarrh, and from still regrets.

truly,

"Yours W. TAYLOR junior." Thenceforward life began rather to darken with WILLIAM TAY- LOR. Soon after the removal, he lost his beloved mother, with whom his own happiness was almost bound up. Some of his acquaintance took the opportunity of his change of circumstances to drop the connexion; but as this could not be decently avowed, they assigned his infidelity and (unless his biographer's remark refers to a later period) his drunkenness as the cause : and this made him suspicious and exacting towards his friends. In a few years his own health began to fail. At fifty, it was noticed that less than his usual quantity of wine perceptibly affected him; to which his biographer attributes the colourable charge of drinking. He was troubled with the gout, infirmities grew upon him, and a gradual decay both of mind and body appeared to commence. He con- tinued to write, but it was thought with diminished spirit and vigour, till about sixty, when he discontinued composition. A few years later his mind failed him. "From this time [the immediately preceding date is 1830] the health of William Taylor rapidly declined ; not only his bodily strength, but his mental powers also appeared to droop ; and the few remaining years of his life present little more than a melancholy blank. His animating conversation, his stimu- lating eloquence, had passed away; and he who was wont to entertain and in- struct circles of admiring friends, would sit for boars absorbed in a dull le- thargic silence, even amid the discussion of topics that would once have aroused his inmost soul to pour forth its richest stores. The first striking manifestation of incipient imbecility took place at a meeting of the members of the Public Library, in the month of September 1833, at which he had announced his in- tention of moving a new law. When called upon to state his proposition, to the surprise and grief of those who had been accustomed to the brilliant fluency of his discourse, he could scarcely utter a connected sentence ; but, after a few disjointed, faltering remarks, he abruptly moved his resolution and sat down. The effect upon the meeting was truly painful; and the member who rose to oppose the motion was so much overpowered by the general feeling which per- vaded all present, that he could scarcely command sufficient self-possession to perform his part.

"A short time after this occurrence, William Taylor thus alluded to it when writing to a friend in London- "' To my ever-dearest Barron say, if you please, that I miss him more than I regret him ; that I acquiesce in his retreat from Norwich, because I could ill brook his observation of my increasing debility of mind, which bas been going on all this summer, although its first public disclosure took place in the Public Library Room on the 5th of September.'"

Over the closing years of his existence his admiring biographer draws a veil; but his last letters show less of imbecility than of wandering of mind : there is knowledge and even vigour, but it is knowledge and vigour misapplied. He died in March 1836; and, notwithstanding all his fears of poverty, left several thousand pounds behind him. He had formed a resolution early in life to live a bachelor ; to which he strictly adhered.

The ample volumes of Mr. ROBBERDS contain very full particu- lars relating to the various labours of WILLIAM TAYLOR, and a good enough account of his life and character. But the highest value of the book is in its correspondence with the two GRIFFITHS, father and son, and with WILLIAM TAYLOR'S friend ROBERT SOUTHEY. The Gatereras were for upwards of half a century the proprietors and editors of the Monthly Review; and their letters more strictly relate to WILLIAM TAYLOR'S biography than those of SOUTHEY, because they refer to books to be reviewed, or to the mode of re- viewing them. They have also a further literary interest, as dis- playing the principles which guided the conduct of the Monthly Review: and these exhibit consideration, care, and judgment, and, on the part of the son especially, a spirit of jealous independence, if not of conscientious impartiality. Except in scattered passages and occasional letters, the correspondence with SOUTHEY is of a less biographical character ; involving general criticism on literature and politics, and free remarks on public men or private acquaint- ance: what there is of biography relates as much to SOUTHEY as to TAYLOR. But the variety of the remarks—the nature of the subjects, just distant enough to have faded without having lost their interest—the easy animation of SOUTHEY'S style, the naivete with which he exhibits both virtues and weaknesses, contrasted with TAYLOR'S blunter manner, and in some things sterner sense— render this correspondence the most attractive we have ever read ; always excepting certain epistles of verbal criticism, in which the respective productions of the writers are discussed line by line.

Mr. ROBBERDS is an extensive manufacturer at Norwich; and he whose vocation is to produce camlets may claim indulgence in the production of biography. But, even if he needed indulgence more than he does—for many literary manufacturers turn out a worse article—our readers would like to have a character of the work. Mr. ROBBERDs'S composition, then, though too much inclining to graft disquisition upon the narrative, and to prefer well-sound- ing words to closeness of matter, is fresh and vigorous. He has also exhibited a fair discrimination in his estimate of TAYLOR, and much industry in tracing his-lucubrations. His arrangement

is less praiseworthy. The materials of the book really con- sist of three parts,—a biography of TAYLOR; the correspondence with SOUTHEY; an account of the various productions of WILLIAM TAYLOR, with a few specimens of his composition. And we think a more effective work, and one better adapted to spread the reputation of its hero, would have been produced by a rigid adherence to the natural order. One hundred and fifty or two hundred pages would have sufficed to narrate so uneventful a career, including all the biographical letters; a second division would have embraced the correspondence with SOUTHEY, excluding some of the less interesting letters ; a third might have presented speci- mens of WILLIAM TAYLOR'S works, with the present summaries, collected together and printed in an appendix. In speaking of the specimens, we do not mean that they should have been taken irre- gularly, and in piecemeal shape, as is unavoidably done under the present plan ; but that the beauties of WILLIAM TAYLOR should have been extracted upon a larger scale, though with a scrutinizing judgment, and presented as entire wholes—not whole articles, but whole subjects, which is indeed generally done by Mr. ROBBERDS. Thus, for example, there would be no necessity to quote the review of "Franklin's Works" for the following

CHARACTER OF FRANKLIN'S WRITINGS.

The writings of Dr. Franklin are justly admired for a plain popularity of style, for the distinct picturesque character of idea, for humorous Socratic irony, and for the art of arguing to the selfishness : the reader is constantly put in mind of the use that will accrue to him, and such as him, from the adoption of Dr. Franklin's premises. Even a question of science is never handled as a question of curiosity, where to evolve the truth is the disinterested end in view ; it must be hooked to some petty, practical purpose of private accommodation before it is held worthy of being investigated. This concatenation of the cut &no to every footstep is a clog to excellence : it illiberalizes science ; but it seems to be the cha- racteristic of American philosophy. The national foible is readily forgotten in Dr. Franklin when his vast efficacy is contemplated: history will class him among her great men—among the strong minds employed in directing import- ant events. Be had, perhaps, more of craft than of boldness, more of prudence than of magnanimity ; but he attained his ends without harshness or waste of effort: he early saw the scope of his pursuit, and proceeded toward it, step by step, with a singleness of purpose and an undeviating perseverance that rarely accompany a comprehensive mind. Indeed, Dr. Franklin's range of attention and idea was but narrow. The classical, poetical, and elegant writers had em- ployed little of his leisure; the moral sublime, the heroic delineations of the muse, seldom tinged his sentiments or actions ; nor had the luxuries and refine- ments of social life attraction enough to encroach much on his habits of snug sufficiency. Be allowed himself time to think and time to say but little ; that little was always hitting ; and what especially will consecrate his memory to the grateful veneration and growing applause of the remotest posterity is, that he belonged among those worthies who have assisted the people to obtain liberty, and not among those cringelings who have assisted sovereigns to extend their power.

Perhaps justice is hardly done by TAYLOR to the variety of FRANKLIN's studies, and the expansive character of his mind, which rendered him "all in all sufficient" for the minutest or greatest affairs. But in nicety and justness of calm appreciation the criti- cism can scarcely be surpassed. Here is a contrast—a passage verging upon the rhetorical.

THE TRUE ALADDIN'S LAMP. The real lamp of Aladdin is that on the merchant's best. All the genies, white, olive or black, who people the atmosphere of earth, it rub in motion at the antipodes. It builds palaces in the wilderness and cities in the forest, and collects every splendour and every refinement of luxury from the fingersof sub- servient toiL Kings of the East are slaves of the lamp; the winds blow and the seas roll only to work the behest of its owner.

The following admirable exposition of the benefits of domestic purity of morals, and explanation of the looseness of the older comic writers, is from an excellent defence of dramatic representa- tions against the attacks of a Dr. STYLES.

" In Molibre's time, and in the unrefined nations, it had not yet been dis- covered in how high a degree domestic happiness and social order depend on conjugal fidelity. It was not yet notorious, that a husband will submit to no privations, and will undertake no labour, no hazard, to provide for the children of a wife whom he has suspected. It was not yet notorious, that filial as well as parental affection vanishes where its object is uncertain or infamous. The son disdains at home, without scruple, the frown of a stranger or the tears of a harlot; the daughter forsakes, in their old age, the one parent because he is not akin, and the other because she has not a character. It was not yet calculated how short-lived is the pleasure of gallantry, bow long-lived its miserable and irrevocable effect. Beauty lasts but an Olympiad; the constancy of a gallant but a summer; and for this summer, were it spent in the Paradise of Mahomet, without fear and without remorse, it would not be worth while to endanger, far less to fling away, thirty, forty years of mutual confidence and friendship. This where there are no children. And where there are—mothers, if such there be, who for a moment have meditated to snap those ties asunder, how think you to buy again those endearing charities and purest pleasures of your nature, that si3 mpaihy of family affection, forbidden for ever to the hearth polluted by the adulterer ? The degradation of rank, the dissolution of ac- quaintance, are comparatively feeble considerations. Let the comic poet, therefore, be called to a severe responsibility when he seems to daily with the holiest bonds which hold our hearts together ; let the matron rise and quit the p!ayhouse with her daughter, if her sacred presence is profaned by coarse ribaldry or systematic licentiousness. Genius can so be taught, that unless he is the slave of virtue he must become the outcast of fame; that no works of art endure but those which advocate the enduring interests of mankind ; and that the true road to permanent praise on earth is to merit the favour of a re- tributive Deity. By the meritorious conspiracy of exemplary characters, by the apt exertion of the social frown, any exceptionable comedies can be cried down and banished from the stage. They are not numerous, and may be dis- used unmissed."

It is probable that some of our readers, well versed in the lesser periodical literature' may have met these passages before, and more than once ; for the fate which SOUTHEY predicted after TAYLOR'S death overtook him in his own day, except that, instead of taking his gold to enrich their own garments, his plagiarists took gar- ments and all.

The length to which our notice has extended prevents our draw- ing as we would wish on the TAYLOR-SOUTHEY correspondence ; which, valuable as it is in a literary and critico-historical sense, is perhaps equally valuable for its display of close and cordial friend- ship surviving untouched through length of years, change of cir- cumstances, opinions, and belief, aud, what is perhaps yet harder, reciprocal interchange of the freest criticism. The letters also exhibit SOUTHEY in a newer and better point of view ; showing him to be much less of a " Tory," much less of a "bigot," and much less of the virulent Quarterly Reviewer, than has been supposed. For example, he was accused of reviewing LEIGH HUNT'S .Rimini: so far from writing the review, he wrote a remonstrance to MURRAY upon it. And though self-estimation is pretty visible, it is esti- mation for inherent, not accidental qualities. Here is his account of the change worked in "the world" by his becoming Private Secretary to the Irish Chancellor of the Exchequer • though the reader should remember, he had been rather well-known to the world he writes of, as the author of lines upon MARTIN the Regicide, "The Battle of Blenheim," and so forth.

souTHEY Hi OFFICE.

I have been a week in town' and in that time have learnt something. The civilities which already have been shown me discover how much I have been abhorred for all that is valuable in my nature : such civilities excite more contempt than anger' but they make me think more despicably of the world than I would wish to do. As if this were a baptism that purified me of all sins— a regeneration; and the one congratulates me, and the other visits me, as if the author of " Joan of Arc " and of " Thalaba " were made a great man by scribing for the Irish Chancellor of the Exchequer.

TAYLOR ON HIS OWN POPULARITY.

You surprise me when you say five hundred " Thalabas " have sold. I printed but three hundred " Ellenores " from Burger, and never could sell one hundred. I printed two hundred and fifty " lphigenias in Tanris," gave away about fifty, and have nearly half a hundred still at Johnson's; and as yoa print on the plan of vellum-paper and dear volumes, which is a great =- pediment to popularity, you ought to be flattered by a smaller sale than if your appeal was to readers at large. People think twice about fourteen shillings, and wait till it comes to the library or the book-club : a cheap poem is bought during the greediness of novelty-hunger.

STRANGE TRAITS OF GODWIN, COLLECTED BY SOUTHEY.

This puts me upon making my defence about Godwin. I do not call him " a dim-eyed son of blasphemy," as Coleridge did in his days of intolerant Uni- tarianism—he may blaspheme and wear spectacles in peace for me : but when such a man says, "Take my word for it, there is nothing at all in William Taylor," I certainly do take his word for it that he believes what he says, and is a blockhead for his pains. And the private anger that such a circumstance excited, added to that produced by his weathercock instability of opinion, and the odium which it brought upon the best principles and the best cause, and the want of all feeling in stripping his dead wife naked, as he did, and such wife, and taking such another home, when the picture of that first hung up over his fireplace,—indeed, indeed, my flesh is not made of such Quaker-fibre, nor my blood of such toad-temperature, as not to be irritated by these recol- lections. You know how much I hope for the human race • but you do not know how deeply that hope is rooted, and how it leavens all my feelings and opinions. To see, then, two such men as Godwin and Malthus come to such an issue upon such a question, did make me feel bitter anger and bitter contempt ; and notwithstanding even your dissatisfaction, I cannot wish one syllable that expresses or enhances such sentiments were cancelled.

SOUTHEY ON JEFFREY.

I have been at Edinburgh, and there seen Jeffrey. When he was invited to meet me, he very properly sent me the sheets, that I might see him or not, ac- cording to my own feelings: this was what he could not well avoid ; but it was not the less gentlemanlike. I met him in good humour, being, by God's bless- ing, of a happy temper : having seen him, it were impossible to be angry with any thing so diminutive. We talked about the question of taste on which we are at issue. He is a mere child upon that subject: I never met with a man whom it was so easy to checkmate.

TAYLOR ON "THE LAY OF THE LAST MINSTREL."

My opinion of the "Minstrel's Lay" does not coincide with yours : I do not think that it excites and keeps alive "a novel-like interest." The incidents are so purposeless, that I experience from them a succession of disappoint- ments. The poem struck me as a rimed imitation of " Thalaba "; as possess. ing similar local merits of high-wrought, luminously-coloured description ; as falling into similar faults of disconnected, independent, unintelligibly successive incident; as having lyrical and eruditional merit, but neither order, climax, nor entirety of fable. There is a want of homogeneity in the manner or style, which resembles what the masons call rubbish-walling, where fragments of miciently hewn and sculptured stone are built in with modern brickbats and the pebbles of the soil.

SOUTHEY'S AND SCOTT'S PROFITS.

You shall have a fuller and quieter letter when I reach home. " Madoc " is doing well in all but in the sale. If you do not know the current value of epic poetry at the present time, I can help you to a pretty just estimate. My profits upon this poem, in the course of twelve months, amount precisely to three pounds seventeen shillings and one penny. In the same space of time Walter Scott has sold 4,500 copies of his "Lay," and netted, of course, above a thou- sand pounds.

A DILETTANTE MAN OF LETTERS: A PORTRAIT BY SOUTFIEY.

George Ellis dined at Longman's, to meet me for the first time. I liked him less than I expected; and yet my expectation was not very high : a little too much of the air of high life, a little too much of the conversationist, eyes too small, a face too long, and something in his manners which showed, or seemed to show, that it was a condescension en him to be a man of letters. This opi- skion may be uncharitably formed; and it is very likely that, with my inside full of fog and phlegm, as it then was, I may have seen him unfairly through a misty atmosphere: but there is certainly that something about him which would always make me greet a man with a distant bend of the body, and a smile that lay no deeper than the muscles which fashioned it, instead of a glad eye and a ready shake of the hand. You are right in what you say about the preference of talents to integrity; but there must be a certain quantity of right thinking and good feeling about a man, and manifestly about him, to make his society desirable.

THE STORY OF SOUTHEY'S PENSION, BY HIMSELF.

When the late Ministry saw that out they must go, • • • thought of saving something for me out of the fire : be could only get an offer of a place in the island of St. Lucie, worth about 600/. a year. There was no time to receive my answer; but he divined it rightly, and refused. Instead, one of Lord G.'s last acts was to give me a pension of 2001., to which the King "graciously as- sented." You cannot be more amused at finding me a pensioner than I am at

finding so. I am not, however, a richer man than before. Hitherto

• • • given me an annuity of 1601.; which I felt no pain in accepting from the oldest friend I have in the world, with whom my intimacy was formed be- fore we were either of us old enough to think of differences of rank and fortune. But • • * is not a rich man for his rank; so little so, that be could not marry till he got a place; and of course I shall receive this no longer from him, now that it is no longer necessary. Of 2001. the Taxes have the modesty to deduct 564 and the Exchequer pays irregularly; he is in luck who has only one quar- ter in arrears, so B • • tells me, who has an office there. I therefore lose 161. per year during war, and gain 4/. whenever the Income-tax is repealed, having the discomfort always of uncertain remittances.

TAYLOR ON RETROSPECTIVE REVIEWS.

Norwich, 1st June 1809.

My dear Friend—In any periodical publication which you are to manage I shall gladly assist ; but I do not think the project you are forming will answer. Rhadamanthus • may pay Charon and his sub-ferryman, but poor Ballantyne will repent of this bargain. Only the literary world cares about old books. The use of a review is to provide the unthinking part of the public with sen- timents to utter concerning living men and passing events. It is very possible to smuggle in modern speculation, under colour of reviewing ancient writings; but, as it will not be expected, it will not be looked for there ; and thus the great mass of book-buyers will turn from Rhadainanthus as from the Census. Literaria of Egerton Brydges. To execute a work well, secures the perusal of men of letters,—who are of all customers the worst, as they get at books through editors of reviews and public institutions : it does not secure popularity, which is of course reserved for the topics of the season. Talk of the flowers that round us bloom, not of cedars, laurels, and dull evergreens, if you would please the walkers in the garden.

SOUTHEY ON COLERIDGE AND WORDSWORTH.

Coleridge has sent out a fourth number [of The Friend] today. I have always expected every number to be the last : he may, however, possibly go on in this intermitting way till subscribers enough withdraw their names (partly in anger at its irregularity, more because they find it heathen Greek) to give him an ostensible reason for stopping short. Both he and Wordsworth, power- fully as they can write and profoundly as they usually think, have been be- trayed into the same fault—that of making things, easy of comprehension in themselves, difficult to be comprehended by their way of stating them ; instead of going to the natural spring for water, they seem to like the labour of dig- ging wells. The Tower-of-Babel character of your English offends them griev- ously; the hardness of theirs appears to me a less excusable fault,

• The proposed title.