What heart does not warm to the memory of Robert Southey, pattern of the literary character in this wearing nineteenth century? Penniless, disowned by his friends, with no one to look up to for assistance, nothing could divert him from his cherished inclination. He lived for literature. Its pursuit constituted his happiness. For it he sacrificed proffered rank and power; and joyfully he devoted to its service a toiling life of unexampled industry. Yet this man so wedded to his absorbing vocation, in the social capacity of husband, father, relative and friend, stands above reproach. His life is one emphatic denial of the daring falsehood, that genius and virtue are incompatible, that domestic felicity is inconsistent with literary labour. England knew not a happier circle, than that which for years assembled by the humble hearthstone at Greta Hall. It is refreshing to turn aside from the babble of the world, and contemplate that peaceful home, nestling amid the Cumberland mountains.
Our hero first saw the light on the 12th August, 1774,
