Southey he found a helpmate, to whose wise and prudent economy he was chiefly indebted for that domestic serenity he so dearly prized. But to maintain it, was for her a constant source of depressing perplexity. The expenses were large, the income uncertain and precarious, and when at last the weight of affliction was superadded to her other cares, the mind gave way, exhausted by the anxieties of her ceaseless though unobtrusive exertions.
In the autumn of 1834, Southey undertook a melanlancholy journey. Writing from York, he says: "I have been parted from my wife by something more than death. Forty years has she been the life of my life; and I have left her this day in a lunatic asylum." Yet he could discover a cause for gratitude. "I have much to be thankful for under this visitation. For the first time in my life" (and he was now sixty-one years of age) "I am so far beforehand with the world, that my means are provided for the whole of next year; and I can meet this additional expenditure, considerable in itself, without any difficulty." In the midst of this affliction he received a letter from Sir Robert Peel. "I have advised the King," writes the Prime Minister, "to adorn the distinction of baronetage with a name the most eminent in literature, and which has claims to respect and honour which literature alone can never confer." A private note accompanied the letter, containing assurances of respect, and requesting to know how he could advance his interests. Southey declined the honour, his restricted means would have rendered it a mockery. "Writing for a livelihood," he observed, "a livelihood is all that I have gained; for having also something better in view, and never having courted popularity, nor written for the mere sake of gain, it has not been possible for me to lay by anything."
Sir Robert Peel was doubtless surprised at the disclosure; for it was a prevalent belief that he had amassed
