and purity. I am aware, indeed, that it is the fashion to drop all moral prejudices before putting on one's critical robes; but I have a sneaking regard for the qualities mentioned by Thackeray when they are not smothered under too heavy a burthen of intellectual feebleness. Southey's virtues are not obscured by that defect. His letters are the self-portraiture of a man whose good qualities are seconded by superabundant vivacity. I am afraid, however, that this does not quite sum up the impression which they make. Southey was not exactly the typical saint—the man whose talents serve only to give lustre to the beauty of holiness. The eulogy which I have quoted would be equally applicable to Lamb's favourite Quaker, John Woolman, a touching incarnation of simplicity and goodwill to man. Now, Southey was no Quaker, but a man of war from his youth up—a hard hitter and a good hater; and such qualities, though they may be excellent, are not simple applications of the Sermon on the Mount. Thackeray would, of course, have given some touches of this kind if he had been drawing a full-length portrait, and not simply seeking for an antithesis to his pet aversion. Professor Dowden, I think, went a little too far
