made as much of it as they could. And with a sort of fear of the power of a wily some consideration is due to Strafford if in narrow mind in its own sphere. The rest, the midst of toil and care, he found relief including secretary Coke, with whom he in an acquaintance who tickled his love of seems to have been on even friendly terms, the ridiculous with amusing letters of court were men of no particular talent, or influnews. Radcliffe probably alludes to such ence, and did not press the scale either features of Strafford, when he says, "I way. One and one only, his dear friend knew his ways long and intimately, and Laud, stuck to him and fought his battles though I cannot clear him from all frailties, through thick and thin. Laud, singly and (for who can even justify the most innocent solely, opposed to the whole influence or man,) yet I must give him the testimony of the indifference of the English cabinet, conscientiousness in his ways, that he kept kept him in office from the first; Strafford himself from gross sins, and endeavored to would not have been a month in Ireland approve himself rather unto God than unto but for him. man, to be religious inwardly and in truth, rather than outwardly and in show." Every body knows that there is such a thing as reserve and disguise on this subject to the world at large. Strafford, it is plain, had much more religion all along, than others thought or than he cared to be known-a man of the world externally, while he maintained a high standard within. We return to our history. Had opposition from the men of power in Ireland been all that Strafford had to bear, he would have been comparatively at ease. What really touched him, and went to his heart, was the coldness and distrust of the home government. Amidst a variety of Straffordian maxims two are conspicuous: one was, that a minister, in order to effect his object, ought to be entirely trusted by his king. It was absurd to think that the political machine could work without singleness of impetus, and unity of action. The other was, that a minister in this fortunate position, ought to be ready to pay for it with his head. These two maxims were his north and south poles of the ministerial sphere, and it is melancholy to think that he should have realized the severe, without having benefited by the advantageous one. But Strafford felt the most deeply, the most unkindly, the coldness of the king himself. His personal attachment to Charles was of that peculiarly affectionate kind, which often marks the intercourse of the strong mind with the amiable weaker one. Charles had powers of attraction which should have quite made up for his want of statesmanship. The countenance of calm beauty and benign grace, the temper of sweetness, the mild but kingly manner, the incomparable finish, had imaged themselves indelibly upon his minister's mind; and could he have got rid of his fears, and trusted this one guide, he was safe: his high-mettled charger would have carried him over all the Pyms and the Hampdens right speedily. A man who could command the devotion of a Strafford, was no contemptible monarch. But a weak, timorous, disappointing politician he was; and Strafford was always uncertain and uneasy about him. In vain did Laud argue at the council board, in vain after every arrival of the Irish couriers, was the Archiepiscopal barge seen to cross over to Westminster, and return when some hours were spent. It was Strafford's misfortune, (they are the remarkable words of the primate himself,) to serve a mild and gracious prince, who knew not how to be or to be made great. Charles was afraid of the power which his own fascinations had raised, and all that Laud could do was barely to keep Of the members of Charles I.'s cabinet, Lord Cottington, Lord Holland, and Sir Francis Windebank had positively hostile feeling to Strafford, especially the first named, who was at the same time the deep-the bold minister in office. est courtier of the three. The foe within Moreover, men are generally influenced the camp is of course the most formidable, in their political views by their own parand the profound dissembler, the cool, ticular art or skill, by what they know they steady, watchful Cottington, made no agree- can do well. Charles had really a talent able rival at head quarters for a distant de- for keeping men together, and he took that puty to cope with. Strafford felt him all line; instead of choosing which side to along a thorn in his side, and the disdain take, he applied himself to keeping a diof the genuine statesman for a mere court vided cabinet going. And to the credit of intriguer, for "my Don with his whis- his tact, it must be admitted that he did it kers," (allusive to Cottington's disgraceful where others would have failed. But what Spanish proceedings,)—the adept in "mak-was the good of it when it was done? ing of legs to fair ladies," was mingled What was the advantage of keeping the party of Thorough, and the party of the Lady Mora looking black at each other at the same board? Far better would it have been to let the discordant compound blow up of itself, and leave a clear atmosphere to breathe in. of every physician; the cure, under God, must be wrought by one Esculapius alone. Less than Thorough will not overcome it; there is a cancerous malignity in it, which must be cut forth, which long since rejected all other means, and therefore to God As it was, Charles's government con- and him I leave it." And so with the retracted all the odium of a rigorous, with commendation, that Hampden and the bronone of the advantages of a strict policy: therhood should be well whipped into their it had just courage enough to show its right wits, and putting the rod into the teeth and no more; it betrayed its inclina- Archbishop's hands, he ends his advice on tions, and no thanks to you, thought the English affairs,-"send for your chimney popular party, for not executing them; we sweeper of Oxford, who will sing you a see the virulence of your intentions not- song made of one Bond, a schoolmaster of withstanding the poverty of your acts, and St. Paul's, and withal show you how to we hate your malice none the less for your jerk, to temper the voice, to guide the cowardice. The puritan faction never real- hand, to lay on the rod excellently, (sure I ly felt the force of a well sustained crushing am he made me laugh heartily when I was line of attack, and the irregular sally, and there last :) the chancellor of the universioccasional sharp blow, were paralyzed by ty might with a word bring him up to your some mixture of weakness, which convert- lordship at Lambeth,-and then for Mr. ed the severity into a stimulus and en- Hampden and Mr. Bond," &c., &c. Laud couragement. The puritans only preached was too melancholy to joke: I have given and scribbled, reviled and pamphleteered up, he says, as if his view was made up, I the more, and grew stronger and stronger have given up expecting of Thorough. [To be continued.] CHINESE POPULAR POETRY. The following verses were circulated in Canton, in 1840; the translation appeared in the Canton Register : HUMAN affairs are multifarious and endless. the ocean smoke," Which the foreigners have schemed to exchange for the precious commodities of the midle and flow The ruin to the nation and injury to the people words cannot express. The noble Lin received the imperial commands to drive it out; A supereminent worthy, devoted to his country, and loving the people; But before his laborious efforts had obtained the victory, he was dismissed; under a relaxed government, without hav- 66 Cringing, seditious flatterers, and traitorious To ruin the faithful and good, who reside on the borders. At the present time, if there were a will to embattle the troops, How would the barbarous foreigners dare to ad vance! But he has no heart to establish plans for the leaders and troops to do battle; His thoughts are only bent on the selfish receiving of bribes; He, taking advantage of changing circumstances, seeks for concord by dividing the land; But neither the military nor the people will submit, and his words will be vain and empty. Were the emperor to restore the noble Lin to office,, The barbarous foreigners would bow their heads to the dust, and give thanks to the azure heavens.t Opium. ↑ The emperor. ORIGINAL LETTERS OF SOUTHEY. From Bentley's Miscellany. LETTER I. ed. Moses Mendez, if my memory does not deceive me, published a collection of poems by various authors, in one volume, which I have seen bound uniformly with Dodsley and Pearch. I have now upon my shelves (a schoolboy purtranslated from the Chaldee (2 vols. 1769), of which the preface says that the first book was John Bampfylde.-Gifford and the Quarterly. chase) "The Loves of Othniel and Achsah," DEAR SIR: Moses Mendez. Keswick, 14 Nov. 1829. ose LETTER II. ende Lord Buckhurst.-Sir Philip Sidney.-Fielding.- ther.-Davenant.-Richardson's Portrait.-Jere- MY DEAR SIR: Keswick, 8 April, 1830. translated by Mr. M...s M....Z, the former THE account which I sent you so many years possessor of the (pretended) MSS., and that the ago of John Bampfylde, as collected from Jack-rest had been pursued amidst the vexations of a son of Exeter, in conversation, is at your ser- very troublesome employment, increased by disvice for any use which you may be inclined to appointments from pretended friendships. The make of it. I am pleased to find that you should author was probably a Jew. think it worthy of remembrance and of preservation. Your whole letter, indeed, would have been to me as entirely pleasing as it is full of interesting information, if it were not for the tone in which you speak of yourself and of your own labors. That you might have taken a high place among English poets had you received the early encouragement which ought to have been given, and had you submitted to that patient labor, without which no great work can be accomplished, I do not doubt: for I know not any poem in any language more beautifully imaginative than your sonnet upon Silence and Echo. Circumstances have led you to raise for yourself a distinguished reputation in another branch of literature, in itself of a very interesting kind. No other person, I believe, has contributed so largely and so well to the materials for a literary history of England. And this, as it is a lasting benefit, will draw after it a lasting remembrance. I have profited, and hope to profit more, by these your labors, to which in due time I shall make my thankful and respectful acknowledgments. Your edition of "Collins's Peerage" I have never chanced to see; but I have heard it so spoken of in various quarters as to satisfy me that you have brought to that branch of our antiquities also the feeling of a poet as well as the diligence of a genealogist. I reply thus immediately to your very interesting, and, indeed, affecting letter, that I may endeavor in writing (were it possible, I would, willingly, in person) to assist you in beguiling some little portion of your wearying confinement. The severe pain which you were suffering indicated I suppose a gathering in the part originally affected, from which a discharge, though it leave you greatly exhausted, may, Í hope and trust, give permanent relief. There is a vis vitæ, on which much reliance may be placed, in an unconquerable spirit like yours. I Lord Buckhurst is, beyond all doubt, the immediate father-in-verse of Spenser; he was by far the greatest and (which is not always, nor even often a necessary result,) the most influential poet of his generation. But he is included in Warton's History; and my agreement with Longman is, that I may embody these lives You have done much, Sir Egerton, for which hereafter in my intended continuation of Warto be remembered, far more than many of your ton's work, should I live to undertake it seriousflourishing contemporaries, whose reputations ly. From my very boyhood, when I first read will fade as rapidly as they have flourished. the Arcadia, in Mrs. Stanley's modernization of And, if you have fallen short of your own youth-it, Sydney took possession of my imagination. ful aspirations, who is there that has not, if he aspired at any thing generous? Who that can afford to compare what he has done with what it was once his ambition and his hope to do? Grey hairs bring with them little wisdom, if they do not bring this sense of humiliation. Not that I like the book the better, just in proportion as she had worsened it, for his own language would have presented nothing strange or difficult to me, who had read Shakspeare, and B. and Fletcher, as soon as I could understand enough of them to follow the story of their plays; but she had thrown away the pastoral parts, and the miserable metre with which those parts are encumbered; and, therefore, I had nothing to interrupt my enjoyment of the romance. Spenser afterwards increased my veneration for Sidney; and Penshurst, where I first saw it (in 1791) was the holiest ground I had ever visited. My paper upon Hayley, in the Quarterly, (No. 62,) was so offensive to Mr. Gifford, that after it was printed he withheld it from two successive numbers; and if he had not then ceased to be editor, and had persisted in withholding it, I should probably have withdrawn from the Review. There neither was nor could be any reason for this, but that he could not bear to see Hayley spoken of with decent respect. Poor Forty years have not abated my love and Gifford used to say that I was not "well affect-veneration for Sydney. I do not remember any ed" to the Review, because I protested from character more nearly without reproach. His prose is full of poetry, and there are very fine passages among his poems, distinguishing them from his metres, in which there is scarcely even a redeeming line, thought, or expression. this. Your letter contains many interesting particulars which were new to me, and some names which I had not before heard, or not remember I was introduced one day, in St. James's Park, | been painted for one of his female admirers, and to the Fielding of whom you gave me so lively when long Sir Thomas Robinson took possesan anecdote. He was then a fine old man, sion of the house, and of this portrait, he wonthough visibly shaken by time. He received dered what business a Mr. Richardson could me in a manner which had much of old courtesy have there, in company with persons of high about it; and I looked at him with great inter- degree; so the canvass was turned over to the est, for his father's sake. This must have been nearest painter, with orders to put on a blue in 1817. The year afterwards a book was sent riband and a star, and thereby convert it into a me with this title, "Eternal Punishment proved portrait of Sir Robert Walpole! You may be to be not suffering, but privation, and Immor- sure Mr. Morritt, when he restored to the pictality dependent on Spiritual Regeneration; by ture its right name, left it in possession of these a Member of the Church of England." There favors. came a letter with it, in which the author, (James Fontaine,) supposing me to be well acquainted with Mr. Fielding, spoke of him as his friend, and as holding the opinions which were maintained in this book. And I heard afterwards, from the friend who had introduced me to him, that he was supposed to have fallen into some peculiar religious notions, and that something like enthusiasm was imputed to him,-which, judging from the book, could only have been by persons who had bestowed no serious thought themselves upon the most serious of all subjects; for Fontaine, (though far from an able writer,) as a very sober and deliberate judgment, established, upon scriptural grounds, the only doctrine in which the heart and understanding can fully acquiesce, and which clearly vindicates the ways of God to man. Fielding, therefore, appears to have avoided those errors into which men so frequently fall, when they begin earnestly to look beyond the mortal state. Mr. Park will not have avoided them if he has got among the Evangelicals, who, as a body, bring both by their tenets and practices, a reproach upon Christianity. The volume which he sent you, and which missed its way, was probably his "Morning Thoughts and Midnight Musings." There are some very affecting pieces in it, the best he ever wrote. I will ask Quillinan to look at the notes upon Davenant. D'Israeli has some curious particulars about Gondibert, in his "Quarrels of Authors:" but he supposes Dr. Donne to have been one of his assailants,-who was dead long before. There is a most atrocious libel upon Wither in one of Davenant's plays:-he is introduced as an assassin, and all but named, the intention being plainly denoted by an allusion to his "Abuses Stript and Whipt." Wither's family is inosculated with a branch of mine. My late uncle (Mr. Hill) married a sister of Mr. Bigge Wither, of Manidown, and the children of that marriage are now my wards. It was thought at one time by his sisters, that Mr. B. Wither intended to marry Miss Austin, whom you mention, and whose novels are more true to nature, and have (for my sympathies) passages of finer feeling than any other of this age. She was a person of whom I have heard so well, and think so highly, that I regret not having seen her, nor ever having had an opportunity of testifying to her the respect which I felt for her. I inquired if any papers of poor George Withers could be traced, but without success. There is a portrait of Richardson at Rokeby, with this odd story belonging to it, which Mr. Morritt told me when he pointed it out. It had Edward Romilly is expected, with his bride, in the immediate neighborhood. I have seen a little of him formerly, and generally meet one of his brothers at a breakfast-party, once, during my rare visits to town, among a knot of Jeremy Benthamites,-able, active, and ambitious men, some of whom are right in their feelings, but all wrong in their opinions, and likely (most of them) to do all that in them lies for increasing the evils and dangers of this ill-fated country. I do not recollect the Christian name of this Romilly, but he is a mild, agreeable man, and of prepossessing countenance. The friend at whose rooms I have met him is the author of "Isaac Comnenus," a tragedy, which was noticed some two years ago in the Quarterly; a man of rare genius, and (though possessed in a less degree by the same evil spirit) the most intimate friend I have among those who are a generation younger than myself. The fact which you notice of the likeness to Sir Edward Dering (of Charles's age) in his family at this day is very curious. Did you ever observe how remarkably old age brings out family likenesses,-which having been kept, as it were, in abeyance, while the passions and the business of the world engross the parties, come forth again in age (as in infancy), the features settling into their primary character before dissolution? I have seen some affecting instances of this,-brother and sister, whom no two persons in middle life could have been more unlike in countenance or in character, becoming like twins at last. I now see my father's lineaments in the looking-glass, when they never used to appear. But, of Sir Edward Dering, very few of his speeches are given in Cobbett or Howel's Parliamentary history, the worst part of which is that of those times, and this owing to some negligence on the part of the editor, who has not resorted to such separate publications as he ought to have done, nor to Rushworth, and still less to Nalson. Dering's speeches, with his beautiful portrait, I found in the library at Lowther; where I found also, in the same collection of tracts, a life of Sejanus, (levelled against Buckingham,) by P. M. Some former owner of the same age had written under these initials -Philip Massinger. I communicated this to Gifford, as deserving inquiry on his part, which he said he would make, but I believe never did. Sismondi is less fully informed than I expected to find him respecting the literature of Spain and Portugal, especially that of the latter country. I have never seen his historical works. Having a library within reach, I live upon my stores, which are, however, more ample perhaps than were ever before possessed by one whose noticed in the second edition of that work. Few whole estate was in his inkstand. My days among the dead are past; How much to them I owe, My thoughts are with the dead; with them I live in long past years, My hopes are with the dead; anon The stanzas in the last page were intended for my Colloquies, in which (following Boëthius) I thought at first of interspersing poems, but, giving up that intention, this little piece was left unfinished, and so it remains. books have ever fallen in my way which contain so many golden remarks as these "Gnomica." That portion of the "Theatrum Poetarum" which you printed at Canterbury I purchased when it was first published; and was very glad now to receive the whole work, with more of your own remarks, and in so beautiful a form. 66 Your edition of "Sir P. Sydney's Life" I have been fortunate enough to borrow, by means of Longman. There is a curious passage respecting it in " Pepys's Memoirs," relating to a passage of prophetic foresight concerning the Dutch. This "Life," which is everywhere characteristic of its author, has led some writers astray concerning the age at which Sydney began his travels, owing, I have no doubt, to a mistake of figures in the manuscript, where 17 must have been so written as to be taken for 14. You may have seen an impossible attempt of Dr. Aikin's to comprise a complete "Collection of English Poetry," in one volume. He begins with a few pages of B. Jonson, and then comes Milton. Longman put it into my hands when it was just published, and I remarked to him that Dr. Aikin had begun just where I should have ended; for every thing which that volume contained was already accessible to readers of all classes. He remembered this, and applied to me to include such works of the earlier poets as the limits would admit, in a similar volume. I could have made a most valuable book if he would have consented to let the volume be supMrs. Harriet Bowdler, at the age of seventy-plementary to Chalmers' and Anderson's Coleight, has just died of the small-pox, of the most lections; but this did not suit his views; so I virulent kind: This I hear to-day from Mrs. could only reverse the proverb, and cut my cloth Hodson, formerly Margaret Holford. according to my coat. I have, however, given the volume a special value by Hawes's "Pastime of Pleasure ;" and, if Longman could have been persuaded, I would have commenced it with that copy of "Piers Ploughman," which is the intermediate one between Whitaker's and the old edition; but he did not think the great service which might thus have been rendered to our literature would be beneficial to his book. Sir W. Davenant.-The "Gnomica."-Life of And I must think myself fortunate in getting in Sidney.-Pepys's Memoirs.-Collection of Eng-Old Tusser, Lord Brooke, and Chamberlain's lish Poetry." The Pastime of Pleasure.” Pharonnida," which fell in my way when I "Piers Ploughman."-Scenery near Keynsham. was a schoolboy. I did not know that any -Lucien Buonaparte.-Sidney and Falke Gre- my Cid's blood was running in English veins; ville.-Portrait of Sidney.-Conduct of the Earl still less could I suppose, when translating the of Leicester. account of those proceedings at the Cortes, when he revenged the wrongs of his two daughters, (which is one of the sublimest passages of the kind,) that it was a part of your family history. No descent can be more distinctly made out, and none could possibly pass through a more illustrious channel. God bless you, Sir Egerton, and restore you! I shall look anxiously to hear of you; but with hope. Yours, with sincere respect, ROBERT SOUTHEY. To Sir Egerton Bridges, &c. &c, Geneva. MY DEAR SIR: LETTER III. Keswick, 16th June, 1830. I thank you for your letter,-for Oldy's notes concerning Sir W. Davenant, which your son has obligingly transcribed for me,-and for some very interesting and valuable books, part the produce of the Lee Priory Press, and part the result of your unweariable industry on the Continent. The "Gnomica" I have been reading with the greatest delight, which has been not a little enhanced by perceiving too frequently my thoughts have been travelling in the same direction with yours. Charges of plagiarism, indeed, have often been made upon lighter grounds than might be found in this volume of yours for accusing me of it, in my last work. Had I known this a little sooner, it should have been of There is a path leading from Keynsham toward Bristol, through what was formerly the park. It was very little frequented when I discovered it, six-and-thirty years ago, at which time I was in the habit of walking between Bath and Bristol, from one place to the other; and I felt very strongly the picturesque and melancholy character of the scene,-melancholy only because its days of grandeur were gone by. A small lodge was the only building which remained; but the grounds, though disparked, |