[1] Robert Southey, b. 1774; d. 1843. Joan of Arc (pub.) 1796; Thalaba, 1801; A Vision of Judgment, 1821; Life of Nelson, 1813; The Doctor, 1834-47. Life and Correspondence, edited by Rev. Chas. Cuthbert Southey, 1849-50.

[2] In a letter to his friend Bedford (he being then aged fifty) he writes: “I have taken again to my old coat and old shoes; dine at the reasonable hour of four; enjoy, as I used to do, the wholesome indulgence of a nap after dinner,” etc.

[3] Letter to Bedford, under date of December, 1793.—Life and Correspondence, p. 69.

[4] In the Imaginary Conversation between Southey and Porson, Landor makes Porson say: “It is pleasant to find two poets [Southey and Wordsworth] living as brothers, and particularly when the palm lies between them, with hardly a third in sight.”

Lamb, too, in a letter to Mr. Coleridge (p. 194, Moxon edition of 1832, London), says: “On the whole, I expect Southey one day to rival Milton; I already deem him equal to Cowper, and superior to all living poets besides.” This is apropos of Joan of Arc, which had then recently appeared. He begins his letter: “With Joan of Arc I have been delighted, amazed; I had not presumed to expect anything of such excellence from Southey.”

[5] George IV. was appointed Regent in the year 1811, the old king, George III., being then plainly so far bereft of his senses as to incapacitate him even for intelligent clerical service. He died, as we shall find later, in the year 1820, when the Regent succeeded, and reigned for ten years.

The Croker Papers (1884), recently published, make mention of Mr. Croker’s intervention in the matter of the bestowal of the Laureate-ship upon Southey. Croker was an old friend of Southey, and a trusted go-between in all literary service for the royal household.

[6] The sixth and seventh volumes appeared after the poet’s death, in 1847.

[7] Henry Crabb Robinson, b. 1775; d. 1867. Diary, Reminiscences, etc. (ed. by Sadler), 1869.

[8] Best edition is that of Macmillan, London, 1869.

[9] Thomas De Quincey, b. 1785; d. 1859. Confessions of an English Opium Eater, 1821. Complete edition of works, 1852-55. Life and Writings: H. A. Page, 2 vols. London, 1877.

[10] The entry is of 1812, p. 391, chap. xv. Macmillan’s edition. London, 1869.

[11] Page 215; vol. ii., Reminiscences. Boston Edition.

[12] John Wilson, b. 1785; d. 1854; better known as Christopher North, his pseudonym in Blackwood. The Isle of Palms, 1811; The City of the Plague, 1816; Recreations of Christopher North, 1842. In 1851 a civil-list pension of £300 was conferred upon him. His younger brother James Wilson was a well-known naturalist, and author of The Rod and the Gun.

[13] “Old North and Young North.” Blackwood, June, 1828.

[14] Dorothy Wordsworth, under date of 1809, writes to her friend, Lady Beaumont—“Surely I have spoken to you of Mr. Wilson, a young man of some fortune, who has built a house in a very fine situation not far from Bowness.… He has from boyhood been a passionate admirer of my brother’s writings. [And again.] We all, including Mr. De Quincey and Coleridge, have been to pay the Bachelor (Wilson) a visit, and we enjoyed ourselves very much in a pleasant mixture of merriment, and thoughtful discourse.… He is now twenty-three years of age.”—Coleorton Letters, vol. ii, p. 91.

[15] John Gibson Lockhart, b. 1794; d. 1854. Connected with Blackwood, 1818; Adam Blair, 1822; with Quarterly Review, 1826-53; Ancient Spanish Ballads, 1823; Memoirs of Walter Scott, 1836-38. Recent Life of Lockhart, by Andrew Lang. 2 vols., 8vo. Nimmo, London.

[16] Mrs. Gordon says, quoting from her mother’s record: Mr. Wilson is as busy studying as possible; indeed, he has little time before him for his great task; he says it will take one month at least to make out a catalogue of the books he has to read and consult. I am perfectly appalled when I go into the dining-room and see all the folios, quartos, and duodecimos, with which it is literally filled; and the poor culprit himself sitting in the midst, with a beard as long and red as an ancient carrot; for he has not shaved for a fortnight. P. 215, Memoir of John Wilson. We are sorry to see that Mr. Lang, in his recent Life of Lockhart (1897), pp. 135-6-7-8, has put some disturbing cross-coloring (perhaps justly) upon the pleasant portrait which Mrs. Gordon has drawn of Christopher North.

[17] Mrs. Gordon’s Memoir of John Wilson, p. 222. The statement is credited to the author of The Two Cosmos. Middleton, New York, 1863.

[18] Thomas Campbell, b. 1777; d. 1844. The Pleasures of Hope, 1799; Gertrude of Wyoming, 1809; Life of Petrarch, 1841; Dr. Beattie’s Life, 1850.

[19] Maclise Portrait Gallery, London, 1883 (which cites in confirmation, Notes and Queries, December 13, 1862).

[20] De Quincey says that he was the only man in all Europe who quoted Wordsworth as early as 1802. Yet, per contra, the Lyrical Ballads had warm praises from Jeffrey (in Monthly Review) and from Southey (in Critical)—showing that the finer ears had caught the new notes from Helicon.

[21] Walter Scott, b. 1771; d. 1832; Lay of Last Minstrel, 1805; Marmion, 1808; Lady of the Lake, 1810; Waverley, 1814; Woodstock, 1826; Life of Napoleon, 1827; Life, by Lockhart, 1832-37.

[22] He was clerk in Her Majesty’s Foreign Office in London. Carlyle says in a letter (of date of 1842), “I have the liveliest impression of that good honest Scotch face and character, though never in contact with the young man but once.”—Lang’s Lockhart, p. 232, vol. ii.

[23] For those readers who have a failing for genealogic quests, I give a rÉsumÉ of the Scott family history and succession of heirs to Abbotsford. The earlier items are from Scott’s black-letter Bible.

Walter Scott, Senior, m. 1758 = Anne Rutherford. " +------------+ " Walter Scott, Bart., b. 1771; d. 1832; m. 1797 = Margaret Charlotte one of twelve children, " Carpenter, of French of whom five " blood and birth. reached maturity. " " +-----------------+---------+--------+-------------+ " " " " Charlotte Sophia, Walter, Br. Army, Anne, bapt. Charles, bapt. 1799; d. bapt. 1801; m. 1803; d. bapt. 1805; d. 1837; m. 1820 1825, Miss Jobson; unmarried unmarried 1841. = J. G. Lockhart. d. s. p. 1847. 1833. " +----+----------------+---------------------+ " " " John Hugh, Walter Scott, Charlotte, b. 1828; d. 1858 b. 1821; d. b. 1826; d. m. 1847, J. R. Hope, 1831. unmarried later Hope Scott. 1853. " " +--------------------------------+ " Mary Monica, b. 1852; now Mrs. Maxwell Scott, of Abbotsford.

[24] Chapter IV. Queen Anne and the Georges.

[25] Lockhart’s Life of Scott, chapter viii., pp. 126-27, vol. iii., Paris edition.

[26] Henry Mackenzie, b. 1745; d. 1831. Man of Feeling, 1771; The Lounger, 1785.

[27] Rev. Sydney Smith, b. 1771; d. 1845. Memoir by Lady Holland.

[28] Francis Horner, b. 1778; d. 1817. Memoirs and Correspondence, 1843.

[29] Henry Brougham (Lord Brougham and Vaux), b. 1778; d. 1868. Collected Speeches, 1838. Historic Sketches, etc., 1839-43. Autobiography (edited by a brother), published in 1871.

[30] Albert Lunel; or The ChÂteau of Languedoc. Lowndes (Bohn) says—“3 vols. post 8vo, 1844. This novel was suppressed on the eve of publication, and it is said not above five copies of the original edition are extant.” The Maclise Portrait Gallery speaks of an issue in 1872.

[31] Life and Correspondence of Lord Jeffrey, by Lord Cockburn, p. 283, vol. i., Harper’s edition.

[32] A grandniece of the great marplot John Wilkes of George III.’s time, and a near connection (if I am not mistaken) of Captain Wilkes of the South Sea Expedition and of the Mason and Slidell seizure.

[33] Cited from recollection; but very close to his own utterance, in a letter to a friend.

[34] This was arranged through Lord Grey, in exchange for a place in Bristol Cathedral, which had been bestowed by his Tory friend Lyndhurst. To the same friend he was indebted for his living at Combe Fleurey.

[35] Life and Times of Rev. Sydney Smith, by Stuart J. Reid, p. 226, 1885.

[36] James Mackintosh, b. 1765; d. 1832; VindiciÆ GallicÆ (reply to Burke), 1791; Memoirs, by his son, 1835.

[37] History of the Revolution in England in 1688, Comprising a View of the Reign of James II. from his Accession to the Enterprise [sic] of the Prince of Orange, London, 1834.

[38] Smith, Jeffrey, Brown, Horner, and Brougham. Stephens: Hours in a Library, iii., 140.

The “Brown” alluded to as one of the founders, was Dr. Thomas Brown, a distinguished physician and psychologist (b. 1778; d. 1820), who after issue of third number of the Review, had differences with Jeffrey (virtual editor) which led him to withdraw his support. Life, by Welsh, p. 79 et seq.

[39] I cannot forbear giving—though only in a note—one burst of his fervid oratory, when his powers were at their best:

“It was the boast of Augustus—it formed part of the glare in which the perfidies of his earlier years were lost—that he found Rome of brick, and left it of marble—a praise not unworthy of a great prince, and to which the present reign [George IV.] has its claim also. But how much nobler will be our Sovereign’s boast, when he shall have it to say, that he found law dear and left it cheap; found it a sealed book, and left it a living letter; found it the patrimony of the rich, left it the inheritance of the poor; found it the two-edged sword of craft and oppression, left it the staff of honesty and the shield of innocence.” Speech, on Present State of the Law, February 7, 1828.

[40] William Gifford, b. 1757; d. 1826. I give the birth-date named by himself in his autobiography, though the new National Dictionary of Biography gives date of 1756. Gifford—though not always the best authority—ought to have known the year when he was born.

Ed. Quarterly Review, 1809-1824; Juvenal, 1802; Ben Jonson, 1816.

Some interesting matter concerning the early life of Gifford may be found in Memoirs of John Murray, vol. 1, pp. 127 et seq.

[41] John Wilson Croker, b. 1780; d. 1857, wrote voluminously for the Quarterly Review; Life of Johnson (ed.), 1831; his Memoirs and Correspondence, 1885.

[42] Very much piquant talk about George IV. and his friends may be found in the Journal of Mary Frampion from 1779 until 1846. London: Sampson Low & Co., 1885.

[43] English Lands and Letters, vol. iii., pp. 168-70.

[44] Queen Charlotte, d. 1818.

[45] W. S. Landor, b. 1775; d. 1864. Gebir, 1798; Imaginary Conversations, 1824; Foster’s Life, 1869.

[46] P. 465. Last Fruit from an Old Tree.

[47] Colvin cites this from unpublished verses.

[48] In his Last Fruits from an Old Tree, p. 334, Moxon Edition, Landor writes: “Southey could grasp great subjects and master them; Coleridge never attempted them; Wordsworth attempted it and failed.” This is strongly ex parte!

[49] I would strongly urge, however, the reading and purchase, if may be, of Colvin’s charming little Golden Treasury collection from Landor.

[50] Leigh Hunt, b. 1784; d. 1859. Francesca da Rimini, 1816; Recollections of Byron, 1828; The Indicator, 1819-21; Autobiography, 1850.

[51] Thomas Moore, b. 1779; d. 1852. Lalla Rookh, 1817. Life of Byron, 1830. Alciphron, 1839.

[52] Sloperton was near the centre of Wiltshire, a little way northward from the old market-town of Devizes. Mr. William Winter, in his Gray Days and Gold, has given a very charming account of this home of Moore’s and of its neighborhood—so full of English atmosphere, and of the graces and benignities of the Irish poet, as to make me think regretfully of my tamer mention.

[53] William Hazlitt, b. 1778; d. 1830. Characters of Shakespeare, 1817; Table Talk, 1821; Liber Amoris, 1823; Life of Napoleon, 1828; Life (by Grandson), 1867; a later book of memoirs, Four Generations of a Literary Family, appeared 1897. (It gave nothing essentially new, and was quickly withdrawn from sale.)

[54] Henry Hallam, b. 1777; d. 1859. Middle Ages, 1818. Literature of Europe, 1837-39. Sketch of Life, by Dean Milman in Transactions of Royal Society, vol. x.

[55] Marguerite Power (Countess of Blessington), b. 1789; d. 1849; m. Captain Farmer, 1804; m. Earl of Blessington, 1817. 1822-1829, travelling on Continent. Idler in Italy, 1839-40 (first novel, about 1833). Conversations with Lord Byron, 1834. Her special reign in London, 1831 to 1848.

[56] There is a very interesting, but by no means flattered, account of Lady Blessington and of her dinners and receptions in Greville’s Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria, chapter iv., p. 167, vol. i.

[57] Edward L. Bulwer (Lord Lytton), b. 1803; d. 1873; Pelham, 1828; Rienzi, 1835; Caxton Novels, 1849-53; Richelieu, 1839; his Biography (never fully completed) has been written by his son, the second Lord Lytton. It is doubtful, however, if its developments, and inevitable counter-developments, have brought any access of honor to the elder Bulwer.

[58] Benjamin Disraeli (Lord Beaconsfield), b. 1804; d. 1881. Vivian Grey, 1826-27; Contarini Fleming, 1832; Coningsby, 1844; Lothair, 1870. Was Premier, 1867, 1874-80. Created Earl of Beaconsfield, 1876.

[59] Vaurien, 1797; Flim-Flams, 1805; Despotism, or Fall of the Jesuits, 1811.

[60] A. E. Chalon, an artist much in vogue in the days of “Tokens,”—who also painted Lady Blessington,—but of no lasting reputation.

[61] In illustration of his comparatively humble position early, Greville in his later Journal, Chapter XXIV., speaks of Disraeli’s once proposing to Moxon, the publisher, to take him (Disraeli) into partnership; Greville says Moxon told him this.

[62] George Noel Gordon (Lord Byron), b. (London) 1788; d. (Greece) 1824. Hours of Idleness, 1807; English Bards, etc., 1809; Childe Harold (2 cantos), 1812; Don Juan, 1819-24; Moore’s Life, 1830; Trelawney, Recollections, etc., 1858. The first volume (Macmillan, 1897) has appeared of a new edition of Byron’s works, with voluminous notes (in over-fine print) by William Ernest Henley. The editorial stand-point may be judged by this averment from the preface,—“the sole English poet bred since Milton to live a master-influence in the world at large.”

Another full edition of works, with editing by Earl of Lovelace (grandson of Byron), is announced as shortly to appear from the press of Murray in London, and of Scribners in New York.

[63] Byron’s Narrative, published in the first volume of Hawkesworth’s Collection. Hon. John Byron, Admiral, etc., was at one time Governor of Newfoundland; b. 1723; d. 1786.

[64] The short line is not enough. We must give the burden of that apostrophe to the land of Hellas, though only in a note:

[65] I cite that part of the “Dream” which, though written much time after, was declared by the poet, and by both friends and foes, to represent faithfully his attitude—both moral and physical—on the occasion of his marriage.

[66] This poem appeared about the middle of April, 1816. The final break in his relations with Lady Byron had occurred, probably, in early February of the same year. On December 10, 1815, his daughter Ada was born; and on April 25th, next ensuing, he sailed away from England forever. Byron insisted that the poem (“Fare thee well”), though written in sincerity, was published against his inclinations, through the over-zeal of a friend.—Moore’s Life, p. 526, vol. i.

[67] Percy Bysshe Shelley, b. 1792; d. (by drowning in Gulf of Spezia) 1822. Queen Mab, pub. 1821 (but privately printed 1813); Alastor, 1816; Laon and Cythna (afterward Revolt of Islam), 1818; Adonais, 1821. Life, by Mrs. Shelley, 1845; Hogg’s Life, 1858; Rossetti’s, 1870. Besides which there is biographic material, more or less full, by Forman, Trelawny, McCarthy, Leigh Hunt, Garnett, and Jeaffreson (Real Shelley). Life, in English Men of Letters, by the late John Addington Symonds; and in 1886, Professor Dowden’s work.

[68] Rossetti, in Ency. Britannica, says, “in Christ Church, Newark”—as to which item (repeated by Dowden) there has been some American wonderment!

[69] July, 1804, to July, 1810; AthenÆum, No. 3,006, June, 1885.

[70] William Godwin, b. 1756; d. 1836. Political Justice, 1793; Caleb Williams, 1794. William Austen (author of Peter Rugg), in his Letters from London, 1802-3, describes a visit to Godwin at his cottage—Somerston; notices a portrait of “Mary” (Mrs. Shelley) hanging over the mantel.

[71] Miss Martineau (p. 304, vol. ii., Autobiography) says that Godwin told her he wrote the first half of Caleb Williams in three months, and then stopped for six—finishing it in three more. “This pause,” she says, “in the middle of a work so intense, seems to me a remarkable incident.”

[72] Separation took place about the middle of June, 1814; she destroyed herself, November 10, 1816. At one time there had been ugly rumors that she was untrue to him; and there is some reason to believe that Shelley once entertained this belief, but there is no adequate testimony to that end; Godwin’s dixit should not count for very much. Dowden leaves the matter in doubt.

[73] I am reminded that Macready’s impersonation of Werner was a noted and successful one. Sardanapalus and the Two Foscari enlisted also the fervor of this actor’s dramatic indorsement. But these all—needed a Macready.

[74] Very full account of the Chancery proceedings in respect to children of Shelley may be found in Professor Dowden’s biography. By this it would appear that by decision of Lord Eldon (July 25, 1818) Shelley was allowed to see his children twelve times a year—if in the presence of their regularly appointed guardians (Dr. and Mrs. Hume).

[75] John Keats, b. 1795; d. 1821. First “collected” Poems, 1817; Endymion, 1818; second volume of collected Poems, 1820; Life and Letters—Lord Houghton (Milnes), 1848.

[76] “Ode to a Nightingale,” vi.

[77] In letter 573, to Murray (Halleck Col., date of Genoa, November, 1822), Byron says: “I see somebody represents the Hunts and Mrs. Shelley as living in my house; it is a falsehood.… I do not see them twice a month.”

[78] Professor Hoppin, in his honest and entertaining Old England, speaks of it (p. 258) as “a dull, dirty village,” and—of the church—as “most forlorn.”

[79] Gray Days and Gold; chapter viii. Macmillan, 1896.

[80] This relates, of course, to the condition of the Abbey in the days of Byron’s childhood. Colonel Wildman, a distinguished officer in the Peninsular War, who succeeded to the ownership (by purchase) about 1817, expended very large sums upon such judicious improvements as took away its old look of desolation.

[81] Croker Papers, chapter xviii. Closing of Session of 1833. Croker would have spoken more gently of him in those latter days, when the king turned his back on Reformers.

[82] The Penny Magazine appeared first in 1832; the CyclopÆdia in the following year.

[83] The reduction of tax from 4d. to 1d. took place in 1836.

[84] Thomas Babington Macaulay, b. 1800; d. 1859. History of England, 1848-55-61. Lays of Ancient Rome, 1842. His Essays (published in America), 1840. Complete Works, London, 8 vols., 1866. Life, by Trevelyan, 1876.

[85] Greville (Journal of Queen Victoria’s Time, vol. i., p. 369) speaks of a dinner at Lady Holland’s—Macaulay being present—when her ladyship, growing tired of the eloquence of Speakers of the House of Commons and Fathers of the Church, said: “Well, Mr. Macaulay, can you tell us anything of dolls—when first named or used?” Macaulay was ready on the instant—dilated upon Roman dolls and others—citing Persius, “Veneri donato a virgine puppÆ.”

[86] See p. 116, Ante.

[87] Memoirs and Correspondence, 1885.

[88] Lang’s Lockhart, p. 42, vol. ii.

[89] Frederick Marryat, b. 1792; d. 1848; R. N., 1806; Commander, 1815; resigned, 1830. Frank Mildmay, 1829; Midshipman Easy, 1836; Peter Simple, 1837; Jacob Faithful, 1838; Life, by his daughter, Florence, 1872.

[90] Diary in America, by Captain F. Marryat, 1839.

[91] William Harrison Ainsworth, b 1805; d. 1882. Rookwood, 1834—chiefly notable for its wonderful description of Dick Turpin’s ride—upon Black Bess—from London to York. Tower of London, 1840.

[92] G. P. R. James, b. 1801; d. 1860. Richelieu (first novel), 1829; Darnley, 1830; One in a Thousand, 1835; Attila, 1837. His books count far above a hundred in number: Lowndes (Bohn) gives over seventy titles of novels alone. What he might have done, with a modern type-writer at command, it is painful to imagine.