21 March: Boreham on Robert Southey

A Prosaic Poet
Robert Southey, the anniversary of whose death we mark today, was not in the accepted sense, a genius. Saul may be among the prophets but certainly Southey never was. He displays little or nothing in the way of inspiration. He never sparkles, never glitters, never astonishes us by superb flashes of brilliance. He does not scintillate. He was essentially a plodder. He totted terribly, and every line that he penned betrays something of the effort it cost him.

To men who rely upon their poetic fluency, Southey stands as an everlasting rebuke. He was a paragon of industry. His music is not the music of the bird that sings because it cannot be silent; it is the music of the finished vocalist who has practised their solo with such persistence that they are themselves almost sick of it.

He lacked the instinct and the temperament of a poet. His mind was never at rest. He followed himself no leisure. He never learned to dream. He spent all his time accumulating mountains of facts and amassing enormous hoards of useful information.

His library was one of the largest in the land, and the hours that he spent in exploiting its wealth represent the great bulk of his lifetime. He was eternally hunting up something or correcting something or verifying something. Such pursuits are all very well in the scientist, the biographer, or the historian; but they do not facilitate the spiritual evolution of the poet.

No Ear For Nature's Finer Vibrations
Strangely enough, although Southey lived within working distance of the most exquisite beauty spots of the English Lake country, he gives no evidence of real communion with the more intimate vibrations of Nature.

Unlike his friend, Wordsworth, he never penetrated the subtle secrets that woods and waters were waiting to whisper in his ear. A primrose by the river's brim, a yellow primrose was to him, and it was nothing more. To Wordsworth, Nature was a temple and he was its priest. Southey knew nothing of that sublime mysticism; he missed the best without even knowing that he missed it. That being so, he can never, despite all his claims upon our gratitude, be regarded as one of our really classic singers.

Turning to his prose he wrote a waggonload of books that are best forgotten. His biographies alone survive. His "Life of Cowper" is good; his "Life of Wesley" is so fine that Coleridge says that he could read it when he could read nothing else; and his "Life of Nelson," by far the best of them all, stands as a model of all that a biography should be.

In his own proper person, however, Southey provides us with a study far more attractive than either his poetry or his prose. The frantic struggles and amusing misfortunes of his youth read like a chapter of some grotesque romance. He would be a clergyman! But no; that would require a certain amount of theological certitude; and he possessed none! He would be a doctor! But no; the dissecting room and the operating theatre would induce nausea! He would be a lawyer! But no; the thought of the dusty statutes made him yawn! So he abandoned himself to literature and hoped for the best.

Personality Superior To Prose Or Poetry
His later life, crowded with sorrows, is nevertheless pervaded by an irresistible charm. His boy died; his wife lost her reason; and he himself outlived his memory. But, to the last, he haunted his huge library, staring blankly at the shelves and affectionately stroking the books whose contents he could no longer recall.

Generous to a fault, he once placed his entire wealth at the disposal of an unfortunate friend. His companions—men like Wordsworth, Coleridge and Lamb—loved him devotedly, and revelled in his society. When Coleridge's family was left uncared for, Southey added the children to his own household. His letters to these youngsters are among the choicest things that he ever penned. It was for them that he wrote the well-known story of "The Three Bears." Solemn as a judge among his compeers, he could keep a group of children rocking with merriment.

In his "Four Georges" Thackeray expresses the fervent hope that the brave and beautiful life history of Robert Southey will never be forgotten. It is, he says, sublime in its simplicity, its energy, its honour, and its affection. Thackeray extolls the sweetness and the grace of Southey's private and domestic life as one of the real adornments of a sinister and dissolute age.

In the presence of such tributes, we easily forgive, and as easily forget, the drab mediocrity of much of the work that his hectic pen produced, and treasure together with his wiser and weightier outpourings, the memory of the man.

F W Boreham

Image: Robert Southey