36
NOTES AND QUERIES. [i2s.iv.F EB ,i9i8.
him " the worthless poems of some good-
natured person whom he knew," and his
object then was
" to give that person no pain, and deal out such milk-and-water praise as will do no harm : to speak of smooth versification, and moral tendency, &c., &c., will take in some to buy the book, while it serves as an emollient mixture for the patient." ' Life and Correspondence,' ii. 198.
The resulting insipidity was often aggra- vated by editorial interference. Cf. Zeitlin, ' Select Prose of Robert Southey,' 25-38.
In a letter to John May (ed. Warter, i. 337) Southey places his introduction to the staff of The Critical Review at the beginning of 1798. It is indeed possible to discover him in the January number in the review of Amos Cottle's translation of the ' Edda.' He read this book on its appearance, and spoke of it in a letter of Nov. 11, 1797, to Thomas Southey :
" The book itself will not interest you ; it is only calculated for those who study mythology in general, the antiquities of the north, or who read to collect images for poetry : it happens to suit me in all these points." Ed. Warter, i. 46.
These are exactly the points which The Critical Review dwells on. With character- istic generosity Southey exaggerates the merits of the book. His concluding passage reads:
" We consider this work as a valuable addition to the literature of this country. The historian will find in it the creed of his ancestors ; and the poet will acquire a variety of images peculiarly adapted for poetry by their novelty, their strange- ness, and their sublimity."
It does not militate against the probability of Southey' s authorship that the reviewer quotes a passage in praise of Mary Woll- stonecraft from a poem of his own prefixed to Cottle's volume. Southey had recently met her and conceived a wholehearted admiration, which he took every occasion to communicate to his friends.
In the same number there is an article on ' Odes and Miscellanies by Robert Farren Cheetham ' which we should like to give to Southey because it so happily exemplifies his formula for giving pleasure to worthless writers. Without a suspicion of irony, the reviewer speaks of the advantages of exercise in poetry. And there is one sentence which carries the impress of a superior poetic feeling :
" He who is accustomed to contemplate what is beautiful in the natural world, will acquire a quick perception of moral beauty ; and he strengthens the better feelings of his nature by the ardour with which he expresses them. We remark these feelings with pleasure in the volume before us."
James Moore's ' Columbiad,' May, 1798.
This slight review may with some proba-
bility be assigned to Southey on the strength
of the familiarity which it displays with
Spanish literature. The following remarks
would point to the likelihood, at any rate,
of its having been done by the same man
who wrote the review of Escoiquiz's
' Mexico Conquistada ' (to be noticed later) :
" The discoveries of Columbus, important as they have proved to mankind, do not form a proper subject for an epic poem .... In the whole American history the only event that could with propriety be so narrated is the conquest of Mexico : a subject which, in the hands of a Spaniard of sufficient genius, might be formed into a noble poem."
JACOB ZEITLIN.
University of Illinois.
[A long account of Southey's review of the ' Lyrical Ballads ' will appear, we hope, in the March number of ' N. & Q.,' and be followed by that of Anderson's British Poets ' and others based on internal and external evidence.]
PAULUS AMBROSIUS CROKE :
A SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY ACCOUNT BOOK.
(See ante, p. 5.)
I CONCLUDE my excerpts from this old account book with a number of entries affording materials for an interesting com- parison between domestic and personal ex- penditure three centuries ago and that of the present day.
NON-GENEALOGICAL NOTES.
18 Nov., 16 Jac. I. M d the daie above written in the evening between 6 and 7 o clocke the same date I beheld in the Temple Garden toward the South a comet or blazing starre streaming upward and forward of.... length to my seeming neare a yard and somewhat broade more than half a fote hi the narrowest place the Lord turne us by true repentance unto him and turne his Judgements from us if it be his holy will.
31 Jan., 1618[19]. M d that upon Saterdaie the daie and yeare above written about 4 a clocke in the morning the dwelling house in Deptford of S r Tho. Smith, governor of the East India Companie, was burned, the fires began to breake out about 4 o'clocke in the morning. It is said it was sette on fire by a negligent servant who left a candle burninge in one of the roomthes.
3 Feb., 1618[19]. This daie being Weddensdaie the King sate in the starre chamber to heare a cause wherein S r Tho. Lake and his Ladie were complts. against Luke Hatton, late servaunte to the Countes of Exceter and other, the same in parte touchinge the reputatioun of the Countesse as I have heard.
5 Jan. [1623/4]. For a new velvet girdle, 5d.
7 Jan. [1623 /4], For crossing the water from. Bramfield to Kew and back again, id.
