mark all the passages he would ever be likely to want. The book was then allotted its destined place, and his memory was so retentive, that he was never afterwards at a loss where to look for any particular information he might require.
The scene of his labour was likewise that of his happiness and of his highest honour. He had a thoroughly English appreciation of home. There centred all his temporal ambition. As a member of the social commonwealth, his exalted dignity is the glory of modern literature. He was generous to a fault. His services were always at the requisition of the needy. Strangers applied, and were sure of relief. Relatives were unfortunate, his purse was always open. Coleridge, incomprehensibly callous to the most powerful of human instincts, coldly abandoned wife and children; Southey was more to them than a husband and a father. Let the character of the man stand out in its deserved prominence, simple in his tastes and open-hearted, to shame a luxurious and a selfish age: enthusiastic in his calling, to kindle a like flame in a generation, that, amid dissolving institutions and opinions, seems destitute of any settled aim and conviction. There is no need here to ask in behalf of genius an indulgent oblivion of vice and immorality. His most notorious failings were venial, solely indicating his common union with human imperfection. His career may be accused of inconsistencies, his mental organization may betray some glaring defects; but he has left behind him a name that will long stimulate by its ennobling example, and a reputation of which his countrymen may be justly proud.
