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comfortably if that were first supplied. "I'll give it you," said Coleridge, and gave at once the first stanza which as addressed to a friend, James Tobin, with whom they were on terms of playful familiarity-he began, "A little child, dear brother Jim." So the poem was printed in the earlier editions, until it occurred to Wordsworth that the original rhyme to "limb" might be struck out; since there was grace of its own in an opening half line with pause on the words "A simple child :"

WE ARE SEVEN.

A simple child,

That lightly draws its breath, And feels its life in every limb,

What should it know of death?

I met a little cottage girl:

She was eight years old, she said:

Her hair was thick with many a curl

That clustered round her head.

When Wordsworth and Coleridge were at work on the "Lyrical Ballads," Wordsworth one day, being at Nether Stowey, produced the poem known as " We are Seven," all but the first stanza, in a little wood near by. It was based on actual talk with a child met when he had visited Goodrich Castle some years before, the dialogue yielding fit matter for a poem since it involved suggestion of the natural instinct of immortality. When Wordsworth repeated what he had murmured out to himself in the open air (the manner of producing nine-tenths of his poems), and it was written down, he said that it wanted an opening verse, and he should sit down to tea more

"But they are dead; those two are dead! Their spirits are in heaven!" "Twas throwing words away; for still The little maid would have her will, And said, "Nay, we are seven!"

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It seemed a thrill of pleasure.

The budding twigs spread out their fan,

To catch the breezy air;

And I must think, do all I can,

That there was pleasure there.

If such belief from heaven be sent, If such be Nature's holy plan,

Have I not reason to lament

What man has made of man?

20

In one of two volumes of "British Anthology," published in 1799 and 1800 by Southey, to which Coleridge, Charles Lamb, Lovell, Humphrey Davy, and others contributed, Southey himself writing most, there was this sonnet, by Robert Lovell, on

THE FRENCH REVOLUTION.

The cloudy blackness gathers o'er the sky
Shadowing these realms with that portentous storm
Ere long to burst and haply to deform
Fair Nature's face: for Indignation high
Might hurl promiscuous vengeance with wild hand;
And Fear, with fierce precipitation, throw
Blind ruin wide: while Hate with scowling brow
Feigns patriot rage. O Priestley, for thy wand,
Or, Franklin, thine, with calm expectant joy

To tame the storm, and with mysterious force
In viewless channel shape the lightning's course
To purify creation, not destroy.

So should fair Order from the tempest rise
And Freedom's sunbeams gild unclouded skies.

10

"Ah, sir! we knew his worth.

If ever there did live a saint on earth!

Why, sir, he always used to wear a shirt For thirty days, all seasons, day and night: Good man, he knew it was not right

For dust and ashes to fall out with dirt: And then he only hung it out in the rain, And put it on again.

"There used to be rare work

With him and the devil there in yonder cell, For Satan used to maul him like a Turk.

There they would sometimes fight

All through a winter's night,

From sunset until morn,

He with a cross, the devil with his horn,

The devil spitting fire with might and main Enough to make St. Michael half afraid,

He splashing holy water till he made

His red hide hiss again,

And the hot vapour fill'd the little cell.

This was so common that his face became

40

50

Anti-Jacobin became so famous that it was collected in 1800 into a handsome quarto volume. Southey

From the Portrait by Hoppner, prefixed to his "Juvenal" (1802).

was one of the writers caricatured. He had written this "Inscription" for the prison of Marten :

INSCRIPTION

For the Apartment in Chepstow Castle, where Henry Marten, the Regicide, was imprisoned thirty years.

For thirty years secluded from mankind
Here Marten linger'd. Often have these walls
Echoed his fotsteps, as with even tread

He paced around his prison; not to him

Did Nature's fair varieties exist;

He never saw the sun's delightful beams,

Save when through yon high bars he pour'd a sad
And broken splendour. Dost thou ask his crime?
He had rebell'd against the king, and sat
In judgment on him; for his ardent mind
Shaped goodliest plans of happiness on earth,
And peace and liberty. Wild dreams! but such
As Plato loved; such as with holy zeal
Our Milton worshipp'd. Blessed hopes! a while
From man withheld, even to the latter days
When Christ shall come, and all things be fulfill'd!

come,

When France shall reign, and laws be all repeal'd!

Southey, in 1795, had expressed in this poem the miseries of war:

THE SOLDIER'S WIFE. Dactylics.

Weary way-wanderer, languid and sick at heart,
Travelling painfully over the rugged road,
Wild-visaged wanderer! ah, for thy heavy chance!

Sorely thy little one drags by thee bare-footed, Cold is the baby that hangs at thy bending back, Meagre and livid and screaming its wretchedness.

Woe-begone mother, half anger, half agony,
As over thy shoulder thou lookest to hush the babe,
Bleakly the blinding snow beats in thy haggard face.

Thy husband will never return from the war again,
Cold is thy hopeless heart, even as Charity !-
Cold are thy famished babes. God help thee, widowed one!
Thus ridiculed by Gifford :-

QUINTESSENCE OF ALL THE DACTYLICS. Wearisome sonnetteer, feeble and querulous, Painfully dragging out thy demo-cratic laysMoon-stricken sonnetteer, "ah! for thy heavy chance!'

Sorely thy dactylics lag on uneven feet:

Slow is the syllable which thou would'st urge to speed, Lame and o'erburthen'd, and "screaming its wretched ness!"

Ne'er talk of ears again! look at thy spelling-book; Dilworth and Dyche are both mad at thy quantitiesDactylics, call'st thou 'em ?-"God help thee, silly one!'

Southey, in 1796, had expressed also in this poem his sense of the miseries of war:

THE WIDOW.

Cold was the night wind, drifting fast the snow fell, Wide were the downs and shelterless and naked, When a poor wanderer struggled on her journey, Weary and way-sore.

Dreary were the downs, more dreary her reflections;
Cold was the night-wind, colder was her bosom:
She had no home, the world was all before her,
She had no shelter.

"I should be glad to drink your honour's heaith in
A pot of beer, if you will give me sixpence;
But for my part, I never love to meddle
With politics, sir."

Friend of Humanity.

"I give thee sixpence! I will see thee damn'd firstWretch whom no sense of wrongs can rouse to ven

geance

Sordid, unfeeling, reprobate, degraded,

Spiritless outcast!"

[Kicks the knife-grinder, overturns his wheel, and exit in a transport of Republican enthusiasm and universal philanthropy.]

The sentimental drama, with its head-quarters in Germany, will be described in another of these volumes; but the caricature of it in the AntiJacobin (levelled at Schiller's "Robbers" and Goethe's " Stella,") called "The Rovers; or, the Double Arrangement," includes a lyric that may be given in its original setting. The soliloquy is by Frere, the song by Canning and Ellis :

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SCENE FROM THE ROVERS."

Scene changes to a subterraneous vault in the Abbey of Quedlinburgh; with coffins, 'scutcheons, Death's heads and cross-bones.Toads and other loathsome reptiles are seen traversing the obscurer parts of the stage.-Rogero appears in chains, in a suit of rusty armour, with his beard grown, and a cap of a grotesque form upon his head.-Beside him a crock, or pitcher, supposed to contain his daily allowance of sustenance.-A long silence, during which the wind is heard to whistle through the caverns.-Rogero rises, and comes slowly forward, with his arms folded.

Rog. Eleven years! it is now eleven years since I was first immured in this living sepulchre-the cruelty of a minister-the perfidy of a monk-yes, Matilda! for thy sake-alive amidst the dead-chained-coffined-confined--cut off from the converse of my fellow-men. Soft!-what have we here? [Stumbles over a bundle of sticks.] This cavern is so dark that I can scarcely distinguish the objects under my feet. Oh! -the register of my captivity-Let me see, how stands the account? [Takes up the sticks, and turns them over with a melancholy air; then stands silent for a few moments, as if absorbed in calculation.] Eleven years and fifteen days!—Ha! the twenty-eighth of August! How does the recollection of it vibrate on my heart! It was on this day that I took my last leave of my Matilda. It was a summer evening-her melting hand seemed to dissolve in mine, as I pressed it to my bosom-some demon whispered me that I should never see her more. I stood gazing on the hated vehicle which was conveying her away for ever. The tears were petrified under my eyelids. My heart was crystallized with agony. Anon, I looked along the road. The diligence seemed to diminish every instant. I felt my heart beat against its prison, as if anxious to leap out and overtake it. My soul whirled round as I watched the rotation of the hinder wheels. A long trail of glory followed after her, and mingled with the dust-it was the emanation of divinity, luminous with love and beauty-like the splendour of the setting sun-but it told me that the sun of my joys was sunk for ever. Yes, here in the depths of an eternal dungeon-in the nursing cradle of hell-the suburbs of perdition-in a