isure hours with what was light and fantastic. Moreover,
he speaks in some places of the advantage of intermingling amusement and
instruction--

"Even in literature a leafy style, if there be any fruit under the
foliage, is preferable to a knotty one however fine the grain.
Whipt cream is a good thing, and better still when it covers and
adorns that amiable compound of sweetmeats and ratafia cakes soaked
in wine, to which Cowper likened his delightful poem, when he thus
described 'The Task'--

"'It is a medley of many things, some that may be useful, and some
that, for aught I know, may be very diverting. I am merry that I
may decoy people into my company, and grave that they may be the
better for it. Now and then I put on the garb of a philosopher, and
take the opportunity that disguise procures me to drop a word in
favour of religion. In short there is some froth, and here and
there some sweetmeat which seems to entitle it justly to the name
of a certain dish the ladies call a 'trifle.' But in 'task' or
'trifle' unless the ingredients were good the whole were nought.
They who should present to their deceived guests whipt white of egg
would deserve to be whipt themselves."

But Southey by no means follows the profitable rule he here lays down.
On the contrary, he sometimes betrays such a love of the marvellous as
would seem unaccountable, had we not read bygone literature, and
observed how strong the feeling was even as late as the days of the
"Wonderful Magazine." Among his strange fancies we find in the "Chapter
on Kings:"

"There are other monarchies in the inferior world beside that of
the bees, though they have not been registered by naturalists nor
studied by them. For example, the king of the fleas keeps his court
at Tiberias, as Dr. Clark discovered to his cost, and as Mr. Cripps
will testify for him."

He proceeds to give humorous descriptions of the king of monkeys, bears,
codfish, oysters, &c.

Again--

"Would not John Dory's name have died with him, and so been long
ago dead as a door-nail, if a grotesque likeness for him had not
been found in the fish, which being called after him, has
immortalized him and his ugliness? But if John Dory could have
anticipated this sort of immortality when he saw his own face in
the glass, he might very well have 'blushed to fi