eration of Europe they had been in warmest
accord. Neither Wordsworth nor Southey ever lowered the ideal of a
higher life for man on earth. Southey retains it in these Colloquies,
although he balances his own hope with the questionings of the ghost, and
if he does look for a crowning race, regards it, with Tennyson, as a

"_far off_ divine event
To which the whole Creation moves."

The conviction brought to men like Wordsworth and Southey by the failure
of the French Revolution to attain its aim in the sudden elevation of
society was not of vanity in the aim, but of vanity in any hope of its
immediate attainment by main force. Southey makes More say to himself
upon this question (page 37), "I admit that such an improved condition of
society as you contemplate is possible, and that it ought always to be
kept in view; but the error of supposing it too near, of fancying that
there is a short road to it, is, of all the errors of these times, the
most pernicious, because it seduces the young and generous, and betrays
them imperceptibly into an alliance with whatever is flagitious and
detestable." All strong reaction of mind tends towards excess in the
opposite direction. Southey's detestation of the excesses of vile men
that brought shame upon a revolutionary movement to which some of the
purest hopes of earnest youth had given impulse, drove him, as it drove
Wordsworth, into dread of everything that sought with passionate energy
immediate change of evil into good. But in his own way no man ever
strove more patiently than Southey to make evil good; and in his own home
and his own life he gave good reason to one to whom he was as a father,
and who knew his daily thoughts and deeds, to speak of him as "upon the
whole the best man I have ever known."

In the days when this book was written, Southey lived at Greta Hall, by
Keswick, and had gathered a large library about him. He was Poet
Laureate. He had a pension from the Civil List, worth less than 200
pounds a year, and he was living at peace upon a little income enlarged
by his yearly earnings as a writer. In 1818 his whole private fortune
was 400 pounds in consols. In 1821 he had added to that some savings,
and gave all to a ruined friend who had been good to him in former years.
Yet in those days he refused an offer of 2,000 pounds a year to come to
London and write for the _Times_. He was happiest in his home by
Skiddaw, with his books about him and h