e unhappy lapse of Hazlitt, the drunkenness of Lamb.
Assumptions so open to ridicule, and so disparaging to far abler men,
told as disadvantageously upon his fame as upon his character. He
became the butt of contemporary satire. Horace Smith, Moore, Shelley,
Byron, lampooned him savagely. The latter made him the hero of his
wicked "Vision of Judgment," and to him dedicated his "Don Juan." The
dedication was suppressed; but no chance offered in the body of that
profligate rhapsody to assail Bob Southey, that was not vigorously
employed. The self-content of the Laureate armed him, however, against
every thrust. Contempt he interpreted as envy of his sublime
elevation:--

"Grin, Envy, through thy ragged mask of scorn!
In honor it was given; with honor it is worn."

Of course such matchless self-complacency defied assault.

Southey's congratulatory odes appeared as often as public occasion
seemed to demand them. There were in rapid succession the "Ode to the
Regent," the "Carmen Triumphale," the "Pilgrimage to Waterloo," the
"Vision of Judgment," the "Carmen Nuptiale," the "Ode on the Death of
the Princess Charlotte." The "Quarterly" exalted them, one and all;
the "Edinburgh" poured upon them volleys of keen but ineffectual
ridicule. At last the Laureate desisted. The odes no longer appeared;
and during the long and dark closing years of his life, the only
production of the Laureate pen was the yearly signature to a receipt
for one hundred pounds sterling, official salary.

Robert Southey died in March, 1843. Sir Robert Peel, who had obliged
Wordsworth the year before, by transferring the post in the excise,
which he had so long held, to the poet's son, and substituting a
pension for its salary, testified further his respect for the Bard of
Rydal by tendering him the laurel. It was not to be refused. Had the
office been hampered with any demands upon the occupant for popular
lyric, in celebration of notable events, Wordsworth was certainly the
last man to place in it. His frigid nature was incapable of that
prompt enthusiasm, without which, poetry, especially poetry responsive
to some strong emotion momentarily agitating the popular heart, is
lifeless and worthless. Fortunately, there were no such exactions. The
office had risen from its once low estate to be a dignified sinecure.
As such, Wordsworth filled it; and, dying, left it without one
poetical evidence of having worn the wreath.

To him, in May, 1850, succ