: Kew Gardens With 24 full-page Illustrations in Colour by Moncrieff A R Hope Ascott Robert Hope Martin T Mower Thomas Mower Illustrator - Royal Botanic Gardens Kew; Kew (London England)

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Transcriber's note

Minor punctuation errors have been changed without notice. Printer errors have been changed and are listed at the end. All other inconsistencies are as in the original.

HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE.

PERSONAL APPEARANCE AND HABITS OF ROBERT SOUTHEY.

BY HIS SON.

Being the youngest of all his children, I had not the privilege of knowing my father in his best and most joyous years, nor of remembering Greta Hall when the happiness of its circle was unbroken. Much labor and anxiety, and many sorrows, had passed over him; and although his natural buoyancy of spirit had not departed, it was greatly subdued, and I chiefly remember its gradual diminution from year to year.

His forehead was very broad; his height was five feet eleven inches; his complexion rather dark, the eyebrows large and arched, the eye well shaped and dark brown, the mouth somewhat prominent, muscular, and very variously expressive, the chin small in proportion to the upper features of his face. He always, while in Keswick, wore a cap in his walks, and partly from habit, partly from the make of his head and shoulders, we never thought he looked well or like himself in a hat. He was of a very spare frame, but of great activity, and not showing any appearance of a weak constitution.

My father's countenance, like his character, seems to have softened down from a certain wildness of expression to a more sober and thoughtful cast; and many thought him a handsomer man in age than in youth; his eye retaining always its brilliancy, and his countenance its play of expression.

The reader will remember his Republican independency when an under-graduate at Oxford, in rebelling against the supremacy of the college barber. Though he did not continue to let his hair hang down on his shoulders according to the whim of his youthful days, yet he always wore a greater quantity than is usual; and once, on his arrival in town, Chantrey's first greetings to him were accompanied with an injunction to go and get his hair cut. When I first remember it, it was turning from a rich brown to the steel shade, whence it rapidly became almost snowy white, losing none of its remarkable thickness, and clustering in abundant curls over his massive brow.

For the following remarks on his general bearing and habits of conversation I am indebted to a friend:

"The characteristics of his manner, as of his appearance, were lightness and strength, an easy and happy composure as the accustomed mood, with much mobility at the same time, so that he could be readily excited into any degree of animation in discourse, speaking, if the subject moved him much, with extraordinary fire and force, though always in light, laconic sentences. When so moved, the fingers of his right hand often rested against his mouth, and quivered through nervous susceptibility. But, excitable as he was in conversation, he was never angry or irritable; nor can there be any greater mistake concerning him than that into which some persons have fallen, when they have inferred, from the fiery vehemence with which he could give utterance to moral anger in verse or prose, that he was personally ill-tempered or irascible. He was, in truth, a man whom it was hardly possible to quarrel with or offend personally and face to face; and in his writings, even on public subjects in which his feelings were strongly engaged, he will be observed to have always dealt tenderly with those whom he had once seen and spoken to, unless, indeed, personally and grossly assailed by them. He said of himself that he was tolerant of persons, though intolerant of opinions. But in oral intercourse the toleration of persons was so much the stronger, that the intolerance of opinions was not to be perceived; and, indeed, it was only in regard to opinions of a pernicious moral tendency that it was ever felt.

"In conversation with intimate friends he would sometimes express, half humorously, a cordial commendation of some production of his own, knowing that with them he could afford it, and that to those who knew him well it was well known that there was no vanity in him. But such commendations, though light and humorous, were perfectly sincere; for he both possessed and cherished the power of finding enjoyment and satisfaction wherever it was to be found--in his own books, in the books of his friends, and in all books whatsoever that were not morally tainted or absolutely barren."

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