The Press. — London, England, 1856-07-19 00:00:00

I:ittraturt. Selections from the Letters of Robert Southey. Edited by his Son-in-Law, John Wood Warter, B.D. In Four Vols. Vols. 111. and IV. London : Longmans. Osz great drawback to the pleasure we derive from the perusal of epistolary collections is their almost unavoidable egotism. Every man who sits down to write a letter is, as it were, an egotist ex officio. He himself, his own pursuits, and his own opinions, are necessarily the prominent features in his correspondence ; and the consciousness that there is, at all events, one other person in the world to whom his existence is for the time being of import ance, is almost always betrayed by a certain pervading air of self complacency. Of course where the letter-writer moves in such a class of society as that his own pursuits and opinions are necessarily wound up with those of great and important personages, or when he happens to be himself, from some particular circumstances, an object of special interest to the world, this constant self-presentation is the very thing we most desire. But, in the ab sence of either of these two conditions, this lengthy chronicle o f the small sayings and doings of the same man becomes uncommonly tire some. An imaginary correspondence between the Vicar of Wakefield and a friend in Loudon narrating the migrations from the blue room to the brown, and noting the consumption of gooseberry wine, would be precisely as in teresting to the public as the great bulk of the correspondence before us. We say the great bulk, for there must be a considerable quantity of interesting matter concerning the details of literary life in the let ters of a man like Southey : but his friends have unhappily become victims to the delusion that Southey was conspicuous for humour, and have consequently overloaded their present issue with various productions of his pen which bear about as much resemblance to the genuine iris consica as the contortions of a ploughboy at a village wake to the agility of Taglioni or Cerito. His parodies and imitations of Scrip ture both in these and the previous volumes are the most remarkable exhibition of witless profanity and uninstructive dulness we ever recollect to have met with. A burlesque without a joke—a pantomime without a clowa —a tableaux without a single spark of red fire to illumine the dirty pasteboard, faded spangles, and stale devices of the stage — would all be powerless to illustrate how in conceivably vapid are these laborious efforts at pleasantry. The most pleasant impression that we gain from the study of these letters is, that, despite his continuous labour, few men have ever passed a happier life than Southey. His youth, manhood, and age, were respectively active, fruitful, and vener able. He followed the bent of his intellect from the beginning—and found it the way to fame and competence. He married for love, and his domestic bliss has seldom been sur• passed. Ever his vanity was satisfied. He was Poet Laureate. He could dictate to the Quarterly. His book of the Church was ap plauded by bishops. Even his would-be humorous effusions were greeted by the ap probation of his admiring friends and the ready laughter of his cheerful home circle. His only cares were a few transient and ever lessening anxieties for the future ; and his only grievances the pertinacious mutilation of his Quarterly articles. Both were, compared with the burdens of other men, but feathers in the balance against his daily enjoyment of life. His income for the last fifteen years of his life must have averaged 1,000/. a year, *limb was ample for his simple wa nts; and long before old age came on he had made a provision for his family. On the other hand, he forced even the omnipotent editor, whom he distinguished by an Aristophanic epithet too racy for ears polite, to apologise for his abuse of the file, and exercised a despotism in regard to his own remuneration which doubt less went far to fortify that happy self-confi dence which so pre-eminently distinguished him. THE PRESS. Mr. Thackeray has drawn a most amusing contrast between an Englishman's opinion of his superiority to the rest of the world and a Frenchman's. " About the former," says he, " there is no noise, no obtrusiveness, no " bluster," but " the calmness of profound " conviction." This is an exact description of Southey. His serene conviction of his own eminence was never disturbed by a doubt. He smiled unaffectedly at detraction or correc tion. He knew he was superior to it. Gifford, Lockhart, Jeffrey ! " they, forsooth! " He acknowledges in a condescending manner the genius of Sir Walter Scott; but had any• body told him that " Ivanhoe " was a greater work than " Madoe," he would have pitied him from the bottom of his heart. The letters in these two volumes, which we ob serve oonclude the " Selections from Southey's Letters," extend from 1815 to 1839,—the date of his marriage with Caroline Bowles. Why they end so abruptly we are not informed. They com prise the busiest and most prosperous portion of Southey's life. Some of his revelations are amusing, some are almost repulsive, as they indicate less truthfulness and good faith than one could wish to find in so fine a character. His vanity is oddly shown in his references to the Duke of Wellington, whose character he had taken under his protection. When one of his articles relating to the Duke was altered, he indignantly exclaims : Fools that these people are, as if there were any living man who is more disposed to render full justice to the Duke of Wellington than I am, or who had equally the will and the power to bestow upon him the highest praise. Subsequently he discovered that the corrector was the Duke himself, on which he wrote' with sublime arrogance : I found that the interpolations came from no less a person than the Duke himself, who thought proper through Croker to make me his tool. I spoke as became me upon the occasion ; insisted upon stopping the press, carried m y point, struck out the falsehoods which had teen inserted, and replaced what had been struck out. We need give no further examples of Southey's confidence. The most painful part of the correspondence relates to his desire to get up a new Review in opposition to that of Mur ray, from which he benefited so largely. It seems that disclosures respecting his connec tion with the Quarterly are in the background. We fancy that they must he of less importance than the editor seems to suppose. The illus trative notes are too scanty. What book is that of the " Old Squire " to which Mr.Warter refers? If Mr. Harter be himself the author, why not say so? We feel, however, a great warmth of kind• ness, after all, towards the good, honest, un suspecting bard of Keswick. We willingly admit he was a remarkable man, if not a great one. He was, indeed, neither a great poet, nor great historian, nor great theologian, nor great essayist; but, nevertheless, a man with a most rare combination of qualities suitable for each. His picture, as we gather it from these letters, is perfect—seated in his library at Keswick, with a proof for the " Q. R." on one side, and a box of new books just received from London on the other, with perhaps a half-finished letter to the " Senhora " or Grosvenor Bedford on the desk before him, and one of his children rushing in to tell him of some startling domestic occurrence, the capture of the polecat or the arrival of " Zombi." There have been many wiser, many more poetical, many more masculine men of letters ; but only a few who have ever united to so much literary merit so much honourable industry, and who have so fully reaped the reward of it both in private happi ness and in public estimation. Western Africa: its History, Condition, and Prospects. By the Rev. J. L. Wilson, Eighteen Years a Missionary in Africa. London : Sampson Low and Co. AT length there is a probability that the in terior of the African continent, so long a blot on creation, will be opened to the civilising influences of commerce. The recent success ful exploration of the rivers Niger and Tsudda has opened great highways into the heart of Africa, and shown that river navigation, under certain favorable conditions, may be prose cuted even by Europeans without injury to SATURDAY, health. We have a number of books upo n Africa on our table, evincing the interest which this great division of the globe is at present exciting. As a commencement, we take the volume of Mr. Wilson, which conveniently shows the present state of Western Africa, and the progress it has made of late years. Mr. Wilson's volume is one of the most creditable literary productions lately sent us from the United States. It is specially impor tant as tending to satisfactorily solve the ques tions whether the African races are capable of attaining a respectable degree of civilisation, and whether those communities which are brought within the range of European influences are really making progress. We think the work would have been more satisfactory had Mr. Wilson given in a separate form his own per sonal observation. As it is, the book is a compilation, but made by a person competent to speak with authority on the subjects it embraces. _ _ . ______ In the author's opinion, the African races have—with the exception of the Christian stations of comparatively recent date—rather retrograded than advanced. He srys that the tendency of the States of Western Africa for the last two centuries—that is, since the general establishment of commercial communication with the coast—has been towards disorgani sation and decline:— If we can rely upon the alcounts of the earlier voyagers to the coast, and especially those of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, there were in those days many and comparatively powerful negro kingdoms in this portion of Africa. But they have long since been broken up into many small independent co:nmunities, who have little or no traditionary knowledge of the more extended organist. tions which once existed among their foie athtrs. The Portuguese were at first eminently suc cessful in their missionary labours. The powerful kingdom of Congo was at one time completely submitted to the Rotnish Church; yet here, as in America, its influence was never solidly established. Its foundations were unsound. It was built on the sand of human authority, and it has not been able to withstand the storms to which it has been exposed. The history of the Jesuits has in deed been a melancholy one,—the continual record of the fruitlessness of the highest ability and accomplishment and of the most heroic efforts, simply through proceeding on a false principle. Of Congo the author writes— and his remark applies to the other African States in which the power of Rome was for a time in the ascendant : Before the close of the eighteenth century—indeed, for anything we know to the contrary, before the middle of it —not only all their former civilisation, but almost every trace of Christianity had disappeared from the land, and the whole country had fallen back into the deepest igno rance and heathenism, and into greater weakness and poverty than had ever been experienced even before its discovery. Is this decline to be attributed to any natural incapacity of the Africans for improvement, or to defect in the means taken to civilise them? The point is discussed by Mr. Wilson in various places. He shows that the system of the Romish Church is unsuited to produce permanent results from missionary effort; and he shows, also—which appears to us a more important consideration—that the pro (Tess of the slave trade has had the natural and inevitable effect of demoralising the African people, of disorganising their com munities, of exciting ware, and of wholly pre venting the growth of healthy trade. The truth of these positions is evident almost as soon as they are stated. While the slave trade flourished, it furnished occasion for continual hostilities bstween different tribes, it dimi nished the population, and it prevented the people from employing themselves in indus trial pursuits. As this trade has declined, other kinds of commerce have sprung up; and it is to the extension of such commerce that we must mainly look for the improve ment of Africa. We frequently meet with such sentences as the following, written con cerning the kingdom of Loango Of late years the slave trade has been declining, while that of ivory, beeswax, and other articles of natural pro duce have been increasing, and as a consequence the trade is passing from Portuguese to English and American hands. Of the capacity of the Africans for improve ment, the numerous examples given in the book are decisive. The stock of the negro race