When a new
box of books comes he rejoices. "I shall be happier," he says,
"than if his Majesty King George IV were to give orders that I
should be clothed in purple, and sleep upon gold, and have a
chain about my neck, and sit next him because of my wisdom and be
called his cousin."
We think of Southey first as a poet, but it is perhaps as a prose
writer that his fame will last longest, and above all as a
biographer, that is a writer of people's lives. During the busy
years at Greta Hall he wrote about a hundred books, several of
them biographies--among them a life of Nelson, which is one of
the best short lives ever written. Some day I hope you will read
it, both for the sake of Southey's clear, simple style, and for
the sake of the brave man of whom he writes. You might also, I
think, like his lives of Bunyan and Cowper, both of whom you have
heard of in this book.
Another book which Southey wrote is called The Doctor. This is a
whimsical, rambling jumble, which can hardly be called a story; a
mixture of quotations and original work, of nonsense and earnest.
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