21791

Southey, Robert
SOUTHEY'S

COMMON-PLACE BOOK.

First Series.

CHOICE PASSAGES.

COLLECTIONS FOR ENGLISH MANNERS AND LITERATURE.

EDITED

BY HIS SON-IN-LAW,

JOHN WOOD WARTER, B. D.

Second Edition.

LONDON:

LONGMAN, BROWN, GREEN, AND LONGMANS.

THOUGH THOU HADST MADE A GENERAL SURVEY
OF ALL THE BEST OF MEN'S BEST KNOWLEDGES,
AND KNEW SO MUCH AS EVER LEARNING KNEW;
YET DID IT MAKE THEE TRUST THYSELF THE LESS,
AND LESS PRESUME. AND YET WHEN BEING MOY'D
IN PRIVATE TALK TO SPEAK; THOU DIDST BEWRAY
HOW FULLY FRAUGHT THOU WERT WITHIN; AND PROV'D
THAT THOU DIDST KNOW WHATEVER WIT COULD SAY.
WHICH SHOW'D THOU HADST NOT BOOKS AS MANY HAVE,
FOR OSTENTATION, BUT FOR 13E; AND THAT
THY BOUNTEOUS MEMORY WAS SUCH AS GAVE

A LARGE REVENUE OF THE GOOD IT GAT.

WITNESS SO MANY VOLUMES, WHERETO THOU

HAST SET THY NOTES UNDER THY LEARNED HAND,

AND MARK'D THEM WITH THAT PRINT, AS WILL SHOW HOW

THE POINT OF THY CONCEIVING THOUGHTS DID STAND;
THAT NONE WOULD THINK, IF ALL THY LIFE HAD BEEN
TURN'D INTO LEISURE, THOU COULDST HAVE ATTAIN D
SO MUCH OF TIME, TO HAVE PERUS'D AND SEEN
SO MANY VOLUMES THAT SO MUCH CONTAIN D."

DANIEL. Funeral Poem upon the Death of the late Noble Earl of
Devonshire." WELL-LANGUAGED DANIEL," as BROWNE calls
him in his "BRITANNIA'S PASTORALS," was one of Southey's
favourite Poets,

JOHN WOOD WARTER

Preface.

NEXPECTED and accidental circumstances have entailed upon me the publication of the lamented Southey's CoмMON-PLACE BOOK. Had it been committed to my hands in the first instance, I should probably have made an arrangement somewhat different ;-as it is, I carry out, as far as I am enabled to do, the arrangement which is detailed in the publisher's Prospectus.

I am the Editor of the present volume, complete in itself, from p. 310; and those who are conversant in literary investigation, will make allowance for such errors as have escaped me. As far as my limited reading, and the resources of a private library, permitted, I have investigated doubtful passages, and have corrected imperfect references. Nothing but reverence for the honoured name of Southey would have induced me, with my clerical calls and studies, to have entered upon the work. The difficulty of carrying it out only, shows the wonderful stores, the accumulated learning, and the unlimited research, of the excellently single-hearted, the devout, and gifted Collector. Most truly may it be said of him, in the words of STEPHEN HAWES, in his " Pastime of PLEASURE,"-speaking of MASTer Lidgate,—

"And who his bokes list to hear or see,

In them he shall find Elocution

With as good order as may be,

Keeping full close the moralization
Of the trouthe of his great intencion.
Whose name is registered in remembraunce,

For to endure by long continuance."