Southey's nobility of purpose, and delicacy and purity of execution, render his poems (with the exception of his political ones) faultless, as regards good taste and propriety. He may fail to attract, he can never disgust; and if his poetry falls short of the high standard he aimed at, it is more owing to the absence of great qualities, than to the presence of objectionable ones. He did not let his talents lie idle, nor can it be said that he misapplied them; his error was rather that he sought to make too wide a use of them, and that he attempted to climb by plodding industry to heights only accessible to the eagle pinion of genius. Southey's narrative power was also very considerable. Although, as we have said, he was unable to invest his personages with any strong human interest, he manages his narratives with a skill that prevents him, as a rule, from becoming tedious.

A reader is never deeply moved or intensely interested, but on the other hand, he is not very often actually bored by even the longest of Southey's poems. If we forget that they are intended as examples of the highest forms of poetry; if we divest them of their pretensions, and take them as they are, then The Curse of Kehama,' Thalaba The Destroyer,' nay, even 'Madoc,' will be found very tolerable reading for the sake of the stories they contain. As must be the case with the writings of every sincere and whole-hearted man, the character of the author shines through Southey's poems. His egotism, innocent from its very intensity and out-spokenness, his love of home and of his children, his energy, his industry, his ambition, and above all his noble desire to be always on the side of virtue, and in arms against vice, are all conspicuously displayed in his writings. Such poems, if they can never be a great power for good, can never be a power for evil, even in the most innocent or most ignorant hands; and this is praise which many poets far greater than Southey have yearned for in vain. Southey

at the close of his life, said that h chiefest pride and greatest glory was

that he had never written a line which. on the score of its morality, he won' desire to expunge or to correct. The nobility of this speech lies in its abso lute truth.

It is hardly just to close a notice of a poet who is so little read now-a-days, without giving some account of at least one of his more important productions. We shall select one of Southey's epic attempts, which was not, by reason of its subject, and the form of verse en ployed, predestined from the outset to failure as a great poem. In' Role the last of the Goths,' Southey chose a theme admirably well suited, in th hands of a great poet, for epic treat ment; and in place of the capricious metres, and jingling measures of 'T laba,' or 'The Curse of Kehama,' h clothed his thoughts in the only fitti garb-blank verse. The story of the king who, by his misdeeds brought the Moors into Spain, is, in every respec tragic. King Roderick by violenc offered to the daughter of Count Ju. ian, one of his most powerful nobles. so incensed the Count, that he sougi. the aid of the Moors to obtain re venge upon the dissolute king, and in a pitched battle, Roderick was de feated and the whole country subju. gated by the Moors. It is at this point that Southey's poem begins: the King in the moment of defeat, after vainly seeking for death at the hands of the foe, is miraculously converted and changed from a sinner into a very pro nounced saint. He escapes from the field of battle, and spends a year in se clusion with a pious hermit, but upon the death of his aged companion, in obedience to an inward voice which he feels to be divine, he returns once more to the world. He finds that his divinely appointed mission is to rid Spain of the Moors, but to humbie himself, and remain obscure and unknown. The manner in which Roder. ick accomplished this end, and finally retired to die in a hermit's cell, forms

the plot of the poem. The great scope for the exercise of tragic power afforded by such a subject is easily apparent, but Southey wilfully throws away one half of his material, and hardly makes the best use of the remainder. He tells the story in the spirit which would have animated an old monkish chronicler every man who fought on the Christian side is an angel; every Moor demon; Roderick is so impossibly saintly, that we cannot feel either interest in, or sympathy with him; his mother Rusilla, Count Julian's daughter Florinda, Alphonso, Pelayo, Pedro, in fact all the characters on Roderick's side are endowed with the same perfection, and those on the other have no redeeming trait to enlist our pity or touch our feelings. The result is, that in spite of a great amount of skill in the presentation and working out of the story, the poem as a whole is tame and insipid. There is, besides, a great deal too much praying and goody-goody' talk to suit modern notions of what is becoming in a secular poem; the men are always either praying or cutting Moorish throats; the women have not even the latter alternative. Nevertheless there are many fine passages in the poem ; the interest, although never absorbing, is kept up to the close, and if there is nothing to make our pulses beat quicker, or our eyes moisten, we can still derive a certain pleasure from the perusal of 'Roderick the last of the Goths.' The following passage describes Roderick's return to the world after his first retirement:

The face of human kind so long unseen,
Confused him now, and through the streets he went,
With bagged mien, and countenance like one
Crazed or bewildered, All who met him turn'd
And wonder'd as he pass'd. One stopt him short,
Put alms into his hand, and then desired

In broken Gothic speech, the moou-struck man
To bless him. With a look of vacancy
Roderick received the alms; his wandering eye
Fell on the money, and the fallen King,
Seeing his own royal impress on the piece,
Broke out into a quick convulsive voice,
That seem'd like laughter first, but ended soon
In hollow groans supprest; the Mussulman
Shrunk at the ghastly sound, and magnified
The name of Allah as he hasten'd on.
A Christian woman spinning at her door

What joy might these prophetic scenes have given ? What ample vengeance on the Mussulman, Driven out with foul defeat, and made to feel In Africa the wrongs he wrought to Spain; And still pursued by that relentless sword, Even to the farthest orient, where his power Received its mortal wound.'

No poet, least of all an historian as Southey was, should, even in a poem directed against the Moors, have gloried in the foul and treacherously cruel conduct of the Spaniards towards a gallant and highly cultivated race. As a fair example of Southey's method of dealing with the sights and sounds of Nature, the following passage may be quoted:

'The silver cloud diffusing slowly past,
And now into its airy elements
Resolved is gone; while through the azure depth
Alone in heaven the glorious Moon pursues
Her course appointed, with indifferent beams
Shining upon the silent hills around.

They by the fountain hear the stream below,
Whose murmurs, as the wind arose or fell,
Fuller or fainter reach the ear attuned.
And now the nightingale, not distant far,
Began her solitary song; and pour'd
To the cold moon a richer, stronger strain
Than that with which the lyric lark salutes
The new-born day. Her deep and thrilling song
Seem'd with its piercing melody to reach
The soul, and in mysterious unison
Blend with all thoughts of gentleness and love.'

There are numerous accounts of battles in this poem, whose vigour would be considerably enhanced were they

not quite so wordy; the best specimen is the last great combat in which Roderick finally breaks the power of the Moors.

'Thus he made his way,
Smiting and slaying through the astonish'd ranks,
Till he beheld where on a fiery barb,
Ebba performing well a soldier's part,
Dealt to the right and left his deadly blows.
With mutual rage they met. The renegade
Displays a scimitar, the splendid gift

Of Walid from Damascus sent; its hilt
Emboss'd with gems, its blade of perfect steel,
Which, like a mirror sparkling to the sun,
With dazzling splendour, flashed. The Goth objects
His shield, and on its rim received the edge
Driven from its aim aside, and of its force
Diminish'd. Many a frustrate stroke was dealt
On either part, and many a foin and thrust
Aim'd and rebated; many a deadly blow
Straight or reverse, delivered and repelled.
Roderick at length with better speed hath reach'd
The apostate's turban, and through all its folds
The true Cantabrian weapon making way
Attain'd his forehead. Wretch, the avenger cried,
It comes from Roderick's hand!'

Elaborate as this is, it fails to stir the blood, for it wants the terse and graphic touches which give to words life and reality; it is, moreover, too evident an imitation of Milton to possess any potent vitality of its own. We have endeavoured in the above extracts, to show the poet at his best, but it is only just to say that the structure of Southey's blank verse is not always so good as in the specimens we have cited. Even in important passages meant to impress or affect the reader, his verse is sometimes little else than prose cut into lengths. Take for instance the following speech of Alphonso, newly escaped from bondage, and about to revisit the home of his childhood, and write it without the adventitious aid derived from the division into lines, and see how it reads:

'How then,' exclaimed the boy, 'shall I discharge the burthen of this happiness? How ease my overflowing soul? Oh! gracious God! shall I behold my mother's face again? my father's hall -my native hills and vales, and hear the voices of their streams again?'

Many worse examples might be given, but it would be ungenerous to criticize in a carping spirit, a poem which we have selected as being the

highest of Southey's efforts in the field in which he fondly hoped to win eternal renown. Judged as a whole, 'Roderick the last of the Goths,' is a more than respectable performance; great it is not, but it is very far removed from being contemptible.

We have left ourselves little space for any adequate consideration of Southey as a prose writer, but it would be eminently unfair to pass by altogether unnoticed the works upon which his really enduring reputation will probably depend. His historical works, 'The History of Brazil' and 'The History of the Peninsular War,' &c., we shall not speak of, as we have not thorough personal knowledge of them. His biographies, 'The Life of Wesley' and The Life of Nelson,' are, however, widely read, and The Doctor' should command a far wider circle of readers than it possesses in the present day. Southey's prose is pure, lucid, and incisive; he is eloquent without effort, graphic without being theatrical, and tender without a suspicion of affectation. The Life of Nelson' may justly be regarded as the most skilful of all biographies, and second in charm to one alone-Irving's Life of Goldsmith.' Southey's task was, however, a more arduous one than Irving's; to compress into a short compass all the salient acts in a life so active and so full of incident as Nelson's, would seem, even if done in a perfunctory manner, sufficiently difficult; but so to compress them as to illustrate fully everything of importance either in the life or the character of the hero, thereby investing the work as a whole with a genuinely deserved air of completeness, would seem well-nigh impossible. But this is what Southey set himself to do, and he has succeeded so thoroughly, that his Life of Nelson' will live as one of the most admirable works of its kind in the English language. Brief as is our remaining space, we cannot refrain from quoting an example of Southey's nervous and beautiful prose: "The people of England grieved

that funeral ceremonies and public monuments and posthumous rewards were all which they could now bestow upon him, whom the king, the legislature, and the nation would have alike delighted to honour; whom every tongue would have blessed; whose presence in every village through which he might have passed would have wakened the church-bells, have given school-boys a holiday, have drawn children from their sports to gaze upon him, and "old men from the chimney corner," to look upon Nelson ere they died. The victory of Trafalgar was celebrated, indeed, with the usual forms of rejoicing, but they were without joy; for such already was the glory of the British navy, through Nelson's surpassing genius, that it scarely seemed to receive any addition from the most signal victory that ever was achieved upon the seas: and the destruction of this mighty fleet, by which all the maritime schemes of France were totally frustrated, hardly appeared to add to our security or strength; for, while Nelson was living to watch the combined squadrons of the enemy, we felt ourselves secure as now, when they were no longer in existence. **** The most triumphant death is that of the martyr; the most awful that of the martyred patriot; the most splendid that of the hero in the hour of victory : and if the chariot and the horses of fire had been vouchsafed for Nelson's translation, he could scarcely have departed in a brighter blaze of glory. He has left us, not indeed his mantle of inspiration, but a name and an example, which are at this hour inspiring thousands of the youth of England; a name which is our pride, and an example which will continue to be our

shield and our strength. Thus it is that the spirits of the great and the wise continue to live and act after them.'

In 'The Doctor,' Southey made an ambitious attempt to produce, as he himself said, a compound of Tristram Shandy, Rabelais, Montaigne and Burton. There is little of the true Rabelaisian or Shandean humour in the book; in this respect it might be compared to Tristram Shandy on stilts with a gag in his mouth, but there is much of the spirit of Montaigne, and in wealth of quotation it resembles old Burton. We remember coming across 'The Doctor,' for the first time, at that omnivorous age when we voraciously devour anything and everything in the form of a book, and on that occasion we religiously read through the seven volumes from beginning to end. We cannot say that it is a book which lends itself naturally to such a course, but it is admirably adapted to while away an hour pleasantly, and perhaps profitably. Open it at random, at any page, and we may be sure of some curious information quaintly and agreeably imparted.

We have considered Southey as a man, as a politician, and as a poet; and if we have not been able to afford him a large measure of praise, we have endeavoured at least to do him justice. The decisions of one generation with regard to a poet's merits, are often upset by a succeeding one, and it is within the range of possibilities that Southey may yet in some future age be regarded as a great poet. Meantime, we can only judge him as he appears to ourselves, and we trust we have done so without harshness or prejudice.

THE trial by jury in criminal cases has, in the mother land, age, added to a long record of instances of defeat of tyranny and oppression, to recommend it. British liberty has always been dear to the British heart. The man or men, king or commoner, who would seek to deprive a British subject of that, his birth-right, would be looked upon as deserving of the severest reprobation. The principle that no man should be subjected to a trial for crime without a finding of twelve of his fellow-men, called a grand jury, that there was something he should be tried for, has always, from the days of Magna Charta' to the present time, been treated as one of the safe-guards of British liberty.' Not only was a party accused of crime not to be put on triel without the sanction of a grand jury, but he could not be convicted of the crime till twelve other of his fellow-subjects pronounced him guilty. The first innovation on the important principle that an accused party should have the benefit of trial by jury was an Act of the Parliament of Canada, passed in the 20th year of Her Majesty Queen Victoria's reign (Consolidated Statutes of Canada, cap. 105), by which jurisdiction was conferred on Recorders of cities, and, by 27 and 28 Vict., cap. 34, extended to police magistrates, to try and summarily convict for certain offences, as larcenies and certain assaults and other misdemeanors specified. If the accused were found guilty, the recorder or police magistrate could sentence him to be imprisoned in the common jail for period not

exceeding three months. This Act was extended by the Act of 32 and 33 Victoria, cap. 32, by which, for similar offences as those specified in Consol. Stat. U. C., cap. 105, and in cases of larcenies where the goods stolen did not exceed $10 in value, the police magistrate was empowered to try the accused party with his own consent, and if found guilty convict, and a conviction under the Act was to have the same effect as a conviction upon indictment for the same offence would have had. By the 32nd and 33rd Vict., cap. 35 (Dominion), any person committed to jail for trial on a charge of being guilty of any offence for which he might be tried at the Court of General Sessions of the Peace, may, with his own consent, be tried out of Sessions, and convicted and sentenced by the judge. By the Ontario Act of 36 Vict., cap. 8, sec. 57, the Judge of any County Court or the Junior or Deputy Judge thereof authorized to act as Chairman of the General Sessions of the Peace, is constituted a Court of Record for the trial out of Sessions, and without a jury, of any person committed to jail on a charge of being guilty of any offence for which such person may be tried at a Court of General Sessions of the Peace, and for which the person so committed consents to be tried out of Sessions.