able in Lockhart, was
perhaps never easily appreciable till they were separately collected and
published not very many years ago. It may indeed be suggested that the
"Life and Letters" system, though very valuable as regards the "Life" is
apt a little to obscure the excellence of the "Letters" themselves. Of
this particular collection it is not too much to say that while it threw
not the least stain on the character of one of the most faultless (one
singular and heavily punished lapse excepted) of men of letters, it
positively enhanced our knowledge of the variety of his literary powers.

Perhaps however the best of letter-writers amongst these four
protagonists of the great Romantic Revival in England (the inevitable
attempt sometimes made now to quarrel with that term is as inevitably
silly) is the least good poet. Southey's letters, never yet fully but
very voluminously published, have not been altogether fortunate in
their fashion of publication. There have been questionings about the
propriety of "Selected" Works; but there surely can be little doubt that
in the case of Letters a certain amount of selection is not only
justifiable but almost imperative. Everyone at all addicted to
correspondence must know that in writing to different people on the same
or closely adjacent days, if "anything has" in the common phrase
"happened" he is bound to repeat himself. He may, if he has the sense of
art, take care to vary his phrase even though he knows that no two
letters will have the same reader; but he cannot vary his matter much.
Southey's letters, in the two collections by his son and his son-in-law,
were edited without due regard to this: and the third--those to Caroline
Bowles, his second wife--might have been "thinned" in a different way.
But the bulk of interesting matter is still very large and the quality
of the presentation is excellent. If anyone fears to plunge into some
dozen volumes let him look at the "Cats" and the "Statues" of Greta
Hall, printed at the end of the _Doctor_, but both in form and nature
letters. He will not hesitate much longer, if he knows good letter-stuff
when he sees it.[25]

[Sidenote: LANDOR]

Most of the second group wrote letters worth reading, but only one of
them reaches the first rank in the art; it is true that he is among the
first _of_ the first. The letters of Landor supply not the least part of
that curious problem which is presented by his whole work. They
naturally give l