y R. Southey and R.
Lovell, 1794; _Joan of Arc_, 1795; _Minor Poems_, 1797-99; _Thalaba_,
1801; _Metrical Tales_ and _Madoc_, 1805; _The Curse of Kehama_, 1810;
_Roderick_, 1814; with a few later volumes, the chief being the unlucky
_Vision of Judgment_, 1821, in hexameters. A complete edition of the
Poems, except one or two posthumously printed, was published by himself
in ten volumes in 1837, and collected into one ten years later with the
additions. This also includes _Wat Tyler_, a rhapsody of the poet's
youth, which was (piratically and to his infinite annoyance) published
in 1817.

In prose Southey's most important works are the _History of Brazil_,
1810-19 (this, large as it is, is only a kind of off-shoot of the
projected _History of Portugal_, which in a way occupied his whole life,
and never got published at all); the _History of the Peninsular War_,
1822-32; the _Letters from England by Don Manuel Espriella_, 1812; the
_Life of Nelson_ (usually thought his masterpiece), 1813; the _Life of
Wesley_, 1820; _The Book of the Church_, 1824; _Colloquies on Society_
(well known, if not in itself, for Macaulay's review of it), 1829;
_Naval History_, 1833-40; and the great humorous miscellany of _The
Doctor_ (seven volumes), 1834-47; to which must be added editions, often
containing some of his best work, of Chatterton, Amadis of Gaul,
Palmerin of England, Kirke White, Bunyan, and Cowper, with divers
_Specimens_ of the British Poets, the charming prose and verse
_Chronicle of the Cid_, the miscellany of _Omniana_, half-way between
table- and commonplace-book, the _Commonplace Book_ itself, and not a
little else, besides letters and articles innumerable.

Certain things about Southey are uncontested and uncontestable. The
uprightness and beauty of his character, his wonderful helpfulness to
others, and the uncomplaining way in which he bore what was almost
poverty,--for, high as was his reputation, his receipts were never a
tithe of the rewards not merely of Scott or Byron or Tom Moore, but of
much lesser men--are not more generally acknowledged than the singular
and pervading excellence of his English prose style, the robustness of
his literary genius, and his unique devotion to literature. But when we
leave these accepted things he becomes more difficult if not less
interesting. He himself had not the slightest doubt that he was a great
poet, and would be recognised as such by posterity, though with a proud
humility