2. Correspondence, Deed, Bye-Laws, &c., relat- ing to "Sir Jamsetjee Jeejeebhoy's Parsee Bene- volent Institution," established in Bombay, 1849. The Life of Herman Blennerhasset; comprising an Authentic Narrative of the Burr Expedition, and THE UNITY OF LANGUAGE AND OF MANKIND . . 163 1. On the Present State and Recent Progress of Ethnographical Philology. Part I. Africa. By 2. On the Various Methods of Research which contribute to the Advancement of Ethnology, and of the Relations of that Science to Other Branches of Knowledge. By JAMES C. PRICHARD, M. D. 3. On the Results of the Recent Egyptian Re- searches in Reference to Asiatic and African Eth- nology, and the Classification of Languages. By C. C. J. BUNSEN, D. C. L., Ph. D. 4. On the Importance of the Study of the Celtic Language as exhibited by the Modern Celtic Dia- lects still extant. By DR. CHARLes Meyer. 5. On the Relation of the Bengali to the Arian and Aboriginal Languages of India. By DR. MAX The Memoir and Writings of James Handasyd Notes on North America, Agricultural, Econo- mical, and Social. By JAMES F. W. JOHNSTON, GILFILLAN'S BARDS OF THE BIBLE Bards of the Bible. By GEORGE Gilfillan. 1. Niebuhr's Lectures on Roman History 2. Gilbart's Treatise on Banking 210 3. Guia Jeneral de la Republica de Chile. English Grammar: The English Language in its Elements and Forms, with a History of its Ori- gin and Development. Designed for Use in Col- leges and Schools. By WILLIAM C. FOWLER. III. SLAVERY IN THE UNITED STATES: ITS EVILS, 1. Jamaica in 1850: or the Effects of Sixteen Years of Freedom on a Slave Colony. By JOHN 2. First Annual Report of the Trustees of Dona- tions for Education in Liberia. Presented at the Annual Meeting, January 15, 1851. 3. Abstract of the Seventh Census: Aggregate, by States, of the White, Free Colored, and Slave V. HILDRETH'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 411 1. A History of the United States of America, from the Discovery of the Continent to the Organi- 2. A History of the United States of America, from the Adoption of the Federal Constitution to the End of the Sixteenth Congress. By RICHARD 1. The Old Red Sandstone; or New Walks in an Old Field. By HUGH MILLER, Author of "Footprints of the Creator," etc. 2. First Impressions of England and its People. Memoirs of William Wordsworth, Poet-Laureate, D. C. L. By CHRISTOPHER WORDSWORTH, D. D., History of the Conspiracy of Pontiac, and the War of the North American Tribes against the NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW. No. CLII. JULY, 1851. 7. Bowen ART. I. — The_Life and Correspondence of ROBERT SOUTHEY. Edited by his Son, the REV. CHARLES CUTHBERT SOUTHEY, M. A. New York: Harper & Brothers. 1851. 8vo. pp. 579. SOUTHEY'S life is a good picture of the character and fortunes of the man of letters in our own age. He was the best representative of the class; he typified both the strength and the weakness, the pleasures and the pains, the tastes and the powers, of a man exclusively devoted to literary pursuits. He began to publish before he came of age, and he died almost with the pen still grasped in the fingers which had wielded it for half a century. He lived by his publications, which, though they gained him an honorable name, and have secured for him a permanent place in the history of English literature, afforded him a meagre and uncertain livelihood. He was rich in nothing but books, of which he had accumulated a larger store probably than any man in Great Britain not favored by hereditary wealth. The booksellers made him their dependant, but could not render him their slave; he was obliged to write for his bread, but he had not the spirit, or the want of spirit, of a Grub-street hack, ready to engage in any task that opened a chance of profit. Could he have stooped to this humiliation, he might, with his versatility of power and vast range of acquisition, speedily have、 become rich. He would do enough of such jobwork as writ ing for the Reviews and the Annual Registers to provide for the pressing wants of the moment, the immediate demands of himself and his family; but he reserved his golden hours of toil for stately poems and histories, which the world was reluctant to purchase, and still more reluctant to read, but which still have substantial merits for the discerning few, so that they will probably float far down the stream of time before sinking into the mud at the bottom. Twelve months after its publication, he had received from the sale of Madoc less than four pounds sterling; and the total subsequent profits hardly amounted to twenty-five pounds. Yet he was not daunted by this meagre return, nor rendered envious by the brilliant success of his contemporaries. Scott had already received £700 for the Lay, and was soon to obtain a thousand guineas for Marmion. Southey's poetry might have become almost equally popular, if he had chosen to follow the public taste instead of wasting his energies in a vain attempt to guide or create it; for his acquisitions were even greater than those of his illustrious rival, and he had at least equal command of language and imagery, of sentiment and description. But he wrote poetry to please himself, not the public; and hardly a year had elapsed after the launching of his unlucky Welsh epic, before he had two other long narrative poems on the stocks, both fashioned after his own wilful fancy, The Curse of Rehama and Roderic. It is superfluous to say that he did not make his fortune by either of them. After the publication of the last, he seems at length to have convinced himself that he was too poor to publish any more epics; or perhaps the booksellers formed this conclusion for him. But as if to show the ruling passion strong in death, he left an unfinished one in his desk, under the unpromising title of Oliver Newman, in which Philip of Mount Hope was to be a prominent character. No literary man in our day can find his account in standing out against the judgment and taste of his contemporaries. Bacon and Milton, indeed, were willing to leave their fame "to men's charitable speeches, to foreign nations, and the next ages." But the world, in Bacon's and Milton's times, was not competent to sit upon their claims; it has now become competent, as the number of readers has vastly increased, so that prejudice, intrigue, or caprice can no |