The early life of Robert Southey, 1774-1803 (Volume 60)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated.1917 Excerpt: ... CHAPTER V 1800-1803 "THALABA"--A SCHOOL OF POETS I Southey watched1 the weathercock at Falmouth for a week before his departure on his second trip to Portugal. He had with him a volume of Coleridge's poems, the 1798 Lyrical Ballads, Burns, and Gebir. The last-named had become matter for daily reading. "I like Gebir more and more; if you ever meet its author, tell him I took it with me on a voyage" (Apr. 1, 1800). For other pastime he walked the beach, caught soldier-crabs, watched the seaanemones, and wrote half a book of Thalaba. Then on Apr. 2, 1800, he embarked with his wife in the Lisbon packet, and after a short voyage of five days and a half, during which both Southey and Edith were wretchedly seasick and upon one occasion much alarmed at the approach of a Guernsey cutter, which their captain at first took to be French, the ship put into Lisbon. The old thrill of admiration returned to the poet. "Convents and Quintas, gray olive yards, green orange-groves, and greener vineyards; the shore more populous every moment as we advanced, and finer buildings opening upon us; the river, bright as the blue sky which illuminated it, swarming with boats of every size and shape, with sails of every imaginable variety; innumerable ships riding at anchor far as the eye could reach; and the city extending along the shore, and covering the hills to the farthest point of sight." 1 The main facts of this period of Southey's life are to be found in Life, II, 57-234 and in Warter, I, 104-237. They landed on the eighth of April, and went at once to a small house that Southey's uncle had engaged for them. It was very small and thoroughly Portuguese, little rooms all doors and windows but cool, with a view across the river to the hills of Alentejo. The domestic arrangements ...