and ladies. This village, at the foot of Skiddaw, though much visited
in the summer, has still all the wildness of nature. Daffodils were
in blossom when I walked there; and primroses, daisies and violets
opened, among the trees, upon every bank and grass plat, while the
mountains, clustering about Derwent Water, assumed such tints and
shades of purple and blue as are peculiar to a northern climate.

"Oh, man, thou pendulum betwixt a smile and tear!"

All these pleasing images seemed to flit before me while putting into
rhyme the "Song of Prince Hoel,"--but before I could write it down,
tidings reached me of the illness, (perhaps incurable,) of him who
drew it from the oblivion of its native Welsh.

Death already has robbed me of so much, that I have become, as it
were, inured to grief, and accustomed, even in my least unhappy
moments to reflect on the incertitude of all earthly hopes and wishes.
I can now hear of losses with melancholy rather than with horror.

So much of the soul of Robert Southey has been dispersed about the
world that a translation to some other state of being, (now, before
time has given him any burthen to carry,) would be, perhaps, no
misfortune, except to those left to sorrow. Yet to know that so
benevolent a being is still existing, feeling, joying, and suffering,
on the sphere of our own mortality, awakens a feeling so nearly allied
to pleasure that all who can appreciate excellence must entreat of
Heaven the continuance upon earth of a contemporary of whom it may be
said:

"VIRTUE AND HE ARE ONE!"