note no extraordinary deficiency in this respect, but we can easily conceive of minds better trained and disciplined for the discovery of great elementary truths;--but few men in our age and generation have manifested a warmer or more generous attachment to whatever assumed to them the shape of truth. For this he was ready to do battle to the utmost. No crusader could be more valiant, or go forth with fuller faith, or be more resolved at all hazards to drive out the infidel, and take possession of the Holy City. His geography was once at fault, or the territory and scene curiously shifted, and his Jerusalem was at one time due west, and at another due east; but it was the same devoted uncompromising knight that was seen marching towards it. Those only who have never thought at all, or who have quite forgotten their past efforts at thinking, will throw blame upon another because the opinions of his his youth were different from those of his manhood. Such difference is almost the necessary attendant upon progress and mental development. The ardour and the candour of Southey's nature made the difference in his case singularly conspicuous. He lived, too, at that epoch when the French Revolution made and unmade so many enthusiasts. This may be thought a sufficient vindication of his memory. But there remains to add one very honourable distinction. Many of those whom the French Revolution had made enthusiasts in the cause of human progress, became cold and dead and utterly indifferent to that cause--selfishly callous, or quite sceptical as to the _possible_ improvements which might be effected in society. Now, Southey changed his opinion on many subjects, but he never deserted the cause of human improvement. He would have promoted very different measures at different periods, but he had the same cause always at heart. He never sank into a cold and selfish indifference; nor was it a mere passive conservatism that he ever advocated. His son has here very justly pointed out that, as a writer in the _Quarterly Review_, in which character he was thought to have consummated his apostasy, it was _the renegade Southey_ who drew attention to the state of the poor, who called on the Government for a scheme of national education, who pointed out the folly of neglecting our great colonial possessions, and the necessity of adopting some large and judicious plan of emigration. Of the topics which occupy reflective and philanthropic men at this moment, pauperism, national education, and emigration are three of the most conspicuous; and in each of these Southey may claim to have led the way, in drawing towards them that public attention which they so eminently deserve. He is always alive to whatever seems to him a feasible scheme for the improvement of society. If he goes abroad, and visits the _Beguinages_ in Belgium, he thinks whether a like institution might not be introduced into Protestant England, for