Always was he Robert Southey, and no representative of a party. At one time of his life he contemplated the profession of the law, and studied for the bar. What sort of lawyer he might have made, if he had been able to give up his mind to the study, or what the practice of Westminster Hall might have made of him, there is no saying; but there was never any literary men, earning subsistence by his pen, who had less of the spirit of the retained advocate. A self-willed, untamed, quite individual manner of looking at things, is always breaking out. If he had taken that seat in Parliament which, without any consultation of his wishes, was so strangely bestowed upon him, he would, we are persuaded, have greatly disappointed any party that might have relied upon his steady and unswerving co-operation. He would often have deserted them for the cross benches, and as often perplexed them by his uncompromising zeal. No whipper-in would have been quite sure of him, or kept him steady in the ranks. In that position where he was most subject to restraint--as a writer in the _Quarterly_--it is amusing to see how restive he is, how he rears and plunges at first starting, how he chafes at that harness which each one in such a team must be content to wear, though every steed were a veritable Pegasus, and Apollo himself in the editorial car. He thinks "a sprinkling of my free and fearless way of thinking would win friends" for the _Review_. "It is my nature and my principle," he says, "to speak and write as earnestly, as plainly, and as straight to the mark as I think and feel. If the editor understands his own interest, he will not restrict me." We must confess, judging by the ebullitions he sometimes gives vent to in these letters, that the most indulgent editor must have been occasionally called upon to "restrict" a certain impetuosity of manner, which, it may be observed, would have embarrassed Mr Gifford almost as much as it would have done Mr Jeffrey. But from this somewhat rash incursion into the very centre of our subject, it would be wise--since we are not, in fact, epic poets--to effect a timely retreat; let us recommence, after the more legitimate manner of prosaic reviewers, with some account of the work immediately before us.