Sometime afterward Southey took a small house at Westbury, a beautiful village, where, in the society of his beloved wife, he resided about twelve months, and spent some of his most satisfactory days. He then produced more poetry than he ever did in the same space of time before or after; and he enjoyed the particular intimacy of Sir Humphry Davy, whose ardent genius was then making itself felt at Bristol. The rising man of science took a deep interest in, and heard passages read from, “Madoc,” as its composition was proceeded with by the aspiring and painstaking author. Southey was likewise employed, at this time, in preparing a volume of minor poems, and a new edition of his “Letters from Spain and Portugal,” to which he had paid a second visit; besides editing the “Annual Anthology,” the first portion of which then appeared. His literary occupations were so decidedly and undeniably to his taste, and became so much “the life of his life,” that the idea of being chained to the law, and harassed by the beckonings of conscience in the direction of dry and dusty volumes, was gradually found to be more irksome and intolerable. Thus his attention was wisely and deliberately withdrawn from the concerns of a profession for which he was not calculated, and wholly concentrated on literature. Indeed the law is, of all others, a jealous mistress, and will accept of no divided allegiance; and such a result as that at which the poet arrived might easily have been foretold, in the case of one who commenced the marvelous achievement of “eating terms,” with indulging in the prospective pleasure of burning his law-books after he should, by their aid, have amassed a magnificent fortune, and retired to enjoy it in Christmas festivities among lakes and mountains. Trusting now chiefly for support and distinction to his literary effusions, Southey speedily became one of the most industrious of living mortals. His devotion to his pursuits was intense and unparalleled, and indeed so great, that he considered the correcting of proof-sheets as a luxury of the highest kind. In fact, he seems to have regarded literature as the most agreeable of worldly concerns, and the fame arising from its successful cultivation as that kind of which a wise man should be principally ambitious, because the most permanent. This principle regulated his conduct and stimulated his exertions in his chosen field. He guided himself by it with singular resolution; his actions became extremely uniform; and the eccentric workings of his youthful spirit having ceased, his life was as calm and cheerful as could have been desired. In 1801 Southey had the good fortune to obtain the appointment of private secretary to the Irish Chancellor of the Exchequer, whom he accompanied to Dublin; and in the same year published “Thalaba the Destroyer,” an Arabian fiction of considerable power, beauty, and magnificence. Soon after this, a pension was bestowed upon him by Government.