comes the transplanting to a new soil, and into new influences. Then come the hearing of nothing but a new set of opinions, and the feeling of a very different tone in all around him. Then comes the _facilis descensus Averni_, and the _sed revocare gradum hoc opus, hic labor est_. The metamorphosis goes on insensibly--_Nemo repentè fuit turpissimus_; but the end is not the less such as, if it could have been seen from the beginning, would have made the startled subject of it exclaim, "Is thy servant a dog, that he should do this thing?" Allowing Dr. Southey the full benefit of all these operating influences, so as to clear his conscience in the metamorphosis as much as possible, yet what a metamorphosis that was! The man who set out in a career that augured the life of a second Milton, ending as the most thorough, though probably unconscious tool of tyranny and state corruption. The writer of Wat Tyler lauding George IV. and Castlereagh! The author of The Battle of Blenheim, singing hymns to the allied sovereigns, and hosannas over the most horrible war and carnage, and for the worst purposes in history. The advocate of the pauper and the mill operative, supporting the power and the system which made pauperism universal, and manufacturing oppressive to the artisan. And last, and worst, the man who justly lashed Lord Byron for his licentious pen, being subjected to the necessity of slurring over the debaucheries of such a monster as George IV., and singing his praises, as a wise, and just, and virtuous prince. While Southey congratulated himself on never having prostituted his pen to the cause of vice, he forgot that to prostitute it to the praise of those who were the most libidinous and vicious characters of their age, was only the same thing in another form. No greater dishonor could have befallen a man of Southey's private character, than to have so fully justified the scarifying strictures of his aristocratic satirist:-- "He said--I only give the heads--he said He meant no harm in scribbling; 'twas his wa Upon all topics; 'twas beside his bread, Of which he buttered both sides; 'twould delay Too long the assembly, he was pleased to dread, And take up rather more time than a day, To name his works--he would but cite a few-- Wat Tyler--Rhymes on Blenheim--Waterloo. "He had written praises of a regicide; He had written praises of all kings whatever; He had written for republics far and wide, And then against them bitterer than ever: For pantisocracy he once had cried Aloud, a scheme less moral than 'twas clever; Then grew a hearty anti-Jacobin-- Had turned his coat--and would have turned his skin.