This, however, is an objection which only seems to limit the range of the poetry--and all poetry _is_ limited in its range: none comprehends more than a section of the human power. Meantime, the prose of Southey was that by which he lived. The _Quarterly Review_ it was by which, as he expressed it to myself in 1810, he "_made the pot boil_."[131] About the same time, possibly as early as 1808 (for I think that I remember in that Journal an account of the Battle of Vimiera), Southey was engaged by an Edinburgh publisher (Constable, was it not?) to write the entire historical part of the _Edinburgh Annual Register_, at a salary of £400 per annum. Afterwards, the publisher, who was intensely national, and, doubtless, never from the first cordially relished the notion of importing English aid into a city teeming with briefless barristers and variety of talent, threw out a hint that perhaps he might reduce the salary to £300. Just about this time I happened to see Southey, who said laughingly--"If the man of Edinburgh does this, I shall _strike_ for an advance of wages." I presume that he _did_ strike, and, like many other "operatives," without effect. Those who work for lower wages during a strike are called _snobs_,[132] the men who stand out being _nobs_. Southey became a resolute nob; but some snob was found in Edinburgh, some youthful advocate, who accepted £300 per annum, and thenceforward Southey lost this part of his income. I once possessed the whole work: and in one part, viz. the _Domestic Chronicle_, I know that it is executed with a most culpable carelessness--the beginnings of cases being given without the ends, the ends without the beginnings--a defect but too common in public journals. The credit of the work, however, was staked upon its treatment of the current public history of Europe, and the tone of its politics in times so full of agitation, and teeming with new births in every year, some fated to prove abortive, but others bearing golden promises for the human race. Now, whatever might be the talent with which Southey's successor performed his duty, there was a loss in one point for which no talent of mere execution could make amends. The very prejudices of Southey tended to unity of feeling: they were in harmony with each other, and grew out of a strong moral feeling, which is the one sole secret for giving interest to an historical narration, fusing the incoherent details into one body, and carrying the reader fluently along the else monotonous recurrences and unmeaning details of military movements. [131] In De Quincey's imperfect reproduction of this paper in his collective edition, he adds here:--"One single paper, for instance--viz. a review of Nelson's life, which subsequently was expanded into his very popular little book on that subject--brought him the splendid honorarium of £150."--M.