The last years of Southey's life were sad. On 2 Oct. 1834 he wrote: °I have been parted from my wife by something worse than death. Forty years she has been the life of my life; and I have left her this day in a lunatic asy lum.° In the spring they brought her back to Greta Hall. In the autumn she grew weaker. On 16 Nov. 1835 she °passed quietly 'from death unto life.> ° Southey himself, still physi cally strong, was beginning to show mental weakness. In 1839 he married Caroline Bowles, the poetess, a friend of the Southeys for 20 years. Of his condition in 1840, Wordsworth wrote: °Southey did not recognize me till he was told. Then his eyes flashed for a moment with their former brightness, but he sank into the state in which I had found him, patting with both hands his books affectionately like a child?' He died 21 March 1843.
Southey's literary work falls roughly into two groups: his poetry, for the most part early, before he was 30; his prose, for the most part later. The first group consists chiefly of long narrative poems: (joan of Arc' (1796) ; (1801) ; (Madoc) (1805) ; 'The Curse of Kehama) (1810), and 'Roderick, the Last of the Goths' (1814). Legendary or myth ological in subject, these poems embody in an exotic setting—Gothic, Arabian, Hindoo, what not — their author's high-souled ethical ideals. For their setting and their philosophy these poems are worth reading but they are lacking in vital relation to life. Southey's stoicism made expression of lyric emotion unnatural,: and he was too sincere to feign. Of the poems that he wrote as laureate— 'Carmen Trium phale' (1814) ; (The Poet's Pilgrimage to Waterloo) (1816) ; the (Ephithalamium) and the (Elegy for the Princess Charlotte) (1817) ; 'The Vision of Judgment) (1821), and Tale of Paraguay' (1825)— the (elegy' and the (Tale) are the best. Southey's (Poetical Works
collected by himself) were published at London (10 vols., 1837-38).
His best work, however, was done in prose, notably in his
of Nelson' (1813), and his 'Life of Wesley' (1820). His scholarly (His tory of Brazil' (1810-19) is unfortunate in its subject. His