Rigid, and wild, and wide; and when the King Chains, dungeons, darkness, . . any thing but death! . . One of the most observable traits in the works of this author, is his delight in illustrating the gentler affections, and the sober pleasures of domestic life. He does not avoid the vehement, harsh, and bold; but he turns, with preference, to the mild and humble. He loves the fireside. He is best satisfied when depicting the amiable relations of brother and sister, parent and child. This has been made a ground of complaint and disparagement with some of the critics; and it might be regarded as a defect, if he had proved himself equal to nothing else. But, after being excited by his scenes of violence and wrath, by his pictures of magic and revenge, of jealousy, remorse, and war, we esteem it matter of congratulation, that the author is disposed to retreat, with evident delight, into the sanctuary of home, and give his feelings refuge amid the sacred affections of domestic privacy. There are poets enough for the hero and the prince, for the passionate lover and the despairing knight. What is public, tumultuous, and ostentatious, will always find pens ready to commemorate and adorn it. Let there be one, at least, to appreciate the holiness of the fraternal bond, as in Thalaba; the beauty and worth of the filial affection, as in Laila and Kaylyal; to celebrate the loveliness and power of maternal influence, as in Rusilla and Roderick, and the charm of the complete domestic ring, as in the family of Pelayo. The world will lose nothing by turning its sympathies away from kingdoms and ambition, to families and childhood; and the poet who knows how to do this, is to be esteemed a benefactor. Mr. Southey does not stop here. There is a close connexion between this class of affections and the religious sentiment, and he passes constantly into the latter. He writes like a man whose habitual devoutness of temper associates all scenes with spiritual thoughts, discerns the moral uses of whatever occurs, and interprets all by a reference to some providential order. His poetry, accordingly, is not simply innocent and pure, but directly and persuasively religious. The tendency, the very moral, of each of his greater works is expressly favorable to faith and piety; three of them might, with no impropriety, be styled religious allegories; and rarely are the highest virtues more affectingly taught. A distinguished critic, apparently incapable of sympathy with any expression of religious sentiment, speaks of his poetry as "outrageously religious and fanatical." We may pardon his injustice in pity for his ignorance. He who knows what faith and devotion are, would rather esteem it as beautifully illustrative of that deep and glowing, but calm and steadfast principle of rational trust and filial piety, which especially becomes a creature like man. He would see in it nothing overwrought, nothing unduly enthusiastic, but a just delineation of that spirit which is equally distant from coldness and excess. With this spirit his best works are imbued; it sheds light and beauty over their pages; it clothes them with peculiar tenderness, purity, and grace; and, when occasion offers, it breaks forth, in distinct and prominent expression, as if the spontaneous breath of the author, who could not but utter the language familiar to his heart. Without making any comparison between this poet and his distinguished contemporaries, without wishing that they had received less honor, or attempting to decide his relative rank among them, we yet cannot refrain from declaring our wonder, that a higher place in the public estimation has not been assigned to Southey. It would avail nothing to prophesy, that so gifted an author cannot be kept for ever in undeserved neglect, for we do not believe that the present celebrity of writers is a fair test of their absolute or relative merit; but we may express a strong hope that less injustice may be done in time to come, and that some of the attention now wasted on frivolous and demoralizing publications, may be given to the principal works of this equally entertaining and never corrupting writer. It is mortifying, that, amid the infinity of reprints from the British shops, no place has been found for these. It is time that it were otherwise. ART. III. 1. Fireside Education. By the Author of Peter Parley's Tales. New York: F. J. Huntington. 12mo. pp. 396. 2. Home Education. By ISAAC TAYLOR, Author of "Natural History of Enthusiasm," " Physical Theory of another Life," &c. &c. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 12mo. pp. 322. WE recur to the subject of education. Indeed, we can hardly pass it by, if we would have our journal keep up with the progress, the changeful progress, of opinion; for it is evidently about to take its turn as a prominent object of interest. The usual signs of incipient excitement are to be seen and heard. Periodical journals are devoted to it. Societies are formed; lectures pronounced; conventions held; speeches made; offices created; and, what is perhaps in this country the surest sign of all, funds are provided. To say the whole in a few words, Education begins to promise much notoriety, and some money, to its foremost partisans; and the obvious, inevitable consequence of this is a struggle to be foremost. Out of which there may come some evil, but there must come much good. We must have a hobby of some kind; because, if we may judge from the past, society is so constituted here, that it stagnates if not constantly stirred by some agitating topic. The common duties, the regular ongoings of life, have not interest enough; and, therefore, Antimasonry, Non-resistance, Bran-eating, and the like, chase each other along. But Education, when its turn comes, is not likely to excite much anger and bitterness. Some there will be, for all our controversies are zealous, and zeal is seldom pure. Still the questions to which this subject may give rise, can hardly kindle a fire which shall burn so fiercely, that no one may pass through it, to go to his brother; and in this respect, Education will have greatly the advantage of most of its predecessors. But the interest of this subject is great, is obvious, indisputable, universal; penetrating the whole mass of society, and all its component parts; embracing within its sphere, religion, government, letters, and all things else of mind or heart; and reaching in its influence through an unending future. It may be hoped, therefore, that when it comes to be a topic of common agitation, and multitudes are active about it, it will call into its service good sense, sound principles, the energy which is not rashness, and the prudence which is neither fear nor indolence, seldom as these qualities are found in popular excitements. And hence, also, it may be hoped, that whatever zeal be manifested in the cause of education, it will not be intemperate; and that, in the effort to reform education and diffuse its blessings, it will not be forgotten, that all reform should be cautious and kind if it would not confirm the evils it assails, or substitute new ones for those which it removes. Any consideration of the subject in its whole length and breadth, will convince one, that, before new truths and higher principles can have an opportunity to improve the processes of education, much is to be done in making ready for them, and in securing to them the possibility of free and successful activity. For it is certain, that no improvement in education of great value can be expected, which is not based upon the correction of some errors, which are, at once, very prevalent and very injurious. The work must begin with the establishment of new and better principles, as guides in all thought, feeling, and action, in relation to it. Among the very foremost of these errors, is that which regards education as occupying a secondary place, if any place, among the great objects of human interest; as something, which, if it be let alone, or intrusted to the aids that chance puts within our reach, will take very sufficient care of itself. It is looked upon as extending its domain over a very narrow portion of life, as excellent employment for the child or the youth, when they must be doing something, but cannot yet do man's work; and all its fruits are thought to be secured, if the boy is fitted to take his place among men when his beard is grown, without discreditable want of common acquirements and with equal advantages for the strife or work of life. When we say that these are the views concerning education which now prevail in society, we do not mean that this is the way in which men talk about it, but that it is the way in which most men act. And while these views, low, mean, false, as they are, prevail, a thousand practical errors spring from them and cannot be corrected. Education is the perpetual law of our being; beginning when we begin to live, its future course is measured by our own immortality. If the duty of education falls first and chiefly upon parents, it is because they represent in this the Universal Parent; and it is not too much to say, that his perpetual and universal Providence is always doing for all men, and all spirits, the work of education. All the circumstances which make up the feeble life of the wailing babe, are educating him; and when the older child is brought under the discipline of a school or of his home, he is still, at school or at home, at work or at play, sleeping or waking, subjected to constant influences which are moulding him for manhood. And when he is "free," his education "finished," as is said, and a place given him among men, then is it still true that his education is growing in importance every day; and the value of every hour, of every act and every emotion, is to be measured by its usefulness in building up within him that spiritual being, which death only liberates for future developement. And all reason and religion concur in assuring us, that progress is still the law of spiritual life, progress from state to state; where all that is, for ever reaps the harvest of all that was, and sows the seeds of all that will be. And therefore, whatever efforts are made in the cause of education, or in the application of its principles to individual cases, it is plain, that they can succeed only so far as they coincide with the general laws which govern the growth and progress of all who live, and only so far as they seek the same end which the Author of all life regards as the end of life. In other words, education cannot be viewed from too high a ground, for it occupies the highest. The search which would detect its ruling laws, and learn the science which combines them into orderly arrangement, and attain to the wisdom which teaches to use this science to good purpose, cannot penetrate too deeply into the mysteries of man's constitution and destiny; for in the inmost depths of his being these laws are at work, and at the earliest moment of his being they began their work. We have no purpose of following these views into those questions of psychology and of human destiny, which open before them. The discussion would be out of place here; it would require more room than other topics could afford, and a mood of mind, a measure and a quality of attention, not precisely those, which a Review is in the habit of demanding. If, then, it be asked why we have adverted to |