ORIGIN OP "JOAN OP ARC." 



177 



friendship of the man who was his 

 instructor in philosophy, nor, con- 

 sequently, that this acknowledg- 

 ment, and the dedication of his own 

 system, put into a poetical dress by 

 Mr. Pope, laid his lordship under 

 the necessity of never resenting any 

 injury done to him afterwards. Mr. 

 Pope said no more than the literal 

 truth in calling Lord Bolingbroke 

 his guide, philosopher, and friend.'"' 

 The existence of this very manu- 

 script volume was authenticated by 

 Lord Bathurst. in a conversation 

 with Dr. Blair and others, where 

 he said " he had read the manuscript 

 in Lord Bolingbroke's hand-writing, 

 and was at a loss whether most to 

 admire the elegance of Lord Bo- 

 lingbroke's prose, or the beauty of 

 Mr. Pope's verse." (See the letter 

 of Dr. Blair in Boswell's Life of 

 Johnson.) 



DUNGEON COMPOSITIONS. 



It was behind the bars of a gloomy 

 window in the Tower, where "every 

 hour appeared to be a hundred win- 

 tors," that Chaucer, recently from 

 exile, and sore from persecution, 

 was reminded of a work popular in 

 those days, and which had been 

 composed in a dungeon, the Con- 

 solations of Philosophy, by Boethius 



thoughtful ; and sightless, looking." 

 This work the poet has composed 

 in prose ; but in the leisure of a 

 prison the diction became more 

 poetical in thoughts and in words 

 than the language at that time had 

 yet attained to, and for those who 

 read the black letter, it still retains 

 its impressive eloquence. 



ORIGIN OF "JOAN OF ARC." 



Mr. Southey, the poet laureate, 

 gives the following as the origin 

 of the publication of his poem of 

 Joan of Arc: 



" Towards the close of the year 

 1794, the poem was announced to 

 be published by subscription, in a 

 quarto volume, at one pound one 

 shilling. Soon afterwards, I became 

 acquainted with my fellow-towns- 

 man, Joseph Cottle, who had just 

 commenced business as a printer 

 and bookseller in the city of Bristol. 

 One evening I read to him part of 

 the poem, without any thought of 

 making a proposal concerning it, or 

 expectation of receiving one. He 

 offered me fifty guineas for the 

 copyright, and fifty copies for my 

 subscribers, which was more than 

 the list amounted to ; and the offer 

 was accepted as readily as it was 

 proposed. 



and which he himself had for- 1 " It rarely happens that a young 

 merly translated. He composed his ' 

 Testament of Love, substituting for 

 the severity of an abstract being the 



more genial inspiration of love itself. 

 But the fiction was a reality, and 



author meets with a bookseller as 

 inexperienced and as ardent as him- 

 self; and it would be still more ex- 

 traordinary if such mutual indis- 

 cretion did not brine: with it cause 



the griefs were deeper than the j for regret to both. %ut this trans- 

 fancies, j action was the commencement of an 

 In this chronicle of the heart the i intimacy which has continued, 

 poet moans over " the delicious j without the slightest displeasure, 

 hours he was wont to enjoy," of his to this day. 



" richesse," and now of his destitu- " At that time few books were 

 tion the vain regret of his abused printed in the country ; and it was 

 confidence the treachery of all that seldom indeed that a quarto volume 

 "summer brood" who never ap- 1 issued from a provincial press. A 



Tirnnrli flio Inaf. fViArul in " + 1m \vin_ -Trmnf rtf nnw t.vnAa WOQ mvlAror 



proach the lost friend in "the win- 

 ter hour" of an iron solitude. The 

 poet energetically describes his con- 



fount of new types was ordered for 

 what was intended to be the hand- 

 somest book that Bristol had ever 



tlitiou : there he sat, " witless, ' yet sent forth ; and when the paper 



