264    THE EARLY LIFE OF ROBERT SOUTHEY
Joan and Madoc, he felt, were more closely related to truth
and to human nature. They represented Robert Southey,
the man; Thalaba was a romance, displaying not truth or
character or Robert Southey; - it was a work, rather, of
the fancy, indeed of pure imagination, using the word in
the contrary sense to that in which the other two poets
used it. With this limitation, Thalaba was, nevertheless,
in its author's judgment, a great achievement. He knew
no poem that deserved a place between it and the Orlando,
and was even ready, if he cared to speak out, to assert
that it might stand comparison with Ariosto's work; cer-
tainly it could be weighed with Wieland's Oberon. Speak
out he did in another place where he asserted that there
was no poem of equal originality save The Faerie Queene,
"which I regard almost with a religious love and venera-
tion."
The reasons why the world has not accepted the poet's
rating of his own work are not far to seek. It cannot be
denied that Southey possessed eloquence, descriptive power,
rhetorical effectiveness, skill in versification, and above all a
genuinely sincere ideal, but neither can it be denied that
he never displayed any of these qualities with more than
second-rate ability. He remained always in the tragic
position of the man who, within his limitations, has left
nothing undone that he can do to be a very great poet,
and lacks nothing necessary for being one except genius.
The fact that he lost while playing gallantly for the highest
stakes should not detract from our personal respect for him.
Thalaba, although it made some stir in the world, fell
lukewarm from the press, and has lain so ever since. The
explanation for this failure to achieve even popularity was
supplied to the author by William Taylor both in letters
and in the review which he wrote for the Critical.' Taylor
maintained that the fundamental fault was the "moral
1 Crit. Rev., Dec. 1803, 2d ser., v. 39, 369-379.