OXFORD - POETRY -EDITH FRICKER


The social distinctions which Southey has described seem
really to have interfered with his happiness less than he
imagined. Wynn, who had preceded him at the university,
was at Christ Church, and their old friendship was continued.
In addition to this hardly a week had elapsed after his
arrival before there had gathered about him a little party
of men "glad to form a sober society." Conspicuous among
them was Edmund Seward. "I used to call him Talus for
his unbending morals and iron rectitude." ' With this man
Southey became closely intimate, and revered him all his
life as one who exercised over him a decisive moral influence
at this "perilous time" in the development of his character.
"I loved him with my whole heart, and shall remember
him with gratitude and affection as one who was my moral
father, to the last moment of my life." This youth seems,
indeed, a little impossibly virtuous, but to Southey he was
admirable as a true philosopher, one whose example as a
stoic inspired imitation. Two years before Seward had
forsworn wine, butter, and sugar from a resolution to
abridge the luxuries of life. Now he drank only water and
breakfasted upon tea and dry bread. In spite of this and
in spite of an odd and uncommon appearance, Southey felt
that Seward's manners were most pleasing. His philosophy,
however, was his chief claim to attraction. He had begun
to study assiduously at the age of fourteen, and when
Southey asked him whether his attention did not flag over
Hutchinson's Moral Philosophy in Latin, adding the opinion
that "if our tutors would but make our studies interesting,
we should pursue them with pleasure," Seward replied,
"Certainly we should, but I feel a pleasure in studying
them because I know it to be my duty." This Southey
Portland, Chancellor of the University, etc. On his installation, 1793.
Published in Annual Anthology, 1799, and suppressed in later editions
of Southey's poems.
1 Life, IV, 320.


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