Southey collected more than 14,000 volumes, which sold in 1844 for nearly £3000. He began collecting as a boy, for his father had but few books. Mr. Edwards enumerates these as follows: The _Spectator_, three or four volumes of the _Oxford Magazine_, one volume of the _Freeholder's Magazine_, and one of the _Town and Country Magazine_, Pomfret's _Poems_, the _Death of Abel_, nine plays (including _Julius Cæsar_, _The Indian Queen_, and a translation of _Merope_), and a pamphlet.[12]
Southey was probably one of the most representative of literary men. His feelings in his library are those of all book-lovers, although he could express these feelings in language which few of them have at command:--
My days among the dead are passed; Around me I behold, Where'er these casual eyes are cast, The mighty minds of old: My never-failing friends are they, With whom I converse day by day.
With them I take delight in weal, And seek relief in woe; And while I understand and feel How much to them I owe, My cheeks have often been bedewed With tears of thoughtful gratitude.
My thoughts are with the dead; with them I live in long-past years; Their virtues love, their faults condemn, Partake their hopes and fears, And from their lessons seek and find Instruction with a humble mind.
My hopes are with the dead; anon My place with them will be And I with them shall travel on Through all futurity; Yet leaving here a name, I trust, That will not perish in the dust.
Mr. Henry Stevens read a paper or rather delivered an address at the meeting of the Library Association held at Liverpool in 1883, containing his recollections of Mr. James Lenox, the great American book collector. I had the pleasure of listening to that address, but I have read it in its finished form with even greater delight. It is not often that he who pleases you as a speaker also pleases you as writer, but Mr. Stevens succeeds in both. If more bibliographers could write their reminiscences with the same spirit that he does, we should hear less of the dullness of bibliography. I strongly recommend my readers to take an early opportunity of perusing this paper in the Liverpool volume of the Transactions of the Library Association.