No  sooner  did  Southey  get  this  news  of  the  Parliamentary  bill
than  he,  was  all  eagerness  to  introduce  his  friend  to  his  older  friend
Rickman,  clerk  to  Parliament,  praised  by  everybody,  and  whom
Charles  Lamb  thought  to  be  the  most  perfect  man,  up  to  anything,
down  to  everything,  fullest  of  matter  with  the  least  verbosity,  that
he  had  ever  known.  He  would  manage  all  the  House  of  Commons
part  of  the  bill.  To  him  Southey  wrote  accordingly,  with  no  mis-
giving that  he  should  raise  too  high  his  expectation  of  the  friend  he
had  to  introduce.  In  seeing  him,  he  said,  Rickman  would  see  one
of  the  most  extraordinary  men  that  it  had  ever  been  his  fortune  to
fall  in  with,  and  who  would  be  one  of  the  greatest  if  it  were  possible
to  tame  him.  "  He  does  more  than  any  of  the  gods  of  all  my  mythol-
ogies, for  his  very  words  are  thunder  and  lightning,  such  is  the
power  and  the  splendor  with  which  they  burst  out.  But  all  is  per-
fectly natural ;  there  is  no  trick  about  him,  no  preaching,  no  parade,
no  playing  off."  Of  Rickman  at  the  same  time  he  wrote  to  Landor,
that  he  was  a  man  to  whom  he  owed  hardly  less  than  to  himself  in
the  way  of  mental  obligation  ;  for  it  was  not  more  true  that  he  had
learnt  how  to  see  for  the  purposes  of  poetry  from  Landor  than  that
he  had  learnt  how  to  read  for  the  purposes  of  history  from  Rickman.
I  doubt  however  if  these  two  worthies  ever  saw  each  other.
