Charles Cuthbert Southey: Life of Robert Southey

“Keswick, Nov. 11. 1804.

“Dear Sirs,

“. . . . . I should like to edit the works of Sir Philip Sidney, who is, in my judgment, one of the greatest men of all our countrymen. I would prefix a Life, an Essay on the Arcadia, his greatest work, and another on his Metres. It would make three octavo volumes: to the one there should be his portrait prefixed; to the second, a view of Penshurst, his birthplace, and residence; to the third, the print of his death, from Mortimer’s well-known etching. Perhaps I overrate the extent of the work; for, if I recollect right. Burton’s Anatomy, which is such another folio, was republished in two octavos. His name is so illustrious, that an edition of 500 would certainly sell; the printer might begin in spring. I could write the Essays here; in the autumn I shall most likely be in London, and would then complete
Ætat. 30. OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. 307
the Life, and the book might be published by Christmas of 1805. If you approve the scheme, it may be well to announce it, as we may very probably be forestalled, for this is the age of editors. I design my name to appear, for it would be a pleasure and a pride to have my name connected with that of a man whom I so highly reverence.

“Mr. Longman promised me a visit in September; I have not found him so punctual as he will always find me.

Believe me,
Yours truly,

Robert Southey.”

To G. C. Bedford, Esq.

“Keswick, Dec. 1. 1804.

“Dear Grosvenor,

“Sir Roger L’Estrange is said, in Cibber’s Lives, to have written a great number of poetical works, which are highly praised in an extract from Winstanley. Ubi sunt? God knows, among all the titles to his works I do not see one which looks as if it belonged to a poem; perhaps Hill or Heber may help you out: but the sure store-house in all desperate cases will be the Museum. He has the credit of having written the famous song ‘Cease rude Boreas’ when in prison; this, however, is only a tradition, and wants evidence sufficient for our purpose. There, sir, is a pussagorical answer to your pussechism. . . . . .
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If you are in the habit of calling on Vincent, you may do me a service by inquiring whether a MS. of Giraldus Cambrensis, designated by Cave, in his Historia Litteraria, as the Codex Westmonast, be in the Dean and Chapter Library; for this MS. contains a map of Wales as subsisting in his time, and that being the time in which Madoc lived, such a map would form a very fit and very singular addition to the book; and if it be there, I would wish you to make a formal application on my part for permission to have it copied and engraved. These bodies corporate are never very accommodating; but Vincent is bound to be civil on such an occasion, if he can, lest his refusal should seem to proceed from personal dislike, towards one whom he must be conscious that he has used unhandsomely, and to the utmost of his power attempted to injure. God knows I forgive him—ex imo corde. I am too well satisfied with my own lot, with my present pursuits, and the new and certain hopes which they present, not to feel thankful, to all those who have in any way contributed to make me what I am. If he and I had been upon friendly terms, it might have interested him, who has touched upon Portuguese history himself, to hear of my progress, and my knowledge might possibly have been of some assistance to him. I have no kindly feelings towards him; he made a merit of never having struck me, whereas that merit was mine for never having given him occasion so to do. It is my nature to be sufficiently susceptible of kindness, and I remember none from him. Here is a long rigmarole about nothing; the remembrance
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old times always makes me garrulous, and the failing is common to most men. . . . .

God bless you!

“Keswick, Dec 26. 1804,

“Dear Tom,

“I have made some use of your letters in the third Annual Review. M’Kinnan has published a Tour through the British West Indies; a decent book, but dull. In reviewing it, I eked out his account with yours, and contrasted his words upon the slave trade with a passage from your letters. In doing this, I could not help thinking what materials for a book you might bring home if you would take the trouble: as thus,—describe the appearance of all the islands you touch at, from the sea,—their towns, how situated, how built,—what public buildings, what sort of houses,—the inside of the houses, how furnished,—what the mode of life of the townspeople, of the planter, in different ranks, and of the different European settlers,—in short, all you see and all you hear, looking about the more earnestly and asking questions. Many anecdotes of this, and the last war, you have opportunities of collecting, particularly of Victor Hughes; something also of St. Domingo, or Hayti, as it must now be called, which I find means asperosa in Spanish, rugged. If you would bring home matter for a picture of the islands as they now are, I could delineate what they
310 LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE Ætat. 30.
were from the old Spaniards, and there would be a very curious book between us

“Hamilton is broke, whereby I shall lose from 20l. to 30l. which he owes me for critical work, and which I shall never get;—rather hard upon one whose brains and eyesight have quite enough to do by choice, and are never overpaid for what they do by necessity. For meaner matter,—my little girl is not pretty; but she is a sweet child, so excellently good-tempered; as joyous as a sky-lark in a fine morning, and so quick of eye, of action, and of intellect, that I have a sad feeling about me of the little chance there is of rearing her; so don’t think too much about her.

“Whether this war with Spain will involve one with Portugal is what we are all speculating about at present. I think it very likely that Bonaparte will oblige the Portuguese to turn the English out—a great evil to me in particular; though should my uncle be driven to England, my settling will the sooner take place. At present I am as unsettled as ever, at a distance from my books, perpetually in want of them, wishing and wanting to be permanently fixed, and still prevented by the old cause. Make a capital prize, Tom, and lend me a couple of hundreds, and you shall see what a noble appearance my books will make. N.B.—I have a good many that wait for your worship to letter them. This Spanish war may throw something in your way; but I don’t like the war, and think it is unjust and ungenerous to quarrel with an oppressed people because they have not strength to resist the French.
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You know I greatly esteem the Spaniards. As for France, I am willing to pay half my last guinea to support a contest for national honour against him; but it began foolishly, and well will it be if we do not end it even more foolishly than we began.

“God bless you!

* I am unable to refer to this edition.

To Grosvenor C. Bedford, Esq,

“Keswick, Jan. 20. 1805.

“Dear Grosvenor,

“. . . . . There is a civil office for the inspection of accounts, and I am adequate to be inspector; so, if you cannot learn that there be anything more proper, let that be the thing asked: “but consult Rickman. I have only proceeded on newspaper authority; and, if the expedition be not
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going to Portugal, would not take the best office any where else. Actual work I expect, and have seen enough of the last army at Lisbon to know that commissaries and inspectors have plenty of leisure. Thus much General Moore must know, whether we are to send forces to Portugal or not; for it depends upon his report, if the papers lie not. If we do, the place where all the civil operations are carried on is Lisbon; there the commissaries, &c. remain if the army takes the field; there I want to go, you know for what purpose. To say that I do not wish to make money would be talking nonsense; but the mere object of making money would not take me from home. I can inspect accounts, I can make contracts (for beef and oats are soon understood), and, doing these, can yet have leisure for my own pursuits. What efforts I make are more because the thing is prudent than agreeable.

“Madoc is provokingly delayed. Job once wished that his enemy had written a book; if he himself had printed one, it would have tried his patience. I am every day expecting the Great Snake* in a frank from Duppa. My emblem of the cross, prefixed to the poem, with the In hoc signo, and what I have said in the poem of the Virgin Mary, is more liable to misconstruction than could be wished. In what light I consider these things, may be seen in the reviews of the Missions to Bengal and Otaheite. I have just finished another article for the year upon the South African Missions. The great use of reviewing is, that it obliges me to think upon subjects
* An engraving of one of the incidents in Madoc.

Ætat. 30. OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. 313
on which I had been before content to have very vague opinions, because there had never been any occasion for examining them; and this is a very important one.

“It will do me a world of good to see the first proof-sheet under favour, of the Grand Parleur; I shall begin to think seriously of the preface. You will find it worth while to go to Longman, for the sake of seeing the new publications, which all lie on his table; a good way of knowing what is going on in the world of typography.

God bless you!

R. S.”

To John Rickman, Esq,

“Feb. 16. 1805.

“Dear Rickman,

“The motto* to those Metrical Tales is strictly true; but there is a history belonging to them which will show that I was not trifling when I wrote them. With the single exception of Gualberto (the longest and best), all the others were written expressly for the Morning Post; and this volume-full is a selection from a large heap, by which I earned 149l. 4s., and is now published for the very same reason for which it was originally composed. Besides the necessity for writing such things, there was also a great fitness, inasmuch as, by so doing, a facility and variety of style was acquired, to be converted to better purposes, and I had always better purposes in view.

314

“. . . . . I have been reading the earliest travels in Abyssinia, namely, the History of the Portuguese Embassy in 1520, by Francisco Alvares, the chaplain; a book exceedingly rare,—my copy, which is the Spanish translation, a little 24mo. volume, having cost a moidore. As I cannot bear to lose anything, I shall draw up just such an abstract as if for a review, and throw whatever is not essential to the main narrative among the works of supererogation, which will be enough for a volume. The king, or, to give him his proper title, the Neguz, dwelt like an Arab in his tent. . . . . What every where surprises me in the history of these discoveries is, that so little should be known of the East in Europe, when so many Europeans were to be found in the East, for the Neguz was never without some straggler or other. Still more that in Europe such idle dreams about Ethiopia should prevail, when Abyssinians so often found their way to Rome. The opportunities lost by foolish ministers and foolish kings makes me swear for pure vexation. If Alboquerque had lived, I verily believe he would have expelled the Mamelukes from Egypt, by the help of the African Christians, and have made that country a Christian instead of a Turkish conquest. I should like to give Egypt to the Spaniards; they are good colonists. . . . . . . Do you know that reflecting mirrors of steel were used instead of spectacles for weak or dim-eyed persons to read in? This must have been so troublesome and so expensive that it never can have been common.
Ætat. 30. OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. 315
But that it was used, I have found in an odd book, purchased when I was first your guest in London—the 400 questions proposed by the Admiral of Castille and his friends to a certain Friar Minorita; 1550 the date of the book, some thirty years after it had been written. I am in the middle of this most quaint book, and have found, among the most whimsical things that ever delighted the quaintness of my heart, some of more consequence. . . . . The probabilities of my seeing you this year seem to increase. I begin to think that the mountain may come to Mahomet; in plain English, that, instead of my going to Lisbon, my uncle may come to England, in which case I shall meet him in London. The expedition to Portugal seems given up. Coleridge is confidential secretary to Sir A—— Ball, and has been taking some pains to set the country right as to its Neapolitan politics, in the hope of saving Sicily from the French. He is going with Capt. —— into Greece, and up the Black Sea to purchase com for the government. Odd, but pleasant enough,—if he would but learn to be contented in that state of life into which it has pleased God to call him—a maxim which I have long thought the best in the Catechism. . . . .

“God bless you!

* The Lay of the Last Minstrel.

“March 5. 1805.

“Dear Wynn,

“. . . . . I have read Scott’s poem* this evening, and like it much. It has the fault of mixed language which you mentioned, and which I expected; and it has the same obscurity, or, to speak more accurately, the same want of perspicuousness, as his Glenfinlas. I suspect that Scott did not write poetry enough when a boy†, for he has little command of language. His vocabulary of the obsolete is ample; but in general his words march up stiffly, like half-trained recruits,—neither a natural walk, nor a measured march which practice has made natural. But I like his poem, for it is poetry, and in a company of strangers I would not mention that it had any faults. The beginning of the story is too like Coleridge’s Christobell, which he had seen; the very line, ‘Jesu Maria, shield her well!’ is caught from it. When you see the Christobell, you will not doubt that Scott has imitated it; I do not think designedly, but the echo was in his ear, not for emulation, but propter amorem. This only refers to the beginning, which you will perceive attributes more of magic to the lady than seems in character with the rest of the story.

† This would seem, from Sir W. Scott’s Life, to be true. He mentions, in his Autobiography, having been a great reader of poetry, especially old ballads; but does not speak of having written much, if any, in boyhood.

OF ROBERT SOUTHEY.

317

“If the sale of Madoc should prove that I can afford to write poetry, Kehama will not lie long unfinished. After lying fallow since the end of October, I feel prolific propensities that way.

“My book ought to be delivered before this, upon the slowest calculation. I pray you compare the conscientious type of my notes with that of Scott’s; and look in his title-page*, at the cruelty with which he has actually split Paternoster Row.

“God bless you!

“Keswick, March 22. 1805.

“I never learnt the Memoria Technica, but if ever I have a son he shall. Where is the earliest mention of the mariner’s compass? I have no better reference than a chronological table at the end of a worn-out dictionary, which says, invented or improved by Gioia of Naples, A.D. 1302. Now, I have just found it mentioned in the Laws of Alonso the Wise, which Laws were begun a.d. 1251, and finished in seven years; and it is not mentioned as anything new, but made use of as an illustration. You can understand the Spanish:

“‘Assi como les marineros sequian en le nocte, escura por el aguja que les es mediamera entre la piedra e la estrella, e les muestra por lo vayar.’

* My father used to pride himself upon his title-pages, and upon his knowledge of typography in general; being, as one of his printers said, the only person he ever knew who could tell how a page would look before it was set up.

318

* An allusion to this shipwreck is made in a published letter of an earlier date: which of the two dates is correct, I cannot at this time ascertain.

“I suspect that this implies a belief in some specific virtue in the north star, as if the magnetic influence flowed from it. This, however, is matter for more inquiry, and I will one day look into it in Raymond Lully and Albertus Magnus,—likely authors. The passage certainly carries the use of the needle half a century further back than the poor chronology; but whether I have made what antiquarians call a discovery, is more than I can tell. Robertson ought to have found it; for to write his Introduction to Charles V., without reading these Laws, is one of the thousand and one omissions for which he ought to be called rogue, as long as his volumes last.

“These Partidas, as they are called, are very amusing; I am about a quarter through them some way, as they fill three folios by help of a commentary. They are divided into seven parts, for about seven times seven such reasons as would have delighted Dr. Slop; and King Alfonzo has ingeniously settled the orthography of his name, by beginning each of the seven parts with one of the seven letters which compose it, in succession. His Majesty gives directions that no young princes should dip their fingers into the dish in an unmannerly way, so as to grease themselves; and expatiates on the advantages to be derived from reading and writing,—if they are able to learn those arts. He was himself an extraordinary man; too fond of study to be a good king in a barbarous age,—but therefore not only a more interesting character to posterity, but a more useful one in the long run.

“You will see in the Madociana a story, how
Ætat. 30. OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. 319
Alexander went down in a diving-bell to see what was going on among the fishes;—remarkable, because it is found in Spanish, German, and Welsh romances of the middle ages. I have since found a similar story of somebody else among the Malays, who certainly did not get it from Europe, or Alexander (Iscander) would have been their hero also. The number of good stories of all kinds which are common to the Orientals and Europeans, are more likely to have been brought home by peaceable travellers, than by the Crusaders. I suspect the Jew pedlars were the great go-betweens. They always went everywhere. All the world over you found Jew merchants and Jew physicians; wherever there is anything to be got, no danger deters a Jew from venturing. I myself saw two fellows at Evora, under the very nose of the Inquisition, who, if they had any noses, could not have mistaken their game. I knew the cut of their jibs at once; and, upon inquiring what they had for sale, was told—green spectacles. A History of the Jews since their dispersion, in the shape of a Chronological Bibliotheca, would be a very valuable work. I want an Academy established to bespeak such works, and reward them well, according to the diligence with which they shall be executed.

“The abuses, or main abuses, of printing, spring from one evil,—it almost immediately makes authorship a trade. Per-sheeting was in use as early as Martin Luther’s time, who mentions the price—a curious fact. The Reformation did one great mischief; in destroying the monastic orders, it deprived us of the only bodies of men who could not possibly
320 LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE Ætat. 30.
be injured by the change which literature had undergone. They could have no peculium; they laboured hard for amusement; the society had funds to spare for printing, and felt a pride in thus disposing of them for the reputation of their orders. We laugh at the ignorance of these orders, but the most worthless and most ignorant of them produced more work& of erudition than all the English and all the Scotch universities since the Reformation; and it is my firm belief, that a man will at this day find better society in a Benedictine monastery than be could at Cambridge; certainly better than he could at Oxford.

“You know I am no friend to Popery or to Monochism; but if the Irish Catholics are to be emancipated, I would let them found convents, only restricting them from taking the vows till after a certain age, as Catherine did in Russia; though perhaps it may be as well to encourage anything to diminish the true Patric-ian breed. The good would be, that they would get the country cultivated, and serve as good inns, and gradually civilise it. As the island unluckily is theirs, and there is no getting the Devil to remove it anywhere else, we had better employ the Pope to set it to rights.

“. . . . . William Taylor has forsaken the Critical, because it has fallen into the hands of ——, an orthodox, conceited, preferment-hunting, Cambridge fellow; such is the character he gives of him. My book will suffer by the change. The Annual is probably delayed by the insurrection among the printers. Authors
Ætat. 30. OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. 321
are the only journeymen who cannot combine,—too poor to hold out, and too useless to be bought in.

“I have been grievously shocked this evening by the loss of the Abergavenny*, of which Wordsworth’s brother was captain. Of course the news came flying up to us from all quarters, and it has disordered me from head to foot. At such circumstances I believe we feel as much for others as for ourselves; just as a violent blow occasions the same pain as a wound, and he who breaks his shin feels as acutely at the moment as the man whose leg is shot off. In fact, I am writing to you merely because this dreadful shipwreck has left me utterly unable to do anything else. It is the heaviest calamity Wordsworth has ever experienced, and in all probability I shall have to communicate it to him, as he will very likely be here before the tidings can reach him. What renders any near loss of the kind so peculiarly distressing is, that the recollection is perpetually freshened when any like event occurs, by the mere mention of shipwreck, or the sound of the wind. Of all deaths it is the most dreadful, from the circumstances of terror which accompany it.

322

“I have to write the history of two shipwrecks,—that of Sepulveda and his wife, which is mentioned by Camoens, and that of D. Paulo de Lina, one of the last Portuguese who distinguished himself favourably in India. Both these, but especially the first, are so dreadfully distressful, that I look on to the task of dwelling upon all the circumstances, and calling them up before my own sight, and fixing them in my own memory, as I needs must do, with very great reluctance. Fifteen years ago, the more melancholy a tale was the better it pleased me, just as we all like tragedy better than comedy when we are young. But now I as unwillingly encounter this sort of mental pain as I would any bodily suffering. . . . .

“God bless you!

“Greta Hall, July 6. 1805.

“April 13. 1805.

“Dear Grosvenor,

“There is a translation of Sallust by Gordon. I have never seen it, but having read his Tacitus, do
Ætat. 30. OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. 327
not think it likely that any new version would surpass his, for he was a man of great powers. It is not likely that Longus Homo, or any other Homo would pay for such a translation,—because the speculation is not promising, every person who wishes to read Sallust, being able to read the original. . . . . There are some Greek authors which we want in English, Diodorus Siculus in particular; but why not chuse for yourself, and venture upon original composition? In my conscience I do not think any man living has more of Rabelais in his nature than you have. A grotesque satire à la Gargantua would set all the kingdom staring, and place you in the very first rank of reputation. . . . . You ask if I shall come to town this summer? Certainly not, unless some very material accident were to render it necessary. I do not want to go, I should not like to go, and I can’t afford to go; solid reasons, Mr. Bedford, as I take it, for not going. This is an inconvenient residence for many reasons, and I shall move southward as soon as I have the means, either to the neighbourhood of London or Bath. When that may be, Heaven knows; for I have not yet found out the art of making more money than goes as fast as it comes, in bread and cheese, which these ministers make dearer and dearer every day, and I am one of that class which feels every addition. However, I am well off as it is, and perfectly contented, and ten times happier than half those boobies who walk into that chapel there in your neighbourhood, and when they are asked if I shall give sixteen pence for tenpenny-worth of salt, say yes,—for which the Devil scarify
328 LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE Ætat. 30.
them with wire whips, and then put them in brine, say I.

“. . . . . I shall endeavour to account for the decline of poetry after the age of Shakspeare and Spenser, in spite of the great exceptions during the Commonwealth, and to trace the effect produced by the restorers of a better taste, of whom Thomson and Gilbert West are to be esteemed as the chiefs before the Wartons, with this difference, that what he did was the effect of his own genius, what they, by a feeling of the genius of others. This reign will rank very high in poetical history. Goldsmith, Cowper, Burns, are all original, and all unequalled in their way. Falconer is another whose works will last for ever. . . . .

God bless you!

R. S.”

To C. W. W. Wynn, Esq., M.P.

“April 16. 1805.

“Dear Wynn,

“Madoc has reached Keswick. I am sorry to see Snowdon uniformly mis-spelt, by what unaccountable blunder I know not. It is a beautiful book, but I repent having printed it in quarto. By its high price, one half the edition is condemned to be furniture in expensive libraries, and the other to collect cobwebs in the publishers’ warehouses. I foresee that I shall get no solid pudding by it; the loss on the first edition will eat up the profits of the second, if the publishers, as I suppose they will, should print a second while the quarto hangs upon hand. How-
Ætat. 30. OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. 329
ever, after sixteen years it is pleasant, as well as something melancholy, to see it, as I do now for the first time, in the shape of a book. Many persons will read it with pleasure, probably no one with more than you; for whatever worth it may have, you will feel, that had it not been for you, it could never possibly have existed. It is easy to quit the pursuit of fortune for fame; but had I been obliged to work for the necessary comforts instead of the superfluities of life, I must have sunk as others have done before me. Interrupted just when I did not wish it, for it is twilight—just light enough to see that the pen travel, straight,—and I am tired with a walk from Grasmere, and was in a mood for letter-writing;—but here is a gentleman from Malta with letters from Coleridge. God bless you!

R. S.”

To C. W. W. Wynn, Esq., M.P.

“June 25. 1805.

“Dear Wynn,

“Madoc is doing well; rather more than half the edition is sold, which is much for so heavy a volume; the sale, of course, will flag now, till the world shall have settled what they please to think of the poem, and if the reviews favour it, the remainder will be in a fair way.* In fact, books are now so dear, that
* “I think Southey does himself injustice in supposing the Edinburgh Review, or any other, could have hurt Madoc, even for a time. But the size and price of the work, joined to the frivolity of an age which must be treated as nurses humour children, are sufficient reasons

330 LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE Ætat. 30.
they are becoming rather articles of fashionable furniture than anything else; they who buy them do not read them, and they who read them do not buy them. I have seen a Wiltshire clothier, who gives his bookseller no other instructions, than the dimensions of his shelves; and have just heard of a Liverpool merchant who is fitting up a library, and has told his bibliopole to send him Shakspeare, and Milton, and Pope, and if any of those fellows should publish any thing new, to let him have it immediately. If Madoc obtain any celebrity, its size and cost will recommend it among these gentry—libros cansumere nati—born to buy quartos and help the revenue. . . . . You were right in your suspicious dislike of the introductory lines. The ille ego is thought arrogant, as my self-accusing preface would have been thought mock modesty. For this I care little: it is saying no more, in fact, than if I had said, Author of so-and-so in the title-page; and, moreover, it is not amiss that critics who will find fault with something, should have these straws to catch at. I learn from Sharpe very favourable reports of its general effect, which is, he says, far greater than I could have supposed.

“. . . . . This London Institution is likely to supply the place of an Academy. Sharpe has had most to do with the establishment, and perhaps
why a poem, on so chaste a model, should not have taken immediately. We know the similar fate of Milton’s immortal work in the witty age of Charles II., at a time when poetry was much more fashionable than at present.”—Letter from Sir W. Scott to Miss Seward, Life, vol iii. p. 21.

Ætat. 30. OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. 331
remotely I may have had something, having conversed last year with him, upon the necessity of some association for publishing such extensive national works as booksellers will not undertake, and individuals cannot;—such as the Scriptores Rerum Britan., Saxon Archaiologies, &c. &c. Application will be made to Coleridge to lecture on Belles Lettres. Some such application will perhaps be made to me one day or other; indeed, a hint to that effect was given me from the Royal Institution last year. My mind is made up to reject any such invitation, because I have neither the acquirements nor the wish to be a public orator. . . . .

“Your letter has got the start of mine. I believe I told you that both Lord and Lady Holland had left invitations for me with my uncle to Holland House, and that he had offered me the use of his Spanish collection. Did Fox mention to you that I had sent him a copy of Madoc? I did so because Sharpe desired me to do so, who knows Fox; and I prefaced it with a note, as short as could be, and as respectful as ought to be. I am much gratified by what you tell me of the poem’s reception; there was a strong and long fit of dejection upon me about the time of its coming out. I suspected a want of interest in the first part, and a want everywhere of such ornament as the public have been taught to admire. And still I cannot help feeling that the poem looks like the work of an older man—that all its lights are evening sunshine. This would be ominous if it did not proceed from the nature of the story, and the key in which it is pitched, which
332 LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE Ætat. 30.
was done many years since, before Thalaba was written or thought of. . . . .

God bless you!

R. S.”

To C. W. W. Wynn, Esq., M. P.

“. . . . . Butler denotes the sensual principle, which is subject or subordinate to the intellectual part of the internal man; because every thing which serves for drinking or which is drunk (as wine, milk, water), hath relation to truth, which is of the intellectual part, thus it hath relation to the intellectual part: and whereas the external sensual principle, or that of the body, is what subministers, therefore by Butler is signified that subministering sensual principle, or that which subministers of things sensual.

“Read that paragraph again, Grosvenor. Don’t you understand it? Read it a third time. Try it backwards.

“See if you can make any thing of it diagonally. Turn it upside down.

“Philosophers have discovered that you may turn a polypus inside out, and it will live just as well one way as the other. It is not to be supposed that Nature ever intended any of its creatures to be thus inverted, but so the thing happens. As you can make nothing of this Butler any other way, follow the hint and turn the paragraph inside out. That’s a poozzle.

OF ROBERT SOUTHEY.

337

“Now, then, I will tell you what it is in plain English. It is Swedenborgianism, and I have copied the passage verbatim from a Swedenborgian Dictionary. Allow, at least, that it would make an excellent chapter in your book, if thou hadst enough grace in thee ever to let such a book come forth. Nonsense, sublime nonsense, is what this book ought to be,—such nonsense as requires more wit, more sense, more reading, more knowledge, more learning, than go to the composition of half the wise ones in the world. I do beseech you do not lightly or indolently abandon the idea, for if you will but Butlerise in duodecimo, if you fail of making such a reputation as you would wish, then will I pledge myself to give one of my ears to you, which you may, by the hands of Harry, present to the British Museum. The book ought only to have glimpses of meaning in it, that those who catch them may impute meaning to all the rest by virtue of faith.

“God bless you! I wish you could come to the Lakes, that we might talk nonsense and eat gooseberry pie together, for which I am as famous as ever.

“Keswick, August 5. 1805.

“July, 1805.

“Dear Rickman,

“. . . . Your objections to the exordial lines are not valid. I say there of what the subject is to treat, not affirming that it is historically true. Just as I might have said, in an introduction to Thalaba, that he destroyed the Dom Daniel, and so put an end to all sorcery. The want of numerals is a fault I confess, not so the namelessness of the divisions; nor, indeed, are they nameless, for in the notes they are regarded as sections; and that each has not its specific name from its subject-matter affixed to it, is, you know, the effect of your own advice. However, call them sections, cantos, canticles, chapters, what you will, and then consider in what way is this mode of division objectionable.

“I am not surprised at your little liking the poem; on the contrary, I am more surprised at those who like it, because what merit it has is almost wholly of execution, which is infinitely better than the subject. Now every body can feel if a story be interesting or flat, whereas there are very few who can judge of the worth of the language and versification. I have said to somebody, perhaps it was to you, that had this been written since Thalaba (for, as you know, the plan was formed, and the key pitched, before Thalaba was begun or dreamt of), I should have thought it ominous of declining powers, it is in so sober a tone, its colouring so autumnal, its light every where that of an evening gun; but as only the last finish of language, the
340 LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE Ætat. 30.
polishing part, is of later labour, the fair inference is, that instead of the poet’s imagination having grown weaker, he has improved in the mechanism of his art. A fair inference it is, for I am no self-flatterer, heaven knows. Having confessed thus much, I ought to add, that the poem is better than you think it. . . . . Compare it with the Odyssey, not the Iliad; with King John or Coriolanus, not Macbeth or the Tempest, The story wants unity, and has perhaps too Greek, too stoical, a want of passion; but, as far as I can see, with the same eyes wherewith I read Homer and Shakespeare and Milton*, it is a good poem and must live. You will like it better if ever you read it again. . . . .”

“My dear Friend,

“I am much gratified with your praises of Madoc, and disposed to acquiesce in some of your censure.
* I may here not inappropriately quote Sir Walter Scott’s opinion of Madoc, as corroborating what my father himself here allows, that the execution is better than the subject; and also that the poem will well bear one of the surest tests of merit of all kinds—an intimate knowledge:—“As I don’t much admire compliments, you may believe me sincere when I tell you, that I have read Madoc three times since my first cursory perusal, and each time with an increased admiration of the poetry. But a poem, whose merits are of that higher tone, does not immediately take with the public at large. It is even possible that during your own life—and may it be as long as every real lover of literature can wish—you must be contented with the applause of the few whom nature has gifted with the rare taste for discriminating in poetry; but the mere readers of verse must one day come in, and then Madoc will assume his real place at the feet of Milton. Now this opinion of mine was not that (to speak frankly) which I formed on reading the poem at first, though I then felt much of its merit.”—W. S. to R. S., Oct. 1. 1807.

Ætat. 30. OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. 341
. . . . . It pleased me that you had selected for praise the quieter passages, those in an under key, with which the feeling has the most, and the fancy the least, to do. . . . .

“My History would go to press this winter if my uncle were in England, and probably will not till he and I have met, either in that country or in this. Believe me it is an act of forbearance to keep back what has cost me so many hours of labour; the day when I receive the first proof-sheet will be one of the happiest of my life. The work may or may not succeed; it may make me comfortably independent, or obtain no credit till I am in a world where its credit will be of no effect: but that it will be a good book, and one which, sooner or later, shall justify me in having chosen literature for my life pursuit, I have a sure and certain faith. If I complained of anything, it would be of the necessity of working at employments so worthless in comparison with this great subject. However, the reputation which I am making, and which, thank God, strengthens every year, will secure a sale for these volumes whenever they appear. Roscoe’s Leo is on the table—sub judice. One great advantage in my subject is, that it excites no expectations; the reader will be surprised to find in me a splendour of story which he will be surprised not to find in the miserable politics of Italian princelings.

“I cannot answer your question concerning the contemporary English historians; Bishop Nicholson will be your best guide. Of English history we have little that is good;—I speak of modern com-
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pilers, being ignorant, for the most part, of the monkish annalists. Turner’s Hist. of the Anglo-Saxons ought to be upon your shelves . . . . so much new information was probably never laid before the public in any one historical publication; Lord Lyttleton’s Henry II. is a learned and honest book. Having particularised these two, the ‘only faithful found,’ it may safely be said, that of all the others those which are the oldest are probably the best. What Milton and Bacon have left, have, of course, peculiar and first-rate excellence.

“I beg of you to thank young Walpole for his book. . . . . I wish he were to travel anywhere rather than in Greece, there is too much hazard and too little reward; nor do I think much can be gleaned after the excellent Chandler. Hungary, Bohemia, Poland, are the countries for an able and inquisitive traveller. I should, for myself, prefer a town in Ireland to a town in Greece, as productive of more novelty.

“I should be much obliged if you could borrow for me Beausobre’s Histoire du Manicheisme, which, for want of catalogues, I cannot get at by any other channel. The book is said to be of sterling value, and the subject so connected with Christian and Oriental superstition, that my knowledge of both is very imperfect till I have read it. Besides, I think I have discovered that one of the great Oriental mythologies was borrowed from Christianity, that of Budda, the Fo of the Chinese; if so, what becomes of their chronology?

God bless you!

R. S.”

“1805.

“My dear Wynn,

“Whenever the encouragement of literature is talked of again in the House, I should think a motion for letting proof-sheets pass as franks would not be opposed; they cannot produce 100l. a year to the post-office, probably not half the sum, but it is a tax of some weight on the few individuals whom it affects, and a good deal of inconvenience is occasioned to the printers by waiting for franks, while their presses stand still. Few persons have greater facility for getting franks than myself, yet the proofs which come without them, and those which are over-weight from being damp, or which are misdated, do not cost me less than 30s. a year. The proofs of Madoc cost me 50s.—rather too much out of five-and-twenty pounds profit.

“I have by me Bishop Lavington’s Tracts concerning the Moravians; and as I can in great part vouch for the accuracy of his Catholic references, there seems no reason to suspect him in the others. At first these Tracts left upon my mind the same impression which has been made upon yours; nor have I now any doubt that Zinzendorff was altogether a designing man, and that the absurdities and obscenities charged upon them in their outset are in the main true. But it is so in the beginning of all sects, and it seems to be a regular part of the process of fanaticism. Devotion borrows its language from
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carnal love. This is natural enough; and the consequences are natural enough also, when one who is more knave than enthusiast begins to talk out of Solomon’s Song to a sister in the spirit. But this sort of leaven soon purges off, the fermentation ceases, and the liquor first becomes fine, then vapid, and at last you come to the dregs. Moravianism is in its second stage; its few proselytes fall silently in, led by solitary thought and conviction, not hurried on by contagious feelings, and the main body of its members have been born within the pale of the society. They do not live up to the rigour of their institutions in England; even here, however, it is certain that they are a respectable and respected people; and as missionaries they are meritorious beyond all others. No people but the Quakers understand how to communicate Christianity so well, and the Quakers are only beginning, whereas the Moravians have for half a century been labouring in the vineyard. Krantz’s History of what they have done in Greenland is a most valuable book; there is also a History of their American Missions which I want to get. Among the Hottentots they are doing much good. The best account of the society, as it exists here, is to be found, I believe, in a novel called Wanley Penson. A great deal concerning their early history is to be found in Wesley’s Journals. He was at one time closely connected with them, but, as there could not be two popes, a separation unluckily took place;—I say unluckily, because Methodism is far the worst system of the two.

“If you have not read Collins’s book on Bantry Bay, I recommend you to get it before the business
Ætat. 30. OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. 347
comes on in parliament. It is unique in its kind; the minute history of a colony during the first years of difficulty and distress. There was one man in power there precisely fit for his situation—Governor King, and if it had been possible to induce him to stay there, governor he ought to have been for life, with discretionary powers. One thing is plain respecting this colony, and that is, that no more convicts ought to be sent to the establishments already made. Send them to new settlements, and let the old ones purify; at present the stock of vice is perpetually renewed. Instead of doing this, the fresh convicts should be sent at once to new points along the coast; for new settlements must necessarily consume men, and these are the men who are fit to be consumed.

“Are you right in thinking that Sallust has the advantage in subject over Tacitus? To me it appears that the histories which Sallust relates excite no good feeling, treating only of bad men in bad times; but that the sufferings of good men in evil days form the most interesting and improving part of human history. I prefer Tacitus to all other historians—infinitely prefer him, because no other historian inculcates so deep and holy a hatred of tyranny. It is from him that I learnt my admiration of the Stoics. God bless you!

R. S.”

“October 14. 1805.

“I need not tell you, my own dear Edith, not to read my letters aloud till you have first of all seen what is written only for yourself. What I have now to say to you is, that having been eight days from home, with as little discomfort, and as little reason for discomfort, as a man can reasonably expect, I have yet felt so little comfortable, so great sense of solitariness, and so many homeward yearnings, that certainly I will not go to Lisbon without you; a resolution which, if your feelings be at all like mine, will not displease you. If, on mature consideration, you think the inconvenience of a voyage more than you ought to submit to, I must be content to stay in England, as on my part it certainly is not worth
* Life and Works of Lord Byron, vol. iii. p. 129.

Ætat. 30. OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. 349
while to sacrifice a year’s happiness; for, though not unhappy (my mind is too active and too well disciplined to yield to any such criminal weakness), still without you I am not happy. But for your sake as well as my own, and for little Edith’s sake, I will not consent to any separation; the growth of a year’s love between her and me, if it please God that she should live, is a thing too delightful in itself and too valuable in its consequences, both to her and me, to be given up for any light inconveniences either on your part or mine. An absence of a year would make her effectually forget me. . . . . But of these things we will talk at leisure; only, dear dear Edith, we must not part. . . . . Last night we saw the young Roscius in Douglas; this was lucky and unexpected. He disappointed me. I could tell you precisely how, and how he pleased me on the other hand, but that this would take time*, and the same sort of thought as in reviewing; and in letter-writing I love to do nothing more than just say what is uppermost. This evening I meet Jeffrey and Brougham at Thomson’s rooms. I know not if Harry knows him; he is the person who reviewed Miss Seward, and is skilful in manuscripts. Among the books I have bought is a little work of Boccaccio, for which my uncle has been looking many years in vain, so extremely rare is it. Its value here was not known, and it cost me only three shillings; being, I conceive, worth as many guineas. I have likewise found the old translation of Camoens.

* In another letter he says:—“Though a little disappointed, still I must say he is incomparably the best actor I have ever seen.”

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“God bless you, my own dear Edith.

“. . . . . The third sitting will finish the letter. Thomson brought with him the review of Madoc (which will be published in about ten days), sent to me by Jeffrey, who did not like to meet me till I had seen it. There was some sort of gentlemanlike decency in this, as the review is very unfair and very uncivil, though mixed up with plenty of compliments, and calculated to serve the book in the best way, by calling attention to it and making it of consequence. Of course I shall meet him with perfect courtesy, just giving him to understand that I have as little respect for his opinions as he has for mine; thank him for sending me the sheets, and then turn to other subjects. . . . . Since breakfast we have been walking to Calton Hill and to the Castle, from which heights I have seen the city and the neighbouring country to advantage. I am far more struck by Edinburgh itself than I expected, far less by the scenery around it. . . . .

R. S.”

To Grosvenor C. Bedford, Esq.

“Keswick, Nov. 13. 1805.

“Dear Grosvenor,

“Here has been as great a gap in our correspondence as I have seen in the seat of my brother Sir Dominie’s pantaloons, after he has been sliding down Latrigg. Sir, I shall be very happy to give you a slide down Latrigg also, if you will have the goodness to
Ætat. 30. OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. 351
put it in my power to do so,—and then you will understand the whole merits of the simile.

“Will you Butlerise, Mr. Bedford? By the core of William’s heart, which I take to be the hardest of all oaths, and therefore the most impossible to break, I will never cease persecuting you with that question and that advice, till you actually set that good ship afloat, in which you are to make as fair a voyage to the port of Fame as ever Englishman accomplished. Mr. Bedford, it appears to me that Englishmen accomplish that said expedition better by sea than by land,—and that, therefore, the metaphor is a good one, and a sea-horse better than Pegasus. Do, do begin: and begin by writing letters to me, which may be your first crude thoughts; and I will unpack my memory of all its out-of-the-way oddities, and give them to you for cargo and ballast.

“Elmsley will have told you of our adventures in Scotland, if the non-adventures of a journey in Great Britain at this age of the world can deserve that name. I am returned with much pleasant matter of remembrance; well pleased with Walter Scott, with Johnny Armstrong’s Castle on the Esk, with pleasant Tiviotdale, with the Tweed and the Yarrow: astonished at Edinburgh, delighted with Melrose, sick of Presbyterianism, and, above all things, thankful that I am an Englishman and not a Scotchman. The Edinburgh Reviewers I like well as companions, and think little of as anything else. Elmsley has more knowledge and a sounder mind than any or all of them. I could learn more from him in a day than they could all teach me in a year. Therefore I saw
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them to disadvantage, inasmuch as I had better company at home. And, in plain English, living as I have done, and, by God’s blessing, still continue to do, in habits of intimate intercourse with such men as Rickman, Wm. Taylor, Wordsworth, and Coleridge, the Scotchmen did certainly appear to me very pigmies,—literatuli.

“I go to Portugal next year, if politics permit me, and expect to take Edith and the Edithling with me, for at least a two years’ residence. Bating the voyage and the trouble of removal, this is a pleasant prospect. I love the country, and go well prepared to look for everything that I can want. My winter will be fully employed, and hardly. I am at my reviewing, of which this year I take my leave for ever. It is an irksome employment, over which I lose time, because it does not interest me. A good exercise certainly it is, and such I have found it; but it is to be hoped that the positive immorality of serving a literary apprenticeship, in censuring the works of others, will not be imputed wholly to me. In the winter of 1797, when I was only twenty-three and a half, I was first applied to to undertake the office of a public critic! Precious criticism! And thus it is that these things are done. I have acquired some knowledge, and much practice in prose, at this work, which I can safely say I have ever executed with as much honesty as possible; but on the whole I do and must regard it as an immoral occupation, unless the reviewer has actually as much knowledge at least of the given subject, as the author upon whom he undertakes to sit in judgment.

“When will your worship call upon me for my
Ætat. 30. OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. 353
preface? May I inform you that Patres nostri frequently remind me that we are losing time, thereby hinting that loss of time is loss of money.

“What a death is Nelson’s! It seems to me one of the characteristics of the sublime that its whole force is never perceived at once. The more it is contemplated, the deeper is its effect. When this war began, I began an Ode, which almost I feel now disposed to complete;—take the only stanza:—
“O dear, dear England! O my mother isle!
There was a time when, woe the while!
In thy proud triumphs I could take no part;
And even the tale of thy defeat
In those unhappy days was doom’d to meet
Unnatural welcome in an English heart:
For thou wert leagued in an accursed cause,
O dear, dear England! and thy holiest laws
Were trampled underfoot by insolent power.
Dear as my own heart’s blood wert thou to me,
But even Thou less dear than Liberty!
I never ventured on more, for fear lest what followed should fall flat in comparison. Almost I could now venture, and try at a funeral hymn for Nelson.

“God bless you!

“Nov. 15. 1805.

“My dear Tom,

“You will have heard of Nelson’s most glorious death. The feeling it occasioned is highly honourable to the country. He leaves a name above all former admirals, with, perhaps, the single exception of Blake, a man who possessed the same genius upon great occasions. We ought to name the two best ships in the navy from these men.

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