“Turner wrote
to me and complained heavily of Scotch criticism, which he seems to feel too
much; such things only provoke me to interject Fool! and Booby! seasoned with
the. participle damnatory; but as for being vexed at a review—I should as
soon be fevered by a flea-bite! I sent him back a letter of encouragement and
stimulant praise, for these rascals had so affected him as to slacken his
industry. I look upon the invention of reviews to be the worst injury which
literature has received since its revival. People formerly took up a book to
learn from it, and with a feeling of respectful thankfulness to the man who
| Ætat. 29. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 277 |
“You are in great measure right about Coleridge; he is worse in body than you seem to believe, but the main cause lies in his own management of himself, or rather want of management. His mind is in a perpetual St. Vitus’s dance—eternal activity without action. At times he feels mortified that he should have done so little; but this feeling never produces any exertion. I will begin to-morrow, he says, and thus he has been all his life-long letting to-day slip. He has had no heavy calamities in life, and so contrives to be miserable about trifles. Poor fellow! there is no one thing which gives me so much pain as the witnessing such a waste of unequalled power. I knew one man resembling him, save that with equal genius he was actually a vicious man.
“If that man
had common prudence, he must have been the first man in this country, from his
natural and social advantages, and as such, we who knew him and loved him at
school used to anticipate him. I learnt more from his conversation than any
other man ever taught me, because the rain fell when the young plant was just
germinating and wanted it most; and I learnt more morality by his example than
any thing else could have taught me, for I saw him wither away. He is dead and
buried at the Cape of Good Hope, and has left behind him nothing to keep his
memory
| 278 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 29. |
“Wordsworth will do better, and leave behind him a name, unique in his way; he will rank among the very first poets, and probably possesses a mass of merits superior to all, except only Shakspeare. This is doing much, yet would he be a happier man if he did more.
“I am made very happy by a reinforcement of folios from Lisbon, and I shall feel some reluctance in leaving them, and breaking off work to go for London to a more trifling employment; however, my History is to be considered as the capital laid by—the savings of industry. And you would think me entitled to all the praise industry can merit, were you to see the pile of papers. . . . .
