“. . . . . 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.
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* The Lay of the Last Minstrel. † 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. |
| Ætat. 30. | 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!
