“. . . . . I have seen both the Scotch and the more rascally British Reviews
of our Specimens,—both a good deal worse than the book itself, which is
a great consola-
| 130 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 34. |
“How soon I may see you Heaven knows: the sooner the better. My uncle is in town, and applications are made to him from all quarters for that information which Lord Gr. rejected last year, as relating to the wrong side of S. America,—a strong fact, between you and I, against his statesmanship. I am in hopes he will draw up an account of the present state of Brazil (which no other person living can do so well), while I proceed with the history. This removal of the Braganza family is a great event, though it has been done not merely without that dignity which might have been given to it, but even meanly and pitifully. . . . . Still, the event itself is a great one: and if I could transfuse into you all the recollections, &c. which it brings with it to me, you would feel an interest in it which it is not very easy to describe.
“I am hard at work, and shall be able to send my first
volume to press as soon as I return from London. Meanwhile, the thought of the
journey plagues me,—the older I grow the more do I dislike going from
home. Oh dear! oh dear! there is such a comfort in one’s old coat and old
shoes, one’s own chair and own fireside, one’s own writing-desk and
own library,—with a little girl climbing up to my neck, and saying,
‘Don’t go to London, papa,—you must stay with
Edith,’—and a
little boy, whom I have taught to speak
the language of cats, dogs, cuckoos, and jack-
| Ætat. 34. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 131 |
