“The Quest is over; I believe the stewardship would
have been promised to me had I been fit for it. All, therefore, that I have to
regret is, having relied so implicitly upon Sharp’s information, as to apply for the post, before I
had thoroughly ascertained my own competency for it. This was only one blunder.
Another was in supposing there was no English Historiographer,—old
Dutens has had the office, with a
salary of 400l., for many years—upon what plea,
they who gave it him can best tell. My aim must now be to succeed him, whenever
he pleases to move off; obtaining, if possible, an increase of
| Ætat. 35. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 249 |
“There came last night a letter from Ellis, communicating the result of his conversation with Canning: I have thanked him for his friendly interference, and told him how things stand.
“I will do my best for Ballantyne*; and going to work with clear views of the subject, and a thorough knowledge of the Spanish and Portuguese character, I shall come to it with great advantages. That lamentable ground over which poor Sir J. Moore retreated (as one of his own officers expresses it) ‘faster than flesh and blood could follow him,’ I paced on foot, loitering along that my foot-pace might not outstrip a lazy coach and six, and my recollection of passes where five hundred Englishmen could have stopt an army, is as vivid as if I had just seen them. Bonaparte owes more to the blunders of his enemies than to his own abilities; and he has no surer allies than those writers who prepare our very generals to fear him, by constantly representing him as not to be conquered. Oh, for Peterborough! Oh, for a ‘single hour of Dundee!’ Sir John Moore was as brave a man as ever died in battle, but he had that fear upon him,—his imagination was cowed and intimidated though his heart was not. And now, be-
* See the beginning of the next chapter. |
| 250 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 35. |
“If I thought you repeated the Retainer’s wish in sober earnest, I could not in conscience wish your old Man of the Sea were off your shoulders; but I believe whenever he is laid down, doing what you please will be doing much, and that we shall have more Marmions and Williams of Deloraines. Lord Byron’s waggery was new to me, and I cannot help wishing you may some day have an opportunity of giving him the retort as neatly as you have given it to Cumberland.
“I have fixed myself here by a lease of one and twenty years, which, after many weary procrastinations, was executed a few days ago.
“I had nearly forgotten to say something concerning
Morte d’ Arthur. It is now more
than a year that I have been playing the dog in the manger to-
| Ætat. 35. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 251 |
