“Your comedy came to hand a fortnight ago. . . . . The charitable dowager is drawn from the life. At least it has all the appearance of a portrait. As a drama there is a want of incident and of probability in that upon which the catastrophe depends; but the dialogue abounds with those felicities which flash from you in prose and verse, more than from any other writer. I remember nothing which at all resembles them, except in Jeremy Taylor: he has things as perfect and as touching in their kind, but the kind is different; there is the same beauty, the same exquisite fitness; but not the point and poignancy which you display In the comedy and in the commentary, nor the condensation and strength which characterise Gebir and Count Julian.
“I did not fail to notice the neighbourly compliment
which you bestow upon the town of Abergavenny. Even out of Wales, however,
something good may come besides Welsh flannel and lambswool stockings. I am
reading a great book from Brecknock; for from Brecknock, of all other places
under the sun, the fullest Mahommedan history which has
| Ætat. 39. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 37 |
“What Jupiter means to do with us, he himself best knows; for as he seems to have stultified all parties at home, and all powers abroad, there is no longer the old criterion of his intentions to help us in our foresight. I think this campaign will lead to a peace: such a peace will be worse than a continuance of the war if it leaves Bonaparte alive; but the causes of the armistice are as yet a mystery to me; and if hostilities should be renewed, which on the whole seems more probable than that they should be terminated, I still hope to see his destruction. The peace which would then ensue would be lasting, and during a long interval of exhaustion and rest perhaps the world will grow wiser and learn a few practical lessons from experience. . . . . God bless you!
