“Your letter to Mr. Coleridge, which has this day arrived, enables me to thank you for Dobrizhoffer, and for the good old Huguenot Jean de Leny. The American by whom the letter was sent to my brothers has not yet made his appearance at the Lakes. When he comes I will provide him with an introduction to Wordsworth if he should not bring one from London; and if he is particularly desirous of seeing live poets, he shall have credentials for Walter Scott. I suppose an American inquires for them as you or I should do in America for a skunk or an opossum. They are become marvellously abundant in England; so that publications which twenty years ago would have attracted considerable attention, are now coming from the press in shoals unnoticed. This makes it the more remarkable that America should be so utterly barren: since the Revolution they have not produced a single poet who has been heard of on this side of the Atlantic. Dwight and Barlow both belong to the Revolution; and well was it for the Americans, taking them into the account, that we could not say of them—tam Marte, quam Mercurio.
| 306 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 44. |
“I am very sorry that your friend Ritchie should have gone upon an expedition which has proved fatal to every one who has yet undertaken it, and which I think the amateur geographising ‘gentlemen of England who sit at home at ease’ are altogether unjustifiable in pursuing at such a cost of valuable lives. The object is not tantamount, as it is in a voyage of discovery. In such voyages men are only exposed to some additional risk in the way of their profession, and the reward, if they return safe, is certain and proportionate; but, here, Mungo Park went upon his second expedition literally because he could not support his family after the first. If, however, Ritchie should live to accomplish his object, I am no ways apprehensive that his reputation will be eclipsed by his intended rival Ali Bey, that solemn professor of humbug having always made less use of his opportunities than any other traveller.
“If you go through Cologne (as I suppose you will), do not fail to visit St. Ursula and the Eleven Thousand Virgins, whose relics form the most extraordinary sight that the Catholic superstition has to display. You will also find the Three Kings in the same city well worthy a visit to their magnificent shrine. From thence to Mentz and Frankfort you will see everywhere the havoc which the Revolution has made; further I cannot accompany your journey. We came to Frankfort from Heidelburgh and the Black Forest.
