“I am glad to hear that you have taken your chance for
happiness in that state in which alone there is a chance of finding it. Men in
your station too frequently let the proper season go by, waiting till they can
afford to start with a showy establishment. Among those who have not more than
an ordinary share of good principles, this is a very common cause of libertine
habits; and they who escape this evil incur another, which is sometimes not
less fatal. They look out for a wife when they think themselves rich enough,
and this is like going to market for one: the choice on their part is not made
from those feelings upon which the foundation of happiness must be laid; and,
on the other part, they
| 312 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 44. |
“The most profitable line of composition is reviewing. You have good footing in the Quarterly, and I am glad of it, for heretofore there has been vile criticism in that journal upon poetry, and upon fine literature in general. This connection need not preclude you from writing for the British Review. Translation is of all literary labour the worst paid; that is, of all such labour as is paid at all: and yet there are so many poor hungry brethren and sisters of the grey goose-quill upon the alert, that new books are sent out from France and Germany by the sheet as they pass through the press, lest the translation should be forestalled.
“Anything which is not bargained for with the
booksellers is, of course, matter of speculation, and success is so much a
matter of accident (that is to say, temporary success) in literature, that the
most knowing of them are often as grievously deceived as a young author upon
his first essay. Biography, however, is likely to succeed; and, with the London
libraries at hand, the research for it would be rather pleasurable than
toilsome. History, which is the most delightful of all employments
(experto crede), is much less
likely to be remunerated. I have not yet received so much for the History of Brazil as for a
single article in the Quarterly
Review. But there
| Ætat. 44. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 313 |
