“Your letter brings to my mind how it happened that the
last which I received from you remained unanswered. I began a reply
immediately, but having expressed a hope that business might probably soon lead
me into the west country, and intimated a little too confidently the likelihood
of my succeeding to some good family estates there in consequence of Lord Somerville’s death, the letter was
laid aside, till I could be more certain. Shortly afterwards I went to London,
and the result of my legal inquiries there was, that owing to the clumsy manner
in which a will was drawn up, estates to the value of a thousand a year in
Somersetshire, which according to the clear intention of the testator, ought
now to have devolved upon me, had been adjudged to Lord
Somerville to be at his full disposal, and were by him
| Ætat. 47. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 83 |
“God knows how truly it would have rejoiced me to have
seen you at Oxford. My heart was never heavier than during the only whole day
which I passed in that city. There was not a single contemporary whom I knew;
the only person with whom I spoke, whose face was familiar to me, was Dr. Tatham! except poor
Adams and his wife, now both old and infirm. I went in
the morning to look at Balliol, and as I was coming out he knew me, and then I
recognised him, which otherwise I could not have done. I dined there in the hall, at ten o’clock at night, and the poor
old woman would sit up till midnight that she might speak to me when I went
out. After the business of the theatre was over I walked for some hours alone
about the walks and gardens, where you and I have so often walked together,
thinking of the days that are gone, the friends that are departed (Seward, and C.
Collins, and Allen and
poor Burnet), time, and change, and
mortality. Very few things would have gratified me so much as to have met you
there. I had applause enough in the theatre to be somewhat overpowering, and my
feelings would have been very different if you
| 84 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 47. |
“My lodging was at Oriel, in the rooms of an under-graduate, whose aunt is married to my uncle. Coplestone introduced himself to me and asked me to dinner the next day, but I was engaged to return to London and dine with Bedford. There is no one of our remembrance left at Balliol except Powell, and him I did not see. The master and the fellows there showed me every possible attention; I had not been two hours in Oxford before their invitation found me out.
“The King sent me word that he had read the Vision of Judgment twice and was well pleased with it; and he afterwards told my brother (Dr. S.) at the drawing-room, that I had sent him a very beautiful poem, which he had read with great pleasure.
“You will be pleased to hear that the Bishop of London, the Bishop of Durham, and Lord Liverpool told me when I was in town last year, that the Life of Wesley was a book which in their judgment could not fail of doing a great deal of good.
