“If it were true that misfortunes never come singly, it would be a merciful dispensation of them. I at least should choose (if there were the power of choosing) to have my sorrows come thick and threefold, and my pleasures one by one; to drink of misery at a draught, however deep the bowl, but to sip of enjoyment, and taste its full flavour in every glass. The same post brought me the news from York*, and
* Of the burning of York Minster. |
| 24 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 55. |
“We have been betrayed by imbecility, pusillanimity, and irreligion. Our citadel would have been impregnable if it had been bravely defended; and these are times when it becomes a duty to perish rather than submit; for
‘When the wicked have their day assign’d, Then they who suffer bravely save mankind,’ |
“And now, you will ask, where do I look for comfort?
Entirely to Providence. I should look to nothing but evil from the natural
course of events, were they left to themselves; but Almighty Providence directs
them, and my heart is at rest in that faith. The base policy which has been
pursued may possibly delay the religious war in Ireland;
possibly the ulcer may be skinned over, and we may be called on to rejoice for
the cure while the bones are becoming carious. But there are great struggles
which must be brought to an issue before we shall be truly at peace; between
Infidelity and Religion, and be-
| Ætat. 55. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 25 |
“About three years ago I wrote a paper in the Quarterly Review on Britton’s Cathedral Antiquities, and spoke then of the danger to which these edifices are always liable, in a manner that ought to entitle me, if I were but a little crazy, to set up for a prophet God grant that other and more definite fore-feelings may not be in like manner confirmed.
