“The late events in France have placed both that
country and this in some respects in the same sort of relation to each other
that they were in forty years ago, after the fall of the Bastile, where my
distinct and full recollections of history begin. There they are in the
honeymoon of their new revolution, and here they are applauded and admired by
persons as rash as those who fraternised with the old French revolutionists,
and as ignorant. Their language now is more open and more violent, because they
are much more numerous, and perfectly aware of their own power. Yet on the
whole I am inclined to think that the course of events is rather likely to
retard
| 112 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 56. |
“The aristocracy are likely to be awakened to a sense of danger: in this country, indeed, I know that they are so; though they want either the courage or the honesty to make their public conduct agree with their private declarations. But this course of double dealing cannot long be continued if Europe should be involved again in revolutionary wars, from which I hardly see how it can escape. For I cannot think that the new King of the French will possess that throne in peace.
“As to military means, we have never been so well prepared for war, and the excitement which it would bring with it, and the impulse which it would give to every branch of industry, would put an end at once to all the present distress, whatever might be the eventual consequences of a war expenditure.
“But enough of this subject, which occupies more of my thoughts than I could wish.
“I have written a biographical paper for the Quarterly Review, which will
interest you much, if you have not already read the book from which it is
composed. It is the Life of Oberlin, a
Pastor of the Ban de la Roche in the Vosges Mountains. I am upon the latter
part of a reviewal of
Dymond’s Moral and Political
Philosophy; and I have sent off a short paper upon the Negro-English New
Testament, for printing which the Bible Society has been greatly inveighed
against. The Testament is a great curiosity, and I think myself very fortunate
in having
| Ætat. 56. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 113 |
“God bless you!
