My father was now a settled dweller among the mountains of
Cumberland; and although for some
| 2 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 32. |
A more thoroughly domestic man, or one more simple in his mode of living,
it would be difficult to picture; and the habits into which he settled himself about this
time continued through life, unbroken regularity and unwearied industry being their chief
characteristics. Habitually an early riser, he never encroached upon the hours of the
night; and finding his highest pleasure and his recreation in the very pursuits necessary
for earning his daily bread, he was, probably, more continually employed, than any other
writer of his generation. “My actions,” he writes about this time to a
friend, “are as regular as those of St. Dunstan’s quarter-boys. Three pages
of history after breakfast (equivalent to five in small quarto printing); then to
transcribe and copy for the press, or to make my selections and biographies, or what
else suits my humour, till dinner time; from dinner till tea I read, write letters, see
the newspaper, and very often indulge in a siesta,—for sleep agrees with me, and
I have a good, substantial theory to prove that it must; for as a man who walks much
requires to sit down and rest himself, so does the brain, if it be the part most
worked, require its
| Ætat. 32. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 3 |
The place of abode which he had chosen for himself, or rather, which a
variety of circumstances had combined to fix him in, was, in most respects, well suited to
his wishes and pursuits. Surrounded by scenery which combines in a rare degree both beauty
and grandeur, the varied and singularly striking views which he could command from the
windows of his study, were of themselves a recreation to the mind, as well as a feast to
the eye, and there was a perpetual inducement to exercise which drew him oftener from his
books than any other cause would have done, though not so often as was advisable for due
relaxation both of mind and body. Uninterrupted leisure for a large portion of the year was
absolutely essential; and that the long winter of our northern clime, which may be said
generally to include half the autumnal and nearly all the spring months, was well
calculated to afford him. With the swallows the tourists began to come, and among
| 4 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 32. |
The society thus obtained, while occasionally it was a heavy tax upon his
time (to whom time was all his wealth), was, on the whole, more suited to his habits than
constant intercourse with the world would have been, and more wholesome than complete
seclusion. “London,” he writes at this time to his friend Mr. Rickman, who was urging him to make a longer visit
than usual, “disorders me by over stimulation. I dislike its society more from
reflection than from feeling. Company, to a certain extent, intoxicates me. I do not
often commit the fault of talking too much, but very often say what would be better
unsaid, and that too in a manner not to be easily forgotten. People go away and repeat
single sentences, dropping all that led to them, and all that explains them; and very
often, in my hearty hatred of assenta-
| Ætat. 32. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 5 |
As concerns his social and political opinions, it may be said that they
were for many years in a transition state,—rather settling and sobering than
changing; indeed, if fairly examined, they altered through life, not so much in the objects
he had in view, as in the means whereby those objects were to be gained. He had begun in
early youth with those generous feelings towards mankind, which made him believe almost in
their perfectibility, but these soon passed away. “There was a time,” he
wrote, six years earlier, “when I believed in the persuadibility of man, and had
the mania of man-mending. Experience has taught me better.” But before
experience had finished her lessons, he had another stage to pass through; and from having
too good an opinion of human nature, he, for a time, entertained far too low a one. Many of
his early letters are full of the strongest misanthropical expressions; and in his earliest
published prose work, the letters from
Spain and Portugal, he gives emphatic utterance to the same feelings.
“Man is a beast,” he exclaims, “and an ugly beast, and
Monboddo libels the ouranoutangs by suspecting
them to be of the same family;” but this again was naturally a transition
state, and his mature mind judged more justly and much more charitably, being removed alike
from the
| 6 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 32. |
With respect to particular questions of politics, it will be seen in the course of this volume, that on certain prominent subjects, his feelings became strongly enlisted on the same side which the Tory politicians advocated, and in direct opposition to those who professed to be the leaders of Liberal opinions; agreement on some points elicited agreement on others, and, in like manner, disagreement naturally had for its fruits dislike and complete estrangement.
His religious views, also, during middle life, were settling down into a
more definite shape, and were drawing year after year nearer to a conformity with the
doctrines of the Church of England. However vague and unsettled his thoughts on such
subjects were in early youth, he had never doubted the great truths of Revelation: and how
rarely this was the case at that period, especially among men of cultivated minds, at least
of that stirring democratic school into whose society he had been thrown, the memories of
many of the passing generation will bear testimony. “I knew no one who
believed” is the startling expression of one of my father’s
contemporaries, himself a man of intellect and well-stored mind, when speaking of his own
passage through that “Valley of the Shadow of Death,” and referring to
the friends of his own age and standing; and he goes on to say, that he took up the study
of the grounds and evidences of Christianity, with the full expectation that he should find
no difficulty whatever in refuting to his own satisfaction, what so many others considered
| Ætat. 32. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 7 |
The reader has seen from my father’s letters, the reception which Madoc had hitherto met with, and that many of the reviews had been somewhat unfavourable, and had not failed to take full advantage of those defects in the structure of the story of which the author himself seems to have been well aware.
These hostile criticisms, however, had not always their intended effect. Mr. Bedford asks him at the close of the past year, “I should like to know what you call the real faults of Madoc? Wyndham told Wynn that from what he had seen of the abusive reviews, he was inclined to like the poem exceedingly, and from those specimens speaks of it in high terms: this would make Godwin’s nose three times as horrid as ever we thought it.”
To this my father replies:—
| 8 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 32. |
“You use Godwin’s name as if he had maliciously reviewed Madoc, which I do not by any means suspect or believe, though he has all the will in the world to make me feel his power. The Monthly was rather more dull than he would have made it. I should well like to know who the writer is; for, by the Living Jingo,—a deity whom D. Manuel* conceives to have been worshipped by the Celts,—I would contrive to give him a most righteous clapper-clawing in return.
“Thalaba is faulty in its language. Madoc is not. I am become what they call a Puritan in Portugal, with respect to language, and I dare assert, that there is not a single instance of illegitimate English in the whole poem. The faults are in the management of the story and the conclusion, where the interest is injudiciously transferred from Madoc to Yuhidthiton; it is also another fault, to have rendered accidents subservient to the catastrophe. You will see this very accurately stated in the Annual Review: the remark is new, and of exceeding great value. I acknowledge no fault in the execution of any magnitude, except the struggle of the women with Amalahta, which is all clumsily done, and must be rewritten. Those faults which are inherent in and inseparable from the story, as they could not be
* The fictitious name of the writer of “Espriella’s Letters.” |
| Ætat. 32. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 9 |
| 10 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 32. |
“I do not know any one who has understood the main merit of the poem so nearly as I wished it to be understood as yourself: the true and intrinsic greatness of Madoc, the real talents of his enemies, and (which I consider as the main work of skill) the feeling of respect for them;—of love even for the individuals, yet with an abhorrence of the national cruelties that perfectly reconcile you to their dreadful overthrow. You have very well expressed this.
“. . . . . I have written this at two days,—many sittings,—under the influence of influenza and antimony. I am mending, but very weak, and sufficiently uncomfortable.
“Don’t be cast down, Tom: were I to make laws, no man should be made master and commander till he was thirty years of age. Made you will be at last, and will get on at last as high as your heart can wish: never doubt that, as I never doubt it.
“Don’t send me another turtle till I am Lord
Mayor, and then I shall be much obliged to you for one; but, for Heaven’s
sake, not till then. I consigned over all my right and title in the green fat
to Wynn, by a formal power sent to
Coutts the
| Ætat. 32. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 11 |
“My daughter never sees a picture of ship or boat but she talks of her uncle in the ship, and as regularly receives the kiss which he sent in the letter. You will be very fond of her if she goes on as well when you come home as she does at present. Harry is hard at work for the last season at Edinburgh, preparing to pass muster and be be-doctored in July. Most likely he will go to Lisbon with me in the autumn; at least I know not how he can be better employed for a few months, than in travelling and spoiling his complexion.
“The extraordinary success of Bonaparte, or, rather, the wretched misconduct of Austria, has
left the Continent completely under the control of France. Our plan should be
to increase our cruisers and scour the seas effectually,—to take all we
can, and keep all we take,—professing that such is our intention, and
that we are ready to make peace whenever France pleases, upon the simple terms
of leaving off with our winnings. Meantime we ought to take the Cape, the
French islands in the East (those in the
| 12 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 32. |
| Ætat. 32. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 13 |
“I have just received the following news:—‘Sir,—Am extremely sorry to be obliged to inform you, that a turtle, that I flattered myself would have survived home, from the excessive long passage and performance of quarantine at Cork, Falmouth, and Sea Reach, died in the former port, with every one on board the ship.—Respectfully, yr much obliged and obedient servant, Stephen T. Selk.’—So much for the turtle! I think if Government will make such beasts perform quarantine, they ought to pay for the loss. Surfeits and indigestions they may bring into the city, but of the yellow fever there can be no danger. The Court of Aldermen should take it into consideration.
“And now, to finish this letter of gossip. I am in the
midst of reviewing, which will be over by the time this reaches you, even if,
contrary to custom, it should reach you in regular course. Espriella also will, by that time,
be gone to press. This, and the History of the Cid, I shall have to send you in the summer. No
further news of the sale;—in fact, if
| 14 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 32. |
“A gentleman in
this neighbourhood, Mr. ——, is printing some poems at his
own expense, which Faulder is to
publish; and he has applied to me to request that your name also may appear in
the titlepage. In such cases, the only proper mode of proceeding is to relate
the plain state of the matter. His verses are good for nothing; and not a
single copy can possibly sell, except what his acquaintance may purchase: but
he has been labouring under mental derangement,—the heaviest of all human
calamities,—and the passion which he has contracted for rhyming has
changed the character of his malady, and made him from a most miserable being,
a very happy one. Under these circumstances you will not, perhaps, object to
gratifying him, and depositing copies of his book in your ware-room, for the
accommodation of the spiders. He tells me his MS. is at
——, if you think fit to inspect it: this trouble you will
hardly take: the poems are as inoffensive as they are worthless. I shall simply
tell him that I have made the application, without giving him any reason to
expect its success. You will, of course,
| Ætat. 32. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 15 |
The following curious letter needs some explanation. My father had sent
the MS. of his letters, under the assumed character of Espriella, to his friend Mr. Rickman for his remarks, who was anxious that some
strong condemnation of pugilism should not appear, as he considered it acted as a sort of
safety-valve to the bad passions of the lower orders, and in
some cases prevented the use of the knife: and he goes on to say,—“The
abstract love of bloodshed is a very odd taste, but I am afraid very natural; the
increase of gladiatorial exhibitions at Rome is not half so strong a proof of this as
the Mexican sacrifices, which I think commenced not till about A. D. 1300,—and by
a kind of accident or whim,—and lasted above 200 years, with a horrible increase,
and with the imitation of all the neighbouring states. This last circumstance is a
wonderful proof of the love of blood in the human mind. Without that, the practice must
have raised the strongest aversion around Mexico. I believe Leviathan Hobbes says, ‘that a state of nature is a state of
war, i. e. bloodshed.’ I begin to think so too;
else why has Nature made such a variety of offensive as well as defensive armour in all
her animal and vegetable productions?
| 16 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 32. |
My father’s reply shows he was of a different opinion.
“Before I speak of myself, let me say something upon a more important subject. Nature has given offensive armour for two reasons; in the first place, it is defensive because it serves to intimidate; a better reason is, that claws and teeth are the tools with which animals must get their living; and that the general system of one creature eating another is a benevolent one, needs little proof; there must be death, and what can be wiser than to make death subservient to life. As for a state of nature, the phrase, as applied to man, is stark naked nonsense. Savage man is a degenerated animal. My own belief is, that the present human race is not much more than six thousand years old, according to the concurrent testimony of all rational history. The Indian records are good for nothing. But add as many millenniums as you will, the question, ‘How came they here at first?’ still occurs. The infinite series is an infinite absurdity; and to suppose them growing like mushrooms or maggots in mud, is as bad. Man must have been made here, or placed here with
* J. R. to R. S., Jan. 9. 1806. |
| Ætat. 32. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 17 |
| 18 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 32. |
“God bless you!
“We are under considerable uneasiness respecting Coleridge, who left Malta early in September to return overland from Naples, was heard of from Trieste, and has not been heard of since. Our hope is, that, finding it impracticable to proceed, he may have returned, and be wintering at Naples or in Sicily.
| Ætat. 32. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 19 |
“Wordsworth was with me last week; he has of late been more employed in correcting his poems than in writing others; but one piece he has written, upon the ideal character of a soldier, than which I have never seen any thing more full of meaning and sound thought. The subject was suggested by Nelson’s most glorious death, though having no reference to it. He had some thoughts of sending it to the Courier, in which case you will easily recognise his hand.
“Having this occasion to write, I will venture to make one request. My friend Duppa is about to publish a Life of Michael Angelo;—the book will be a good book, for no man understands his art better. I wish, when it comes in course of trial, you would save it from Judge Jeffrey, or intercede with him for as favourable a report as it may be found to deserve. Duppa deserves well of the public, because he has, at a very considerable loss, published those magnificent heads from Raffaelle and Michael Angelo, and is publishing this present work without any view whatever to profit; indeed, he does not print copies enough to pay his expenses.
“Mrs. Southey
and her sister join me in remembrance to
Mrs. Scott. I know not whether I shall
ever again see the Tweed and the Yarrow, yet should be sorry to think I should
not. Your scenery has left upon me a strong impression,—more so for the
delightful associations which you and your country poets have inseparably
connected with it. I am going in the autumn, if Bonaparte will let me, to streams as classical and as
lovely—the Mondego of
| 20 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 32. |
“Remember me to my two fellow-travellers. Heaven keep them and me also from being the subject of any farther experiments upon the infinite compressibility of matter.
“If Hogg should publish his poems, I shall be very glad to do what little I can in getting subscribers for him.”
“You tell me to write as an egotist, and I am well
disposed so to do; for what else is it that gives private letters their
greatest value, but the information they bring us of those for whom we are
interested? I saw your marriage in the papers, and perhaps one reason why my
letter has remained so long unfinished in my desk is, a sort of fear lest I
should mention it after death might have dissolved it,—a sort of
superstitious feeling to which I am subject. I wish you—being a father
myself—as large a family as you can comfortably bring up, and if you are
not provided with a godfather upon the next occasion, I beg you to accept of
me, as an old and
| Ætat. 32. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 21 |
“I have for some time looked on with pleasure to the hope of seeing you next autumn, when, in all probability, if the situation of affairs abroad does not prevent me, I shall once more visit Portugal, not for health’s sake, but to collect the last materials for my history, and to visit those parts of the kingdom which I have not yet seen. In this case my way will lie through Devonshire, and I will stop a day or two at Crediton, and talk over old times.
“You inquire of the wreck of the Seward family,—a name as dear to my inmost heart as it can be to yours. No change has taken place among them for some years, as I understand from Duppa, who was my guest here the autumn before last, and with whom I have an occasional correspondence.
“I passed through Oxford two years ago, and walked through the town at four o’clock in the morning; the place never before appeared to me half so beautiful. I looked up at my own windows, and, as you may well suppose, felt as most people do when they think of what changes time brings about.
“If you have seen or should see the Annual Review, you may like to know that I have
borne a great part in it thus far, and I may refer you for the state of my
opinions to the Reviewals of the Periodical Accounts of the Baptist Mission, vol. i., of
| 22 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 32. |
“In other respects time has not much altered me. I am as thin as ever, and to the full as noisy: making a noise in any way whatever is an animal pleasure with me, and the louder it is the better. Do you remember the round hole at the top of the staircase, opposite your door?*
“Coleridge is daily expected to return from Malta, where he has been now two years for his health. I inhabit the same house with his wife and children,—perhaps the very finest single spot in England. We overlook Keswick Lake, have the Lake of Bassen-
* See p. 87. |
| Ætat. 32. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 23 |
“My dislike was not to schoolmasters, but to the rod, which I dare warrant you do not make much use of. Here is a long letter, and you have in it as many great I’s as your heart can wish. It will give me much pleasure to hear again from you, and to know that your family is increased. If I cannot be godfather now, let me put in a claim in time for the next occasion; but I hope you will write to tell me that three things have been promised and vowed in my name by proxy. No man can more safely talk of defying the world, the flesh, and the devil. With the world my pursuits are little akin; the flesh and I quarrelled long ago, and I have been nothing but skin and bone ever since; and as for the devil, I have made more ballads in his abuse than anybody before me.
“God bless you, Lightfoot!
“. . . . . It seems to me that the Grenvilles
| 24 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 32. |
“But quoad Robert Southey, things are different. I have a chance of getting an appointment at Lisbon (this, of course, is said to yourself only); either the Secretaryship of Legation, or the Consulship,—whichever falls vacant first,—has been asked for me, and Lord Holland has promised to back the application. . . . . I shall follow my own plans,—relying upon nobody but myself, and shall go to Lisbon in the autumn: if Fortune finds me there, so much the better, but she shall never catch me on the wild goose chase after her.
“I want Tom to
be an admiral, that when he is fourscore he may be killed in a great victory
and get a monument in St. Paul’s; for this reason, I have some sort of
notion that one day or other I may have one
| Ætat. 32. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 25 |
“A world of events have taken place since last I wrote,—indeed so as almost to change the world here. Pitt is dead. Fox and the Grenvilles in place, Wynn Under Secretary of State in the Home Office. I have reason to expect something; of the two appointments at Lisbon which would suit me, whichever falls vacant first is asked for me; both are in Fox’s gift, and Lord as well as Lady Holland speak for me. It is likely that one or other will be vacated ere long, and if I should not succeed, then Wynn will look elsewhere. Something or other will certainly turn up ere it be very long. I hope also something may some way or other be done for you; you shall lose nothing for want of application on my part.
“St. Vincent
supersedes Cornwallis in the Channel
fleet: Sir Samuel was made admiral in the
last list of promotions. As for peace or war, one knows not how to speculate.
If I were to guess anything, it
| 26 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 32. |
“As several of my last letters have been directed to St. Kitts, I conclude that by this time one or other may have reached you. Yours is good news so far as relates to your health, and to the probability of going to Halifax,—better summer quarters than the Islands. If you should go there, such American books as you may fall in with will be curiosities in England. The New York publications I conclude travel so far north; reviews and magazines, novels or poetry,—anything of real American growth, I shall be glad to have. Keep a minute journal there, and let nothing escape you. . . . .
“Did I tell you that I have promised to supply
| Ætat. 32. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 27 |
“No news yet of Coleridge: we are seriously uneasy about him: it is above two months since he ought to have been home: our hope is, that finding the continent overrun by the French, he may have returned to Malta. Edith’s love.
“God bless you, Tom!
“Nicholson, I see, sets up a new
review. Carlisle ought to get you well
taken care of there. Need you be told the history of all reviews? If a book
| 28 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 32. |
“For politics. As far as the public is concerned, God be praised! How far I may be concerned, remains to be seen. My habits are now so rooted, that everything not connected with my own immediate pursuit seems of secondary consequence, and as far as relates to myself, hardly worth a hope or fear. So far as anything can be given me which will facilitate that pursuit, I greatly desire it, and have good reason to expect the best. But nothing that can happen will in any way affect my plan of operations for the present year. I go to London in a month’s time, I go to Lisbon in the autumn, and in the interim must work like a negro. By the by, cannot you give me a letter to Bartolozzi? he will like to see an Englishman who can talk to him of the persons with whom he was acquainted in England.
“I am reading an Italian History of Heresies in four folios, by a certain Domenico Bernino. If there be one thing in the world which delights me more than another, it is ecclesiastical history. This book of Bernino’s is a very useful one for a man who knows something of the subject, and is aware how much is to be believed, and how much is not.
| Ætat. 32. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 29 |
“My reviewing is this day finished for ever and ever, amen. Our fathers who are in the Row will, I daresay, wish me to continue at the employment, but I am weary of it. Seven years have I been, like Sir Bevis, preying upon ‘rats and mice, and such small deer,’ and for the future will fly at better game. It is best to choose my own subjects.
“You mentioned once to me certain prophetical drawings by a boy. Did you see them, or can you give me any particulars concerning them? for I find them connected with Joanna Southcote, of whose prophecies I have about a dozen pamphlets, and about whom Don Manuel is going to write a letter. I like our friend Huntingdon’s Bank of Faith so well on a cooler perusal, that I shall look for two other of his works at the shop of his great friend, Baker, in Oxford Street. That man is a feature in the age, and a great man in his way. People who are curious to see extraordinary men, and go looking after philosophers and authors only, are something like the good people in genteel life, who pay nobody knows what for a cod’s head, and don’t know the luxury of eating sprats. Oh! Wordsworth sent me a man the other day, who was worth seeing; he looked like a first assassin in Macbeth as to his costume, but he was a rare man. He had been a lieutenant in the navy, was scholar enough to quote Virgil aptly, had turned Quaker or semi-Quaker, and was now a dealer in wool somewhere about twenty miles off. He had seen much and thought much, his head was well stored, and his heart in the right place.
| 30 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 32. |
“It is five or six and twenty years since he was at Lisbon, and he gave me as vivid a description of the Belem Convent, as if the impression in his memory was not half a day old. Edridge’s acquaintance, Thomas Wilkinson, came with him. They had both been visiting an old man of a hundred in the Vale of Lorton, and it was a fine thing to hear this Robert Foster describe him. God bless you!
“The intelligence* in your letter has given me more pleasure than I have often felt. In spite of modern philosophy, I do not believe that the first commandment is an obsolete statute yet, and I am very sure that man is a better being, as well as a happier one, for being a husband and a father. May God bless you in both relations of life!
“I shall be in London about the time when you are leaving it. . . . . It is long since we have met, and I shall be sorry to lose one of those opportunities of which life does not allow very many. It will be nearly two years since you were here, and if our after meetings are to be at such long intervals,
Of the birth of a child. |
| Ætat. 32. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 31 |
“God bless you!
|
* A Westminster schoolfellow, from whom he had received much brutal treatment. |
| 32 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 32. |
“I am writing, Grosvenor, as you know, the History of Portugal,—a country of which I
probably know more than any foreigner, and as much as any native. Now has it
come athwart me, this after-noon, how much more accurate, and perhaps, a
thousand years hence, more valuable, a book it would be, were I to write the
History of Wine Street below the Pump, the street wherein I was born, recording
the revolutions of every house during twenty years. It almost startles me to
see how the events of private life, within my own knowledge, et quorum pars maxima, etc., equal or
outdo novel and comedy; and the conclusion to each tale—the mors omnibus est communis,—makes me more serious
than the sight of my own grey hairs in the glass; for the hoar frosts,
Grosvenor, are begun with me. Oh,
there would be matter for moralising in such a history, beyond all that history
offers. The very title is a romance. You, in London, need to be told that Wine
Street is a street in Bristol, and that there is a pump in it, and that by the
title I would mean to express, that the historian does not extend his subject
to that larger division of the street which lies above the pump. You, I say,
need all these explanations, and yet, when I first went to school, I never
thought of Wine Street and of that pump without tears, and such a sorrow at
heart, as by Heaven! no child of mine shall ever suffer while I am living to
prevent
| Ætat. 32. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 33 |
“Let me begin with the church at the corner. I remember the old church: a row of little shops were built before it, above which its windows received light; and on the leads which roofed them, crowds used to stand at the chairing of members, as they did to my remembrance when peace was proclaimed after the American war. I was christened in that old church, and at this moment vividly remember our pew under the organ, of which I certainly have not thought these fifteen years before. —— was then the rector, a humdrum somnificator, who, God rest his soul for it! made my poor mother stay at home Sunday evenings, because she could not keep awake after dinner to hear him. A
* Baron Trenck, in his account of his long and wretched imprisonment, says, “I had lived long and much in the world; vacuity of thought, therefore, I was little troubled with.” May not this give some clue to the cause why solitary confinement makes some insane and does not affect others? I have read somewhere of a man who said, if his cell had been round he must have gone mad, but there was a comer for the eye to rest upon.—Ed. |
| 34 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 32. |
“There were quarter-boys to this old church clock, as at St. Dunstan, and I have many a time
* These are still held by one person; but as the population of the latter is stated at fifty-five only in the Clergy List, and the income of the two under 400l., it would seem to be an unobjectionable union.—Ed. |
| Ætat. 32. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 35 |
“The church was demolished, and sad things were said
of the indecencies that occurred in removing the coffins for the new foundation
to be laid. We had no interest in this, for our vault was at Ashton. I sent you
once, years ago, a drawing of this church. It is my only freehold—all the
land I possess in the world—and is now full—no matter! I never had
any feeling about a family grave till my mother was buried in London, and that
gave me more pain than was either reasonable or right. My little girl lies with
my dear good friend Mrs. Danvers. I, myself, shall lie
where I fall; and it will be all one in the next world. Once more to Christ
Church. I was present in the heart of a crowd when the foundation stone was
laid, and read the plates wherein posterity will find engraved the name of
Robert Southey—for my father
was churchwarden—by the same token that that year he gave me a penny to
go to the fair instead of a shilling as
| 36 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 32. |
“My last week has been somewnat desultorily employed in going through Beausobre’s History of Manicheism, and in sketching the life of D. Luisa de Carvajal, an extraordinary woman of high rank, who came over to London in James the First’s time, to make proselytes to the Catholic religion, under the protection of the Spanish ambassador. It is a very curious story, and ought to be related in the history of that wretched king, who beheaded Raleigh to please the Spaniards.
“Beausobre’s book is one of the most valuable that I have
ever seen; it is a complete Thesaurus of early opinions, philosophical and
theological. It is not the least remarkable circumstance of the Catholic
religion, that it has silently imbibed the most absurd parts of most of the
heresies which it opposed and persecuted. I do not conceive Manes to have been a fanatic: there is too much
philosophy in the whole of his system,
| Ætat. 32. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 37 |
“If there be any one thing in which the world has decidedly degenerated, it is in the breed of Heresiarchs: they were really great men in former times, devoting great knowledge and powerful talents to great purposes. In our days they are either arrant madmen or half rogues. . . . . I am about to be the St. Epiphanius of Richard Brothers and Joanna Southcote; what say you to paying these worthies a visit some morning? the former is sure to be at home, and we might get his opinion of Joanna. I know some of his witnesses, and could enter into the depths of his system with him. As for Joanna, though tolerably well versed in the history of human credulity, I have never seen anything so disgraceful to common sense as her precious publications. . . . .
“Metaphysicians have become less mischievous, but
| 38 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 32. |
“God bless you!
“My adventures here are such as you might guess,—a mere repetition of visits and dinners. . . . . Yesterday a sumptuous dinner with Joseph Gurney. The two impossibilities for a stranger at Norwich are, to find his way about the city, and to know the names of the Gurneys. They talked about Clarkson, and seemed to fear his book would not sell as he expected it to do; not more than twenty subscribers having been procured among the Quakers there. . . . . To-morrow I sup at Newmarket on my way to London, and sleep in the coach; and there you have my whole history thus far.
“King Arthur
has, I see, been playing his usual editorial tricks with me, and has lopt off a
defence of Bruce against Pinkerton, because he did not like to have Mr.
Pinkerton contradicted; and some remarks upon the infamous
blunders of the printer, because he did not choose to insert anything that was
not agree-
| Ætat. 32. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 39 |
“I have got a clue to the state of the Catholics here, of which some use may be made by D. Manuel. —— is the head of the sect here, and loves to talk about them, and from him I have borrowed a sort of Catholic almanac, which explains their present state. I shall purchase one in London, and turn it to good account. He tells me the Jesuits exist in England as a separate body, and have even a chapel in Norwich; but how they exist, and whence their funds are derived, is a secret to himself. This is a highly curious fact, and to me, particularly, a very interesting one: I shall make further inquiry. St. Winifred has lately worked a miracle at her Well, and healed a paralytic woman. These Catholics want only a little more success to be just as impudent as they were three centuries ago. . . . .
“God bless you, my dear Edith!
From Norwich my father went on to London, where, however, he remained only a very short time, and then returned home through Herefordshire, where he had some affairs to look after concerning his uncle Mr. Hills living in that county.
A letter to Mr. Bedford on his return, commences with one of those quaint fancies with which he delighted to amuse himself.
| 40 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 32. |
“A discovery of the original language propounded to the consideration of the worshipful Master Bedford.
“There was in old times a King of Egypt, who did make a full politic experiment touching this question, as is discoursed of by sundry antique authors. Howbeit to me it seemeth that it falleth short of that clear and manifest truth, which should be the butt of our inquiry. Now, methinks, if it could be shown what is the very language which dame Nature, the common mother of all, hath implanted in animals whom we, foolishly misjudging, do term dumb, that were, indeed, a hit palpable and of notable import. To this effect I have noted what that silly bird, called of the Latins Anser, doth utter in time of affright; for it then thinketh of the water, inasmuch as in the water it findeth its safety; and while its thoughts be upon the water so greatly desired of it, it crieth qua—a-qua—a-qua; wherefore it is to be inferred that aqua is the very natural word for water, and the Latin, therefore, the primitive, natural, and original tongue.
“Etymology is of more value when applied to the
elements of language, and it must be acknowledged that I have here hit upon an
elementary word. One of those critics, I forget which, who thought proper to
review Thalaba without
taking the trouble to understand the story, noticed, as one of the absurdities
of the book, that Thalaba was enabled to
read some unintelligible letters on a ring, by others equally un-
| Ætat. 32. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 41 |
“I beseech you to come to me this season: we shall see more of each other in one week when once housed together, than during a seven years’ intercourse in London. And if you do not come this year, the opportunity may be gone for ever, and you will never see this country so well nor so cheerfully after I have left it. If he were here, would be the thought to damp enjoyment, you would come as a mere laker, and pay a guide for telling you what to admire. When I go abroad it will be to remain there for a considerable time, and you and I are now old enough to feel the proportion which a few years bear to the not very many that constitute the utmost length of life.
“This feeling is the stronger upon me just now, as in
arranging my letters I have seen those of three men now all in their graves,
each of whom produced no little effect upon my character and after
life,—Allen, Lovell, and poor Edmund Seward,—whom I never remember without the deepest
love and veneration. Come you to Keswick, Bedford, and make
| 42 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 32. |
“I wish you would get the Annual Reviews, because without them my operas are very incomplete: my share there is very considerable, and you would see in many of the articles more of the tone and temper of my mind than you can otherwise get at. . . . . You must be my biographer if I go first. . . . . Documents you shall have in plenty, if, indeed, you need more than our correspondence already supplies. This is a subject on which we will talk some evening when the sun is going down, and has tuned us to it. If the harp of Memnon had played in the evening instead of at the sunrise, it would have been a sweet emblem of that state of mind to which I now refer, and which, indeed, I am at this minute enjoying. But it is supper time.
“God bless you, Grosvenor!”
“There are two poets who must come into our series,
and I do not remember their names in your list: Sir
John Moore, of whom the only poem which I have ever seen should be given.
It is addressed to a lady, he himself being in a consumption. If you do not
remember it, Wynn will, and I think can help you to it, for it is very
beautiful.
| Ætat. 32. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 43 |
“Our last month has been so unusually fine, that the
farmers want rain. July will probably give them enough. September and October
are the safest months to come down in; though, if you consider gooseberry-pie
as partaking of the nature of the summum
bonum (to speak modestly of it), about a fortnight hence
will be the happiest time you can choose. If Tom and Harry should be
with me in time for the feat, I have thoughts of challenging all England at a
match at gooseberry-pie: barring Jack the
Giganticide’s leathern bag, we are sure of the victory.
Thank God, Tom has escaped the yellow fever! and if ever
he lives to be an admiral, Grosvenor,—as by God’s blessing he may,—
| 44 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 32. |
“I have been inserting occasional rhymes in Kehama, and have in this way altered and amended about six hundred lines. When what is already written shall be got through in this manner, I shall think the poem in a way of completion: indeed, it will most likely supply my ways and means for the next winter, instead of reviewing. Elmsley advised me to go on with it; and the truth is, that my own likings and dislikings to it have been so equally divided, that I stood in need of somebody’s encouragement to settle the balance. It gains by rhyme, which is to passages of no inherent merit what rouge and candle-light are to ordinary faces. Merely ornamental parts, also, are aided by it, as foil sets off paste. But where there is either passion or power, the plainer and more straightforward the language can be made the better. Now, you will suppose that upon this system I am writing Kehama. My proceedings are not quite so systematical; but what, with revising and re-revising over and over again, they will amount to something like it at last.
“God bless you.
| Ætat. 32. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 45 |
“I thought it so likely you would hear from Wynn the particulars concerning John Southey’s will*, that I felt no inclination to repeat the story to you, which would not have been the case had the old man done as he ought to have done. Good part of his property, consisting of a newly purchased estate, is given to a very distant relative of his mother’s family, and, of course, gone for ever. About 2000l. in legacies: the rest falls to his brother, as sole executor and residuary legatee. Neither my own name nor either of my brothers’ is mentioned. Thomas Southey apprised me of this the day of the old man’s death. With him I am on good terms,—that is, if we were in the same town, we should dine together, for the sake of relationship, about once a-month; and if any thing were to happen to me, of any kind of family importance,—such as the birth of a child,—I should write a letter to him, beginning ‘Dear Uncle.’ He invites me to the ‘Cottage,’ and I shall go there on my way to Lisbon. I think it likely that he will leave his property rather to Tom than to me, for the name’s sake, but not likely that he will leave it out of the family. He is about three or four-and-fifty, a man of no education, nor indeed of any thing else. And so
* An uncle of my father’s, a wealthy solicitor of Taunton. See vol. i. p. 6. |
| 46 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 32. |
“. . . . . Last night I began the Preface*—huzza! And now, Grosvenor, let me tell you what I have to do. I am writing, 1. The History of Portugal; 2. The Chronicle of the Cid; 3. The Curse of Kehama; 4. Espriella’s Letters. Look you, all these I am writing. The second and third of these must get into the press, and out of it before this time twelvemonths, or else I shall be like the Civil List. By way of interlude comes in this Preface. Don’t swear, and bid me do one thing at a time. I tell you I can’t afford to do one thing at a time—no, nor two neither; and it is only by doing many things that I contrive to do so much: for I cannot work long together at any thing without hurting myself; and so I do every thing by heats; then, by the time I am tired of one, my inclination for another is come round.
“Dr. Southey is arrived here. He puts his degree in his pocket, summers here, and will winter in London, to attend at an hospital. About this, of course, I shall apply to Carlisle; and, if it should so
* To the “Specimens of English Poets.” |
| Ætat. 32. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 47 |
The following lines, written immediately after hearing of the event mentioned in the commencement of this letter, and preserved accidentally by a friend to whom he had sent them, may be appropriately inserted here.
|
“So thou art gone at last, old John,
And hast left all from me:
God give thee rest among the blest,—
I lay no blame to thee.
|
|
“Nor marvel I, for though one blood
Through both our veins was flowing,
Full well I know, old man, no love
From thee to me was owing.
|
|
“Thou hadst no anxious hopes for me,
In the winning years of infancy,
No joy in my upgrowing;
And when from the world’s beaten way
I turned ’mid rugged paths astray,
No fears where I was going.
|
|
“It touched thee not if envy’s voice
Was busy with my name;
Nor did it make thy heart rejoice
To hear of my fair fame.
|
|
“Old man, thou liest upon thy bier,
And none for thee will shed a tear!
They’ll give thee a stately funeral,
With coach and hearse, and plume and pall;
But they who follow will grieve no more
Than the mutes who pace with their staves before.
With a light heart and a cheerful face
Will they put mourning on,
And bespeak thee a marble monument.
And think nothing more of Old
John.
|
| 48 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 32. |
|
“An enviable death is his,
Who, leaving none to deplore him,
Hath yet a joy in his passing hour,
Because all he loved have died before him.
The monk, too, hath a joyful end,
And well may welcome death like a friend,
When the crucifix close to his heart is press’d,
And he piously crosses his arms on his breast,
And the brethren stand round him and sing him to rest,
And tell him, as sure he believes, that anon,
Receiving his crown, he shall sit on his throne,
And sing in the choir of the blest.
|
|
“But a hopeless sorrow it strikes to the heart,
To think how men like thee depart.—
Unloving and joyless was thy life,
Unlamented was thine end;
And neither in this world nor the next
Hadst thou a single friend:
None to weep for thee on earth—
None to greet thee in heaven’s hall;
Father and mother, sister and brother—
Thy heart had been shut to them all.
|
|
“Alas, old man, that this should be!
One brother had raised up seed to thee;
And hadst thou, in their hour of need,
Cherished that dead brother’s seed,
Thrown wide thy doors, and called them in,
How happy thine old age had been!
Thou wert a barren tree, around whose trunk,
Needing support, our tendrils should have clung;
Then had thy sapless boughs
With buds of hope and genial fruit been hang;
Yea, with undying flowers,
And wreaths for ever young.”
|
“For many days I have looked for a letter from
you,—the three lines announcing your arrival in England being all which
have yet reached me. Yes-
| Ætat. 32. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 49 |
“Our landlord,
who lives in the house adjoining us, has a boat, which is as much at our
service as if it were our own;—of this we have voted you
commander-in-chief whenever you shall arrive. The lake is about four miles in
length, and something between one and two in breadth. However tired you may be
of the salt water, I do not think you will have the same objection to fresh
when you see this beautiful basin, clear as crystal, and shut in by mountains
on
| 50 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 32. |
“One main advantage which this country possesses over
Wales is, that there are no long tracks of desolation to cross between one
beautiful spot and another. We are sixteen miles only from Winandermere, and
three other lakes are on the way to it. Sixteen only from Wastwater, as many
from Ulswater, nine from Buttermere and Crummock. Lloyd expects you will give him a few days—a few they
must be; for though I shall be with you, we will not spare you long from
| Ætat. 32. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 51 |
“Madoc has not made my fortune. By the state of my account in May last,—that is, twelve months after its publication,—there was a balance due to me (on the plan of dividing the profits) of 3l. 19s 1d. About 180 then remained to be sold, each of which will give me 5s.; but the sale will be rather slower than distillation through a filtering stone. We mean to print a small edition in two vols, without delay, and without alterations, that the quarto may not lose its value.
“Of the many reviewings of this
poem I have only seen the Edinburgh, Monthly, and Annual. I sent a copy to Mr.
Fox, and Lady Holland told
me it was the rule at St. Ann’s Hill to read aloud till eleven, and then
retire; but that when they were reading Madoc they often read till the clock struck
twelve. In short, I have had as much praise as heart could desire, but not
quite so much of the more solid kind of remuneration. . . . . I am preparing
for the press the Chronicle of the
| 52 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 32. |
“You suggest to me three Epic subjects, all of them striking, but each liable to the same objection,—that no entire and worthy interest can be attached to the conquering party in either. 1st. William of Normandy is less a hero than Harold. The true light in which that part of our history should be regarded was shown me by William Taylor. The country was not thoroughly converted. Harold favoured the Pagans, and the Normans were helped by the priests. 2dly. Alaric is the chief personage of a French poem by Scudery, which is notoriously worthless. The capture of Rome is in itself an event so striking that it almost palsies one’s feelings; yet nothing resulted which could give a worthy purport to the poem. In this point Theodoric is a better hero: the indispensable requisite, however, in a subject for me is, that the end—the ultimate end—must be worthy of the means. 3dly. The expulsion of the Moriscoes. This is a dreadful history, which I will never torture myself by reading a second time. Besides I am convinced, in opposition to the common opinion, that the Spaniards did wisely in the act of expelling them; tho’ most wickedly in the way of expelling them. One word more about literature, and then to other matters. How goes on the Fall of Cambria, and what are you about?
“My little girl
is now two years and a quarter old—a delightful playfellow, of whom I am
somewhat
| Ætat. 32. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 53 |
“. . . . . In spite of the slow sale of Madoc, I cannot but think that it may answer as well for the year’s ways and means to finish the ‘Curse of Kehama,’ and sell the first edition, as to spend the time in criticising other people’s books. . . . .
“God bless you!
“You will be glad to hear that my child proves to be of the more worthy gender.
“I would do a great deal to please poor Tobin (indeed, it is doing a good deal to let him inflict an argument upon me), but to write an epilogue is doing too much for anybody. Indeed, were I ever so well disposed to misemploy time, paper, and rhymes, it would be as much out of my reach as the moon is; and I bless my stars for the incapacity, believing that a man who can do such things well cannot do anything better.
| 54 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 32. |
“I am also thoroughly busy. Summer is my holyday season, in which I lay in a store of exercise to serve me for the winter, and leave myself as it were lying fallow to the influences of heaven. I am now very hard at Palmerin,—so troublesome a business, that a look before the leap would have prevented the leap altogether. I expected it would only be needful to alter the Propria quæ maribus to their original orthography, and restore the costume where the old translators had omitted it, as being to them foreign or obsolete; but they have so mangled, mutilated, and massacred the manners,—vulgarised, impoverished, and embeggared the language,—so lopped, cropped, and docked the ornaments, that I was fain to set my shoulder stiffly to the wheel, and retranslate about the one-half. As this will not produce me one penny more than if I had reprinted it with all its imperfections on its head, the good conscience with which it is done reconciles me to the loss of time; and I have, moreover, such a true love of romance that the labour is not irksome, tho’ it is hard. To correct a sheet—sixteen pages of the square-sized black letter—is a day’s work; that is, from breakfast till dinner, allowing an hour’s walk, and from tea till supper; and the whole is about sixty sheets.
“Secondly, Espriella is regulated by the printer, who seems as little disposed to hurry me as I am to hurry him.
“Thirdly, the reviewing is come round, of which, in
the shape of Missionaries, Catholic Miracles, Bible and Religious Societies,
Clarkson, and little Moore (not forgetting Captain Burney), I have more to do
| Ætat. 32. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 55 |
“Fourthly, I have done half the Cid, and, whenever I seem sufficiently ahead of other employment, to lie-to for awhile, this is what I go to.
“Lastly, for the Athenæum,—alias Foolæum, for I abominate such titles,—I am making some preparations, meaning, among other things, to print there certain collections of unemployed notes and memoranda, under the title of Omniana. By God’s blessing I shall have done all this by the end of the winter, and come to town early in the spring, to inspect certain books for the Cid at the Museum and at Holland House. God bless you!
I am left alone to my winter occupations, and truly they are quite sufficient to employ me. Two months, however, if no unlucky interruption prevent, will be sufficient to clear all off, and send Espriella and Palmerin into the world. I have an additional and weighty motive for despatch. The times being South American mad, my account of Brazil, instead
* Artaxerxes, surnamed Longimanus—Longman. |
| Ætat. 32. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 57 |
“Concerning these papers, of whose contents I was till last week ignorant, my uncle has written to me, urging me to make all possible speed with this part of the book, and desiring me to offer the information to Government. I enclosed the letter to Wynn, and it may be he will advise me to come up to London upon this business. I hope not. I should rather wash my hands of all other business first, and then can certainly, in half a year, accomplish a large volume, for on this subject there is no collateral information to hunt for. A very few books contain all the printed history, and there will be more difficulty in planning the work than in executing it. There will be business of some consequence in the way of map-making, which will delight Arrowsmith. My uncle has very valuable materials for a map of Brazil.
“This is of so much consequence that it will perhaps
be advisable to let the Palmerin sleep, and so have a month’s time. . . . .
Wynn’s letter will instruct
| 56 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 32. |
“There is nothing in the world like resolute, straightforward honesty; it is sure to conquer in the long run. I have been reading Quaker history, which is worth reading because it proves this, and proves also that institutions can completely new model our nature; for, if the instinct of self-defence be subdued, nothing else is so powerful.
“Fox’s death is a loss to me, who had a promise from him, but I will not affect to think it a loss to the country: he lived a year too long. England cannot fall yet, blessed be God! because its inhabitants are Englishmen; but, if any thing could destroy a country, it would be the incurable folly of such governors.
“Have you seen the Memoirs of Colonel Hutchinson? If not, by all means read it: it is the history of a right Englishman; and the sketch of English history which it contains from the time of the Reformation is so admirable, that it ought to make even Scotchmen ashamed to mention the name of Hume. I have seldom been so deeply interested by any book as this. . . . .
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