DEAR Resuscitate,—there comes to you by the vehicle
from Lad Lane this day a volume of German; what it is I cannot justly say, the
characters of those northern nations having been always singularly harsh and
unpleasant to me. It is a contribution of Dr.
Southey towards your wants, and you would have had it sooner but
for an odd accident. I wrote for it three days ago, and the Dr., as he thought,
sent it me. A book of like exterior he did send, but being disclosed, how far
unlike. It was the Well-bred
Scholar,—a book with which it seems the Dr. laudably fills up those
hours which he can steal from his medical avocations. Chesterfield, Blair,
Beattie, portions from “The Life of Savage,”
make up a prettyish system of morality and the Belles Lettres, which Mr. Mylne, a Schoolmaster, has properly
brought together, and calls the collection by the denomination above mentioned.
The Doctor had no sooner discovered his error than he despatched man and horse
to rectify the mistake, and with a pretty kind of ingenuous modesty in his note
seemeth to deny any knowledge of the Well-bred Scholar; false modesty surely and a blush misplaced; for,
what more pleasing than the consideration of professional austerity thus
relaxing, thus improving; but so, when a child I remember blushing, being
caught on my knees to my maker, or doing otherwise some pious and praiseworthy
action; now I rather love such things to be seen. Henry Crabb Robinson is out upon his circuit, and his books are
inaccessible without his leave and key. He is attending the Midland Circuit,—a
short term, but to him, as to many young Lawyers, a long vacation sufficiently
dreary. I thought I could do no better than transmit to him, not extracts, but
your very letter itself, than which I think I never read any thing more moving,
more pathetic, or more conducive to the purpose of persuasion. The Crab is a
sour Crab if it does not sweeten him. I think it would draw another third
volume of Dodsley out of me;
but you say you don’t want any English books?
1814 | COLERIDGE’S FRIEND MORGAN | 439 |