“Since I was favoured with your letter, my dear Miss Seward, I have brought the unpleasant transactions to which my last letter alluded pretty near to a conclusion, much more fortunate than I had ventured to hope. Of my brother’s creditors, those connected with him by blood or friendship, showed all the kindness which those ties are in Scotland peculiarly calculated to produce; and what is here much more uncommon, those who had no personal connexion with him or his family, showed a liberality which would not have misbecome the generosity of the English. Upon the whole, his affairs are
“See Miss Seward’s Letters, vol. vi. p. 364. |
124 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
“I am very happy—although a little jealous
withal—that you are to have the satisfaction of Southey’s personal acquaintance. I am certain you will
like the Epic bard exceedingly. Although he does not deign to enter into the
mere trifling intercourse of society, yet when a sympathetic spirit calls him
forth, no man talks with more animation on literary topics; and perhaps no man
in England has read and studied so much with the same powers of making use of
the information which he is so indefatigable in acquiring. I despair of
reconciling you to my little friend Jeffrey, although I think I could trust to his making some
impression on your prepossession, were you to converse with him. I think
Southey does himself injustice in supposing the Edinburgh Review, or any other,
could have sunk Madoc, even
for a time. But the size and price of the work, joined to the frivolity of an
age which must be treated as nurses humour children, are sufficient reasons why
a poem, on so chaste a model, should not have taken immediately. We know the
similar fate of Milton’s immortal work, in the witty
age of Charles II., at a time when poetry
was much more fashionable than at present. As to the division of the profits, I
only think that Southey does not understand the gentlemen
of the trade, emphatically so called, as well as I do.
Without any greater degree of fourberie than they conceive the long practice of their
brethren has rendered matter of prescriptive right, they contrive to clip the
author’s proportion of profits down to a mere trifle. It is the tale of
the fox that went a hunting with the lion, upon con-
AUGUST, 1807. | 125 |
—‘his name is up, and may go From Toledo to Madrid.’ |
126 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
“Pray, don’t trust Southey too long with Mr White. He is even more determined in his admiration of old ruins than I am. You see I am glad to pick a hole in his jacket, being more jealous of his personal favour in Miss Seward’s eyes than of his poetical reputation.
“I quite agree with you about the plan of young Betty’s education, and am no great idolater of the learned languages, excepting for what they contain. We spend in youth that time in admiring the wards of the key, which we should employ in opening the cabinet and examining its treasures. A prudent and accomplished friend, who would make instruction acceptable to him for the sake of the amusement it conveys, would be worth an hundred schools. How can so wonderfully premature a genius, accustomed to excite interest in thousands, be made a member of a class with other boys!”