“I have seen a sight, more dreamy and wonderful, than
any scenery that fancy ever yet devised for Faeryland. We had walked down to
the lake side; it was a delightful day, the sun shining, and a few white clouds
hanging motionless in the sky. The opposite shore of Derwentwater consists of
one long mountain, which suddenly terminates in an arch, thus [figure of an
arc], and through that opening you see a long valley between mountains, and
bounded by mountain beyond mountain; to the right of the arch the heights are
more varied and of greater elevation. Now, as there was not a breath of air
stirring, the surface of the lake was so perfectly still, that it became one
great mirror, and all its waters disappeared; the whole line of shore was
represented as vividly and steadily as it existed in its actual being—the
arch, the vale within, the single houses far within the vale, the smoke from
their chimneys, the farthest hills, and the shadow and substance joined at
their bases so indivisibly, that you could make no separation even in your
judgment. As I stood on the shore, heaven and the clouds seemed
| Ætat. 29. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 259 |
“I am treating with my bookseller to publish a
supplementary or companion work to Ellis’s Specimens, beginning where he leaves off, and coming down to the
present time, exclusive of the living poets, so that my work, with his, should
contain a brief notice of all the English poets, good, bad, and indifferent,
with specimens of each, except the dramatic writers. If this take place, it
will cost me a journey to London, and a month’s hard work there; the main
part can be done here. You know Ellis’s book, of
course, and if you do not Nicholl can
show it you (who, by the by, will go to the devil for charging half-a-guinea a
volume for it, unless he can send Ellis instead). Now, if
I should make this work, of which there is little doubt, you may, if so
disposed, give me an opportunity of acknowledging
| 260 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 29. |
“With what can Isaac Reid have filled his one-and- twenty volumes? Comments upon Shakspeare seem to keep pace with the National Debt, and will at last become equally insufferable and out of fashion; yet I should like to see his book, and would buy it if I could. There must be a mass of English learning heaped together, and his Biog. Dramatica is so good a work that I do not think old age can have made him make a bad one; besides, this must have been the work or amusement of his life. . . . .
“I live almost as recluse a life as my neighbour, the
Bassenthwaite Toad, whose history you have seen in the newspapers; only if he
finds it dull I do not, for I have books, and port wine, and a view from my
window. I feel as much pleasure in having finished my reviewing, as ever I did
at school when my Bible exercise was done; and what sort of pleasure that was
you may judge, by being told that one of the worst dreams that ever comes
athwart my brain is, that I have those Latin verses to make. I very often have
this dream, and it usually ends in a resolution to be my own master, and not
make verses, and not stay any longer at school, because I am too old. It is odd
that school never comes pleasantly in
| Ætat. 29. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 261 |
“God bless you!
