“I will review the books as soon as they arrive, and as well as I can, but I cannot do them better for an Edinburgh Review than for an Annual one. There are many articles which are valued precisely in proportion to the time and labour bestowed upon them, and which therefore can be accurately fixed accordingly; these articles are not of that description. The worst reviewals you have ever had from me have cost me more time and labour than the best. When the subject is good, and I am acquainted with it, the pen flows freely; otherwise it is tilling an ungrateful soil. I can promise you a better review of Clavigero than any other person could furnish; upon the other books, I will do my best. All reviewals, however, which are not seasoned either with
* Ecclesiastes, ix, 10. |
| 98 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 33. |
“Some time ago, the Bishop of Llandaff observed to me, that few things were more wanted than a regular collection of translations of the ancient historians, comprising the whole of them in their chronological order. It is worth thinking of; and if you should think of it, modern copyright need not stand in your way. Littlebury’s Herodotus is better than Beloe’s, and Gordon’s Tacitus far superior to Murphy’s. Such a collection, well annotated, &c., could not fail to sell, and might best be published volume by volume; if it were carried to the end of the Byzantine history, so much the better both for the public and the publishers. This is not a plan in which I could bear any part myself, but it is worth your consideration.
“. . . . .The Spanish Joinville, I fear, perished at Hafod. If, however, by good fortune, it should have been returned to you before the fire, have the goodness to enclose it in the next parcel. I wait the arrival of one, expected by every carrier, to make up a bundle for Dr. Aikin: the reason is this; one of the books which I sent for, implies by the title that I have been deceived in one of the Omniana articles, and I ordered the book for the sake of ascertaining the truth and correcting the error.
“Is there not a new edition of Whitehead’s Life of Wesley? If you will send me it,
and with it the
| Ætat. 33. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 99 |
“I hope you will accommodate matters with Jeffrey; for if there should be two Edinburgh Reviews, or if he should set up another under a new title, you would probably be the sufferer, even though yours should manifestly be the best,—such is the force of prejudice.”
