“Is it a mark of strength or of weakness, of maturity
or of incipient decay, that it is more delightful to me to compose history than
poetry? not, perhaps, that I feel more pleasure in the act of composition, but
that I go to it with more complacency as to an employment which suits my
temperament. I am loth to ascribe this lack of inclination to any deficiency of
power, and certainly am not conscious of any; still I have an ominous feeling
that there are poets enough in the world without me, and that my best chance of
being remembered will be as an historian. A proof sheet of Kehama, or a second sight scene in Pelayo, disperses this
cloud; such, however, is my habitual feeling. It did not use to be the case in
those days when I thought of nothing but poetry, and lived, as it were, in an
atmosphere of nitrous
| 284 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 36. |
“The first volume of my History of Brazil makes its appearance in a few days; perhaps at this time it may have been published. This is the commencement of a long series; the History of Portugal is to follow, then that of Portuguese Asia, then a supplementary volume concerning the African possessions. Lastly, if I have life, health, and eye-sight permitted me, the history of the Monastic Orders; sufficient employment for a life, which I should think well employed in completing them. . . . .
“God bless you!
