The Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey
Robert Southey to Walter Savage Lander, 9 March 1814
“Did you see my ode in the Courier, beginning,
‘Who calls for peace at this momentous hour?’ &c.:
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it grew out of the omitted portion of the Carmen Triumphale, wherein I could not say all I wished and wanted
to say, because a sort of official character attached to it. For five years I
have been preaching the policy, the duty, the necessity of declaring Bonaparte under the ban of human nature; and if
this had been done in 1808, when the Bayonne iniquity was fresh in the feelings
of the public, I believe that the Emperor of
Austria could never have given him his daughter in marriage; be that as it may, Spain
and Portugal would have joined us in the declaration; the terms of our alliance
would have been never to make peace with him; and France, knowing this, would,
ere this, have delivered herself from him. My present hope is that he will
require terms of peace to which the allies will not consent: a little success
is likely enough to inflate him; for he is equally incapable of bearing
prosperous or adverse fortunes. As for the Bourbons, I do not wish to see them
restored, unless there were no other ![]()
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means of effecting
his overthrow. Restorations are bad things, when the expulsion has taken place
from internal causes and not by foreign forces. They have been a detestable
race, and the adversity which they have undergone is not of that kind which
renovates the intellect, or calls into life the virtues which royalty has
stifled. I used to think that the Revolution would not have done its work, till
the Houses of Austria and Bourbon were both destroyed,—a consummation
which the history of both Houses has taught me devoutly to wish for. Did I ever
tell you that Hofer got himself arrested
under a false name and thrown into prison at Vienna, and that he was actually
turned out of this asylum by the Austrian government? If any member of that
government escapes the sword or the halter, there will be a lack of justice in
this world. The fact is one of the most shocking in human history, but a fact
it is, though it has not got abroad. Adair told it me.
“I shall rejoice to see your Idyllia. The printer is treading close on
my heels, and keeping me close to work with this poem. I shall probably send you two
sections more in a few days.
Sir Robert Adair (1763-1855)
English diplomat; he was Whig MP for Appleby (1799-1802) and Camelford (1802-12), a
friend and disciple of Charles James Fox, and ambassador to Constantinople, 1809-10. He was
ridiculed by Canning and Ellis in
The Rovers.
Francis II, emperor of Austria (1768-1835)
He succeeded Ludwig II as emperor of Hungary and Bohemia and took the title of emperor of
Austria in 1804; with his minister Meternich he dominated the Holy Alliance.
Andreas Hofer (1767-1810)
Tirolean innkeeper and patriot who led an unsuccessful rebellion against the forces of
Napoleon and was executed by firing squad.
Emperor Napoleon I (1769-1821)
Military leader, First Consul (1799), and Emperor of the French (1804), after his
abdication he was exiled to Elba (1814); after his defeat at Waterloo he was exiled to St.
Helena (1815).
The Courier. (1792-1842). A London evening newspaper; the original proprietor was James Perry; Daniel Stuart, Peter
Street, and William Mudford were editors; among the contributors were Samuel Taylor
Coleridge and John Galt.
