“Your guess about the Parallel Roads* has this in its favour, that if Glen Roy mean the king’s glen, the word Roy would not have been used before there was an intercourse between the Scotch and the French; they were never such friends with our Normans as to have taken it from them. In point of time, therefore, this would suit well. On the other hand, in that age chroniclers delighted as much in a good show as in a good battle, and Froissart would hardly have failed to describe a hunting party upon so grand a scale as that for which these roads were made. It appears to be impossible that they should have been made for any other purpose; and when our friends at Corpach procure a list of the names of places, and some Gael is found learned enough to translate them, this main fact I have no doubt will be established. There is some possibility that by this means, also, we may come near the age; not by the language (for I believe the Gaelic is not like the Welsh, in which the date of a composition may be
* “I read in Froissart (chap, lxi.) that the king of Scotland (Robert II.) was at that time absent from Edinburgh, being in the Highlands on a hunting party. The Parallel Roads in Glen Roy might be freshly made at that time; the Scottish kings having had recent opportunity of enlarging their ideas as prisoners or auxiliaries in England and France; and the listed field of a tournament might give the hint for a grand apparatus,—a hunting spectacle. Game might be preserved in the neighbourhood for royal diversion.”—J. R. to R. S., Feb. 20. 1820. |
| Ætat. 46. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 25 |
“You are quite right in thinking funded property better than landed property for charitable institutions, as being rather more than less secure, safe from fraudulent management, and requiring no trouble. There remains an objection from the uncertainty of the value of money; but it appears to me impossible that money should ever fall in value as it has done since the Middle Ages, perhaps even such an advance in prices as has taken place within our own recollection will never again occur; I mean as affecting every thing. In the view which I take of the improvement of society, stability is one of the good things to be expected.
“I like your Beguinage scheme in all its parts. Endowments (analogous to college fellowships) would grow out of it in due course of time. And great part of the business of female education would be transferred to these institutions to the advantage of all parties.
“The Duc de Berri will do more good by his death than he would ever have done by his life. I had been saying that such a tragedy in France surprised me much more than it would have done in England. The will, I knew, was not wanting, and intelligence soon came that the purpose had been formed. Your Oppositionists will call this discovery* a most unfortunate business, and such I trust it will
* Of the Cato Street conspiracy. |
| 26 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 46. |
“God bless you!
