“. . . . . Thank you for the interest you take in my scheme for serving honest John Jones. There is no one point, Grosvenor, in which you and I accord more entirely, than in our feelings concerning servants, and our behaviour towards them. The savings’ banks may do for this class all, or almost all that you desire, if there be but religious education to give them an early sense of duty, which I think it will be more easy to give than to bring about the desired amendment in the behaviour of their superiors. To amend that, there must be a thorough reform in our schools, public and private, which should cut up the tyranny of the boys over their juniors by the roots.
“You have seen exactly in the true light what my views
and motives are with regard to Jones. I
| 316 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 53. |
“Did you see my paper upon the Spanish Moors in the Foreign Quarterly? I have another to write for one of the journals into which it has split, upon M. de Barantes’ History of the Ducs de Bourgogne. This and a paper upon the Emigration Report for the Quarterly Review will be taken in hand immediately on my return. Lope de Vega will arrive about the 15th, and I look for a noble importation from Brussels before Christmas, consisting of the books which I purchased there last year, and others of which a list was left with Verbeyst, the best of booksellers, who gives me when I deal with him as good Rhenish as my ‘dear heart’ could desire, and better strong beer than ever hero drank in Valhalla out of the skull of his enemy. . . . .
“We are fitting up an additional room for books, and if
you do not next year come to see me in my
| Ætat. 53. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 317 |
“God bless you!
