“Here I arrived last night on my way home, and at the farthest point from it to which my circuit has extended; and, here at last, I have some hours upon which no demand will be made. This is the first use of my first interval of leisure. How I have been distracted in London no one can fully understand, unless they have been living with me there; and how I have been busied tooth and nail during
* To Mrs. Southey, Dec. 30. 1830. |
| Ætat. 57. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 127 |
“As to the state of the country, I am more hopeful than
most persons. The change of Ministry was the best thing that could have
occurred, because the Whigs must do what they would
never have allowed the Tories to do; they must unsay much of what they have
said; they must undo (as far as that is possible) much of what they have done.
They are augmenting the army, which they compelled their predecessors to
reduce. They have called for a yeomanry force, which they made their
predecessors disband. They are endeavouring to curb the licence of the press. I
think they must suspend the Habeas Corpus Act. I believe they must restore the
one pound bills; I expect that they will find it impossible not to go to war;
and I am sure that if the question of Parliamentary Reform should not be thrust
aside by other events, it could not be brought forward so well by any other
persons as by the Whigs in power. They have great stakes
in the country; and they are now heartily afraid of the democracy which they
have so long been flattering. They have raised the devil, and it is proper that
they should have the task of laying him. But in this, all who think and feel as
I do will lend them a cordial support; not for their sakes, but for the sake of
ourselves and of the nation. While the Government
| 128 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 57. |
“We shall get through our difficulties, and the better if there be war to help us. The property of the country is yet strong enough to restore order. And if we have a change in the form of representation grounding it on property, and nowhere on numbers, we may gain by such a change more than we should lose by it. Soon we shall have a stronger Government, and something like police in the country as well as in London. . . . .
“I leave this place (whither I came only to spend three days with my old-fellow-collegian Lightfoot) on Saturday morning for Taunton, there to see my Aunt Mary, the last of my father’s generation; a dear excellent old lady, in whom I see what I am indebted for to the Southey part of my blood. Monday I go to Bristol, where I have not been for twenty years. I mean once more to look at the scenes of my birth and childhood, and have so much love for the place that I have the serious intention of writing a poem, descriptive, historical, and desultory, in honour of my native city.
“You may suppose how impatient I am to reach home, and
resume once more the even tenour of my usual life. I bought a good many books
in London, three or four consignments of which have arrived, and others are on
the way. Some skill in packing will be required for arranging them. Neither my
head nor hands were ever so full as at this time, and
| Ætat. 57. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 129 |
“And now, my dear Warter, God bless you!
