“Here is de koele June—we have a March wind howling, and a March fire burning—it is diabolus diei. On my journey I learnt one piece of information, which you may profit by: that on Sunday nights they put the new horses into the mail always, because, as they carry no letters, an accident is of less consequence as to the delay it occasions. This nearly broke our necks, for we narrowly escaped an overturn; so I travel no more on a Sunday night in the mail.
“. . . . . I am the better for my journey, and inclined
to attribute it to the greater quantity of wine I drank at Brixton than I had
previously done; therefore I have supplied the place of æther by the
grape-juice, and supplied the place of the tablespoon by the corkscrew. I find
printer’s faith as bad as Punic faith. New types have been promised from
London for some weeks, and are not yet arrived, therefore I am still out of the
press. I pray you to send me the old woman who was circularised. [figure of a
circle] who saw her own back, whose head was like the title-page of a
Jew’s prayer-book, who was an emblem of eternity, the omikron of old
women. You will make a good ballad of this quaint tale; it is for subjects
| Ætat. 25. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 19 |
“The time of removal is so near at hand, that I begin to wish every thing were settled and over. This is a place which I leave with some reluctance after taking root here for twenty-five years, and now our society is so infinitely mended.
“Davy, the Pneumatic Institution experimentalist, is a first-rate man, conversable on all subjects, and learnable-from (which, by the by, is as fine a Germanly compounded word as you may expect to see). I am going to breathe some wonder-working gas, which excites all possible mental and muscular energy, and induces almost a delirium of pleasurable sensations without any subsequent dejection.
“. . . . . I was fortunate enough to meet Sharpe, of whom you said so much, on the
Sunday that I left Brixton. I was with Johnson in the
King’s Bench when he came in; I missed his name as he entered, but was
quite surprised at the novelty and good sense of all his remarks. He talked on
many subjects, and on all with a strength and justness of thought which I have
seldom heard; the meeting pleased me much. I wish much to see more of
Sharpe; he seems a man whom it would be impossible not
to profit by. He talked of Combe, who is
in the King’s Bench. You said that Combe wrote books
which were not known to be his.
| 20 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 25. |
