Ætat. 27. | Ætat. 27. | 145 |
In the course of the following June my father and mother
returned to England, and for a short time again took up their residence at Bristol. His
sojourn abroad had in all respects been a most satisfactory as well as a most enjoyable
one: the various unpleasant and, indeed, alarming symptoms under which he had previously
laboured, had proved to be rather of nervous than of organic origin; and as they seemed to
have owed their rise to sedentary habits and continued mental exertion, they had readily
given way, under the combined influence of change of scene and place, a more genial
climate, and the healthful excitement of travel in a foreign land, and scenes full alike of
beauty and of interest. He had not, indeed, been idle the while, for he had laid up large
stores for his projected His-
146 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 27. |
“I received your kind letter on the evening before last,
and I trust that this will arrive at Bristol just in time to rejoice with them
that rejoice. Alas! you will have found the dear old place sadly minused by
Ætat. 27. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 147 |
“Our house stands on a low hill, the whole front of which is one field and an enormous garden, nine-tenths of which is a nursery garden. Behind the house is an orchard, and a small wood on a steep slope, at the foot of which flows the river Greta, which winds round and catches the evening lights in the front of the house. In front we have a giant’s camp—an encamped army of tent-like mountains, which by an inverted arch gives a view of another vale. On our right the lovely vale and the wedge-shaped lake of Bassenthwaite; and on our left Derwentwater and Lodore full in view, and the fantastic mountains of Borrodale. Behind us the massy Skiddaw, smooth, green, high, with two chasms and a tent-like ridge in the larger. A fairer scene you have not seen in all your wanderings. Without going from our own grounds we have all that can please a human being. As to books, my landlord, who dwells next door*, has a very respectable library, which he has put with mine; histories, encyclopaedias,
* Greta Hall was at this time divided into two houses, which were afterwards thrown together. |
148 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 27. |
“Our neighbour is a truly good and affectionate man, a father to my children, and a friend to me. He was offered fifty guineas for the house in which we are to live, but he preferred me for a tenant at twenty-five; and yet the whole of his income does not exceed, I believe, 200l. a year. A more truly disinterested man I never met with; severely frugal, yet almost carelessly generous; and yet he got all his money as a common carrier*, by hard labour, and by pennies and pennies. He is one instance among many in this country of the salutary effect of the love of knowledge—he was from a boy a lover of learning. . . . . The house is full twice as large as we want; it hath more rooms in it than Allfoxen; you might have a bed-room, parlour, study, &c. &c., and there would always be rooms to spare for your or my visitors. In short, for situation and convenience,—and when I mention the name of Wordsworth, for society of men of intellect,—I know no place in which you and Edith would find yourselves so well suited.”
The remainder of this letter, as well as another of
* This person, whose name was Jackson, was the “master” in Mr. Wordsworth’s poem of “The “Waggoner,” the circumstances of which are accurately correct. |
Ætat. 27. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 149 |
“Yesterday I arrived, and found your letters; they did depress me, but I have since reasoned or dreamt myself into more cheerful anticipations. I have persuaded myself that your complaint is gouty; that good living is necessary, and a good climate. I also move to the south; at least so it appears: and if my present prospects ripen, we may yet live under one roof. . . . .
“You may have seen a translation of Persius, by Drummond, an
M.P. This man is going ambassador, first to Palermo and then to Constantinople:
if a married man can go as his secretary, it is probable that I shall accompany
him. I daily expect to know. It is a scheme of Wynn’s to settle me in the south, and I am returned to
look about me. My salary will be small—a very trifle; but after a few
years I look on to something better, and have fixed my mind on a consulship.
Now, if we go, you must join us as soon as we are housed, and it will be
marvellous if we regret England. I shall have so little to do, that my time may
be considered as wholly my own: our joint amusements will easily supply us with
all expenses. So no more of the Azores; for we will see the Great
150 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 27. |
“You know your old Poems are a third time in the press; why not set forth a second volume? . . . . . Your Christabel, your Three Graces, which I remember as the very consummation of poetry. I must spur you to something, to the assertion of your supremacy; if you have not enough to muster, I will aid you in any way—manufacture skeletons that you may clothe with flesh, blood, and beauty; write my best, or what shall be bad enough to be popular;—we will even make plays à-la-mode Robespierre Drop all task-work, it is ever unprofitable; the same time, and one twentieth part of the labour, would produce treble emolument. For Thalaba I received 115l.; it was just twelve months’ intermitting work, and the after-editions are my own. . . . .
“I feel here as a stranger; somewhat of Leonard’s feeling. God bless Wordsworth for that poem! ‘What
* “The Brothers” is the title of this poem. |
Ætat. 27. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 151 |
“Time and absence make strange work with our affections; but mine are ever returning to rest upon you. I have other and dear friends, but none with whom, the whole of my being is intimate—with whom every thought and feeling can amalgamate. Oh! I have yet such dreams! Is it quite clear that you and I were not meant for some better star, and dropped, by mistake, into this world of pounds, shillings, and pence? . . . .
“God bless you!
“In about ten days we shall be ready to set forward for
Keswick; where, if it were not for the rains, and the fogs, and the frosts, I
should, probably,
152 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 27. |
“I must work at Keswick; the more willingly, because
with the hope, hereafter, the necessity will cease. My Portuguese materials
must lie dead, and this embarrasses me. It is impossible to publish any thing
about that country now, because I must one day return there,—to their
libraries and archives;
Ætat. 27. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 153 |
* This alludes to Mr. Cottle’s “Alfred.” |
154 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 27. |
“I look on Madoc with hopeful displeasure; probably it must be corrected, and published now; this coming into the world at seven months is a bad way; with a Doctor Slop of a printer’s devil standing ready for the forced birth, and frightening one into an abortion. . . . . . Is there an emigrant at Keswick, who may make me talk and write French? And I must sit at my almost forgotten Italian, and read German with you; and we must read Tasso together. . . . .
“God bless you!
“Following the advice of the Traumatic Poet*, I have been endeavouring to get money—and to get it
* The “Traumatic Poet” was a Bristol acquaintance of my father’s and Mr. Coleridge, who somewhat overrated his own powers of poetical composition; two choice sonnets of his, on “Metaphor” and “Personification,” were printed in the first volume of the Annual Anthology. |
Ætat. 27. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 155 |
“And so, how to raise the wind for my long land voyage? Why, I expect Hamilton’s account daily (for whom, by the by, I am again at work!), and he owes me I know not what; it may be fifteen pounds, it may be five-and-twenty: if the latter, off we go, as soon as we can get an agreeable companion in a post-chaise; if it be not enough, why I must beg, borrow, or steal. I have once been tempted to sell my soul to Stuart for three months, for thirteen guineas in advance; but my soul mutinied at the bargain . . . . . Madoc has had a miraculous escape! it went against my stomach and my conscience—but malesuada fames.
“Your West India plan is a vile one. Italy, Italy. I
shall have enough leisure for a month’s journey, Moses, and the young one with the heathenish
name, will learn Italian as they are
learning English,—an advantage not to be overlooked; society, too, is
something; and Italy has never been without some great mind or other, worthy of
its better ages. When we are well tired of Italy, why, I will get removed to
Portugal, to which I look with longing eyes, as the land of promise. But, in
all sober seriousness, the plan I
156 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 27. |
“. . . . . Do not hurry from the baths for the sake of meeting me; for when I set out is unpleasantly uncertain; and as I suppose we must be Lloyd’s guests a few days, it may as well or better be before your return. My mother is very unwell, perhaps more seriously so than I allow myself to fully believe. If Peggy* were—what shall I say?—released is a varnishing phrase; and death is desirable, when recovery is impossible. I would bring my mother with me for the sake of total change, if Peggy could be left, but that is impossible; recover she cannot, yet may, and I believe will, suffer on till winter. Almost I pre-feel
* His cousin, Margaret Hill, to whom he was greatly attached, then dying in a consumption. |
Ætat. 27. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 157 |
A letter from Mr. Bedford, containing some reproaches for a much longer silence than was his wont, called forth the following reply:—
“The tone and temper of your letter left me in an
uncomfortable mood;—certainly I deserved it—as far as negligence
deserves reproof so harsh;—but indeed, Grosvenor, you have been somewhat like the Scotch judge, who
included all rape, robbery, murder, and horse-stealing under the head of
sedition; so have you suspected negligence of cloaking a cold, and fickle, and
insincere heart. Dear, dear Grosvenor, if by any magic of
ear you could hear how often your name passes my lips! or could you see how
often I see your figure in my walks—the recollections—and the
wishes—but what are these? A hundred times should I have begun a letter
if there had been enough to fill it,—if I could have sent you the
158 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 27. |
“With Drummond it
seems I go not, but he and Wynn design to
get for me—or try to get—a better berth;—that of Secretary to
some Italian Legation, which is permanent, and not personally attached to the
minister. Amen. I love the south, and the possibility highly pleases me, and
the prospect of advancing my fortunes. To England I have no strong tie; the
friends whom I love live so widely apart that I never see two in a place; and
for acquaintance, they are to be found everywhere. Thus much for the future;
for the present I am about to move to Coleridge, who is at the Lakes;—and I am labouring,
somewhat blindly indeed, but all to some purpose, about my ways and means; for
the foreign expedition that has restored my health, has at the same time picked
my pocket; and if I had not good spirits and cheerful industry, I should be
somewhat surly
Ætat. 27. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 159 |
“Thus, then, is my time employed, or thus it ought to be; for how much is dissipated by going here and there,—dinnering, and tea-taking, and suppering, traying, or eveninging, take which phrase of fashion pleases you,—you may guess.
“Grosvenor, I perceive no change in myself, nor any
symptoms of change; I differ only in years from what I was, and years make less
difference in me than in most men. All things considered, I feel myself a
fortunate and happy man; the future wears a better face than it has ever done,
and I have no reason to regret that indifference to fortune which has marked
the past. By the by, it is unfortunate that you cannot come to the sacrifice of
one law book—my whole proper stock—whom I design to take up to the
top of Mount Etna, for the express purpose of throwing him down straight to the
devil. Huzza, Grosvenor! I was once
afraid that I should have a deadly deal of law to forget whenever I had
160 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 27. |
“You will direct to Keswick, Cumberland. I set off on Saturday next, and shall be there about Tuesday; and if you could contrive to steal time for a visit to the Lakes, you would find me a rare guide.
“If you have not seen the second volume of Wordsworth’s Lyrical Ballads, I counsel you to buy them, and read aloud the poems entitled The Brothers, and Michael; which, especially the first, are, to my taste, excellent. I have never been so much affected, and so well, as by some passages there.
“God bless you. Edith’s remembrance.
My father’s first impression of the Lake country was not quite equal
to the feelings with which he afterwards regarded it; and he dreaded the climate, which,
even when long residence had habituated him to it, he always considered as one of the
greatest drawbacks to the north of England. “Whether we winter here or
not,” he writes immediately on his arrival at Keswick, “time must
determine; inclination would lead me to, but it is as cold as at Yarmouth, and I am now
growling at clouds and Cumberland weather. The Lakes at first disappointed
me,—they were diminutive to what I expected,—the mountains little, compared
to Mon-
Ætat. 27. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 161 |
“. . . . . De Anthologiâ, which is of or concerning the
Anthology. As I hope to be
picking up lava from Etna, I cannot be tying up nosegays here in England; but
blind Tobin, whom you
know,—God bless him for a very good fellow!—but
Tobin the blind is very unwilling that no more
anthologies should appear; wherefore there will be more volumes, with which,
all I shall have to do, will be to see that large-paper copies be printed to
continue sets,—becoming myself only a gentleman contributor: to which
ingenious publication I beg your countenance, sir, and support. . . . . You ask
me questions about my future plans which I cannot readily answer, only that if
I got a decent salary abroad, even should my health take a fancy to this queer
climate, I have no estate to retire to at home, and so shall have a good
prudential reason for remaining there. My dreams incline to Lisbon as a
resting-place; I am really attached to the country,
162 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 27. |
“These lakes are like rivers; but oh for the Mondego and the Tagus! And these mountains, beautifully indeed are they shaped and grouped; but oh for the great Monchique! and for Cintra, my paradise!—the heaven on earth of my hopes; and if ever I should have a house at Cintra, as in earnest sincerity I do hope I shall, will not you give me one twelvemonth, and eat grapes, and ride donkeys, and be very happy? In truth, Grosvenor, I have lived abroad too long to be contented in England: I miss southern luxuries,—the fruits, the wines; I miss the sun in heaven, having been upon a short allowance of sunbeams these last ten days; and if the nervous fluid be the galvanic fluid, and the galvanic fluid the electric fluid, and the electric fluid condensed light, zounds! what an effect must these vile dark rainy clouds have upon a poor nervous fellow, whose brain has been in a state of high illumination for the last fifteen months!
“God bless you! I am going in a few days to meet
Wynn at Liverpool, and then to see
the Welsh lions. . . . . Grosvenor
Bedford, I wish you would write a history, for, take my word for
it, no employment else is one
Ætat. 27. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 163 |
On my father’s arrival at Llangedwin, the residence of his friend Mr. C. W. W. Wynn, he found a letter awaiting him, offering him the appointment of private secretary to Mr. Corry, at that time Chancellor of the Exchequer for Ireland: the terms “prudently limited to one year, lest they should not suit each other;” the proffered salary 400l. Irish, (about 350l. English,) of which the half was specified as travelling expenses. This had been brought about through his friend Mr. Rickman, who was at that time secretary to Mr. Abbot, and, in consequence, residing in Dublin,—an additional inducement to my father to accept the appointment, as he would have to reside there himself during half the year.
His immediate services being required, after hurrying back for a few days to Keswick, he lost no time in taking possession of his new office.
164 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 27. |
“. . . . . On Sunday, after delaying till the latest
possible moment for the chance of passengers, we dropped down the river Dee.
The wind almost immediately failed us; I never saw so dead a calm; there was
not a heaving, a ripple, a wrinkle on the water; the ship, though she made some
way with the tide, was as still as a house, to our feelings. Had the wind
continued as when we embarked, eighteen hours would have blown us to Dublin. I
saw the sun set behind Anglesea; and the mountains of Carnarvonshire rose so
beautifully before us, that, though at sea, it was delightful. The sun-rise on
Monday was magnificent. Holyhead was then in sight, and in sight on the wrong
side it continued all day, while we tacked and retacked with a hard-hearted
wind. We got into Beaumaris Bay, and waited there for the midnight tide: it was
very quiet; even my stomach had not provocation enough, as yet, to be sick. In
the night we proceeded: about two o’clock a very heavy gale arose; it
blew great guns, as you would say; the vessel shipped water very fast, it came
pouring down into the cabin, and both pumps were at work,—the dismallest
thump, thump, I ever heard: this lasted about three hours. As soon as we were
clear of the Race of Holyhead the sea grew smoother, though the gale continued.
On Tuesday the morning was hazy, we could not see land, though it was not far
distant;
Ætat. 27. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 165 |
“To my great satisfaction, we had in our company one of the most celebrated characters existing at this day; a man whose name is as widely known as that of any human being, except, perhaps, Bonaparte!
“He is not above five feet, but, notwithstanding his
figure, soon became the most important personage of the party.
‘Sir,’ said he, as soon as he set foot in the vessel,
‘I am a unique; I go any where, just as the whim takes me: this
morning, sir, I had no idea whatever of going to Dublin; I did not think of
it when I left home; my wife and family know nothing of the trip. I have
only one shirt with me besides what I have on; my nephew here, sir, has not
another shirt to his back: but money, sir, money,—anything may be had
at Dublin.’ Who the devil is this fellow? thought I. We talked of
rum,—he had just bought 100 puncheons, the weakest drop 15 above proof:
of the west of England,—out he pulls an Exeter newspaper from his pocket:
of bank paper,—his pocket-book was stuffed with notes, Scotch, Irish, and
English; and I really am obliged to him for some clues to dis-
166 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 27. |
“Mr. Corry is out of town for two days, so I have not seen him. The probability is, Rickman tells me, that I shall return in about ten days: you shall have the first intelligence; at present I know no more of my future plans than that I am to dine to-day with the secretary of the Lord Lieutenant, and to look me out a lodging first.
“But you must hear all I have seen of Ireland. The
fifteen miles that we crossed are so destitute of trees, that I could only
account for it by a sort of instinctive dread of the gallows in the natives. I
find they have been cut down to make pikes. Cars, instead of carts or waggons;
women without hats, shoes, or stockings. One little town we passed, once
Ætat. 27. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 167 |
“Edith, God bless you! I do not expect to be absent from you above a fortnight longer.
“In my last no direction was given. You will write under cover, and direct thus:—
This said personage I have not yet seen,
whereby I am kept in a state of purportless idleness. He is
168 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 27. |
“John Rickman is
a great man in Dublin and in the eyes of the world, but not one jot altered
from the John Rickman of Christchurch, save only that, in
compliance with an extorted promise, he has deprived himself of the pleasure of
scratching his head, by putting powder in it. He has astonished the people
about him. The government stationer hinted to him, when he was giving an order,
that if he wanted anything in the pocket-book way, he might as well put it down
in the order. Out he pulled his own—‘Look, sir, I have bought
one for two shillings.’ His predecessor admonished him not to let
himself down by speaking to any of the clerks. ‘Why, sir,’
said John Rickman, ‘I should not let myself down
if I spoke to every man between this and the bridge.’ And so he
goes on in his own right way. He has been obliged to mount up to the third
story, before he could find a room small enough to sleep in; and there he led
me, to show me his government bed, which, because it is a government bed,
contains stuff enough to make a dozen; the curtains being completely double,
and mattrass piled upon mattrass, so that tumbling out would be a
Ætat. 27. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 169 |
“The peace was not welcome to the patricians, it took
away all their hopes of ‘any fun’ by the help of France. The
government, acting well and wisely, control both parties,—the Orangemen
and the United Irishmen,—and command respect from both; the old fatteners
upon the corruption are silent in shame: the military, who must be kept up,
will be well employed in making roads,—this measure is not yet announced
to the public. It will be difficult to civilise this people. An Irishman builds
him a turf stye, gets his fuel from the bogs, digs his patch of potatoes, and
then lives upon them in idleness: like a true savage, he does not think it
worth while to work that he may better himself. Potatoes and
butter-milk,—on this they are born and bred; and whiskey sends them to
the third heaven at once. If Davy had one
of them in his laboratory, he could analyze his fleshy blood, and bones into
nothing but potatoes, and but-
170 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 27. |
Ætat. 27. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 171 |
“Did I send, in my last, the noble bull that Rickman heard? He was late in company, when a gentleman looked at his watch, and cried, ‘It is to-morrow morning!—I must wish you good night.’
“I have bought no books yet, for lack of money. To-day Rickman is engaged to dinner, and I am to seek for myself some ordinary or chop-house. This morning will clear off my letters; and I will make business a plea hereafter for writing fewer,—’tis a hideous waste of time. My love to Coleridge, &c., if, indeed, I do not write to him also.
“Edith, God bless you!
“The map of Ireland is a beautiful map—mountains,
and lakes, and rivers; which I hope one day to visit with you. St.
Patrick’s Purgatory and the Giant’s Causeway lie in
the same comer. Where ‘Mole, that mountain hoar,’ is, I
cannot find, though I have hunted the name in every distortion of possible
orthography. A journey in Ireland has, also, the great advantage of enabling us
to study savage life. I shall be able to get letters of introduction, which, as
draughts for food and shelter in a country where whiskey-houses are scarce,
will be invaluable.
172 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 27. |
“From Lamb’s letter to Rickman I learn that he means to print his play, which is the lukewarm John*, whose plan is as obnoxious to Rickman as it was to you and me; and that he has been writing for the Albion, and now writes for the Morning Chronicle, where more than two thirds of his materials are superciliously rejected. Stuart would use him more kindly. Godwin, having had a second tragedy rejected, has filched a story from one of De Foe’s novels for a third, and begged hints of Lamb. . . . . Last evening we talked of Davy. Rickman also fears for him; something he thinks he has (and excusably, surely) been hurt by the attentions of the great: a worse fault is that vice of metaphysicians—that habit of translating right and wrong into a jargon which confounds them; which allows everything, and justifies everything. I am afraid, and it makes me very melancholy when I think of it, that Davy never will be to me the being that he has been. I have a trick of thinking too well of those I love, better than they generally deserve, and better than my cold and containing manners ever let them know: the foibles of a friend always endear him, if they have coexisted with my knowledge of him; but the pain is, to see beauty grow deformed—to trace disease from the first infection. These scientific men are,
* The name of this play is “John Woodvil.” |
Ætat. 27. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 173 |
“Odd and ill-suited moralisings, Coleridge, for a man who has left the lakes and the mountains to come to Dublin with Mr. Worldly Wisdom! But my moral education, thank God, is pretty well completed. The world and I are only about to be acquainted. I have outgrown the age for forming friendships. . . . .
“God bless you!
My father’s presence seems only to have been required in Dublin for a
very short time; and after rejoining my mother at Keswick, they went at once to London,
Mr. Corry’s duties requiring his residence
there for the winter portion of the year. Here, when fairly established in his
“scribe capacity,” he appears to have experienced somewhat of the truth of the
saying, “When thou doest well to thyself, men shall speak good of thee.”
“I have been a week in town,” he writes to Mr. William Taylor, “and in that time have learnt
something. The civilities which already have been shown me, discover how much I have
been abhorred for all that is valuable in my nature; such civilities excite more
contempt than anger, but they make me think more despicably of the world than I could
wish to do. As if this were a baptism that purified me of all sins—a
regeneration; and the one congratulates me, and the other visits me, as if the author
of Joan of Arc and of
174 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 27. |
“I suppose,” he continues, “my situation, by all these symptoms, to be a good one;—for a more ambitious man, doubtless very desirable, though the ladder is longer than I design to climb. My principles and habits are happily enough settled; my objects in life are, leisure to do nothing but write, and competence to write at leisure; and my notions of competence do not exceed 300l. a year. Mr. Corry is a man of gentle and unassuming manners; fitter men for his purpose he doubtless might have found in some respects, none more so in regularity and despatch.”* . . . .
These qualities, however, which my father might truly say be possessed in a high degree, were not called into much exercise by the duties of his secretaryship, which he thus humorously describes:—
“The chancellor and the scribe go on in the same way. The scribe has made out a catalogue of all books published since the commencement of ’97 upon finance and scarcity; he hath also copied a paper written by J. R., containing some Irish alderman’s hints about oak bark; and nothing more hath the scribe done in his vocation. Duly he calls at the chancellor’s door;
* Nov. 11, 1801. |
Ætat. 27. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 175 |
176 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 27. |
Ευρηκα. Ευρηκα. Ευρηκα. |
‘The Cambrian
Shakespear.’ |
Ætat. 27. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 177 |
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