The period of my father’s life to which the letters in
this volume relate, may be said upon the whole, to have been the busiest and most stirring
portion of
| 2 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 39. |
The first few years to which we are now coming were the happiest of his
life. Settled to his heart’s
| Ætat. 39. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 3 |
His principal source of income latterly, as the reader has seen, had been derived from the Edinburgh Annual Register; but this from the beginning had been a losing concern, though started with the most sanguine anticipations of success. Indeed, it appears, from the Life of Sir W. Scott (vol. iv. p. 77.), that the actual loss upon it had never been less than 1000l. per annum, and it was therefore not to be wondered at that some considerable irregularities occurred in the publisher’s payments, and that my father now found it prudent to declare his intention of withdrawing from it when the current volume should be concluded, having already suffered much inconvenience and some embarrassment from this cause.
The defalcation of 400l. a year from his income
was, however, a very serious matter, and he found it needful, without delay, to cast about
for means of supplying its place. The establishment of the Quarterly Review had thus occurred at a fortunate time, both
as affording him regular and tolerably profitable employment, and also as giving him scope
for ex-
| 4 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 39. |
This was, indeed, in most respects a far better vehicle than the Register, affording a far wider range of subjects, and speaking to a different and much more numerous class of readers; and, however distasteful to him was the task of reviewing, his objections to it hardly applied to papers upon political, moral, or religious topics, and he felt and acknowledged that his reputation rose higher from his writings in the Quarterly Review than from any of his other works. It is true, indeed, that on its first establishment he wished rather to have books submitted to him for ordinary criticism than for the purpose of writing political essays; but that was simply because in mere reviewing he was well practised, and knew his strength; whereas the other, though a higher department of art, was new to him, and was also less safe ground with reference to those persons whom he believed to influence the publication.
He had also, at this time, and for a few years longer, a constant source
of deep and heartfelt delight in the endearing qualities of his only boy, now little more than six years old, who possessed a
singularly beautiful and gentle disposition, and who was just beginning to manifest an
intellect as quick, and an aptitude for study as remarkable, as his own. This was the head
and front of his happiness, the crowning joy of his domestic circle; and while that circle
remained unbroken, and he himself head and
| Ætat. 39. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 5 |
“Many happy new years to you, and may those which are
to come prove more favourable to you in worldly concerns than those which are
past! I have been somewhat unwell this Christmas; first with a cold, then with
a sudden and unaccountable sickness, which, however, has not returned, and I
now hope I have been physicked into tolerable order. The young ones are going
on well: little Isabel thrives, your
god-daughter is old enough to figure
at a Christmas dance, and Herbert will
very soon be perfect in the regular Greek verb. A Testament is to come for him
in my next parcel, and we shall begin upon it as soon as it arrives. No child
ever promise I better, morally and intellectually. He is very quick of
comprehension, retentive, observant, diligent, and as fond of a book and as
impatient of idleness as I
| 6 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 39. |
“I shall have two interesting chapters in this volume for 1811*, upon Sicily and S. America. My Life of Nelson, by a miscalculation, which lies between Murray and the printer, will appear in two volumes instead of one, which will materially, beyond all doubt, injure the sale. Murray has most probably ordered a large impression, calculating upon
| Ætat. 39. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 7 |
| 8 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 39. |
“I received Rokeby on Monday evening, and you need not be told that I did not go to bed till I had read the poem through. It is yours all over, and, like all its brethren, perfectly original. I have only to congratulate you upon its appearance, upon its life and spirit, and (with sure and certain anticipation) upon its success. Let me correct an error in your last note, in time for the second edition. Robin the Devil lived not upon one of our islands, but on Curwen’s in Winandermere, which then belonged to the Philipsons’. You may find the story in Nicholson and Burns’ History of Westmoreland, pp. 185-6.
“I enjoyed your poem the more, being for the first time able to follow you in its scenery. My introduction at Rokeby* was a very awkward one; and if the old woman who would not let me through the gate till I had promised her to call at the house, had been the porter or the porter’s wife on the day of your story, Edmund might have sung long enough before he could have got in. However, when this awkwardness was over, I was very much obliged to her for forcing me into such society, for nothing could be more hospitable or more gratifying than the manner in which I and my companions were received. The glen is, for its extent, more beautiful than any thing
* See vol. iii. p. 345. |
| Ætat. 39. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 9 |
“In the course of next month I hope you will receive my
Life of Nelson, a
subject not self-chosen—and out of my way, but executed . Some of my periodical employment I must ere long relinquish, or
I shall never complete the great historical works upon which so many years have
been bestowed, in which so much progress has been made, and for which it is
little likely that any other person in the country will ever so qualify himself
again. Yonder they are lying unfinished, while I suffer myself to be tempted to
other occupations of more immediate emolument indeed, but, in all other
respects, of infinitely less importance. Meanwhile time passes on, and I who am
of a short-lived race, and have a sense of the uncertainty of life more
continually present in my thoughts and feelings than most men, sometimes
reproach myself for not devoting my time to those works upon which my
reputation, and perhaps the fortunes of my family, must eventually rest, while
the will is strong, the ability yet unimpaired, and the leisure permitted me.
If I do not greatly deceive myself, my History of
Portugal will be one of the most curious books of its kind that has
ever yet appeared—the matter is in itself so interesting, and I have
hunted out so much that is recondite, and have so much strong light
| 10 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 39. |
“Remember us to Mrs. Scott, and believe me,
“It is somewhat late to speak of Christmas and the New
Year; nevertheless I wish you as many as you may be capable of enjoying, and
the more the better. Winter is passing on mildly with us; and if it were not
for our miry soil and bad ways, I should not wish for pleasanter weather than
January has brought with it. Ailments rather than inclination have led me of
late to take regular exercise, which I was wont to think I could do without as
well as a Turk; so I take two or three of the children with me, and, giving
them leave to call upon me for their daily walk, their eagerness overcomes my
propensities for the chair and the desk; we now go before breakfast, for the
sake of getting the first sunshine on the mountains, which, when the snow is on
them, is more glorious than at any other season. Yesterday I think I heard the
wild swan, and this morning had the finest sight of wild-fowl I ever beheld:
there was a cloud of them above the lake, at such a height, that frequently
they became invisible, then twinkled
| Ætat. 39. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 11 |
“Your godson is determined to be a poet, he says; and I was not a little amused by his telling me this morning, when he came near a hollow tree which has caught his eye lately, and made him ask me sundry questions about it, that the first poem he should make should be about that hollow tree. I have made some progress in rhyming the Greek accidence for him,—an easier thing than you would perhaps suppose it to be; it tickles his humour, and lays hold of his memory.
“This last year has been full of unexpected events, such indeed as mock all human foresight. The present will bring with it business of importance at home, whatever may happen abroad.
“There is one point in which most men, however opposite
in their judgments about the affairs of the Peninsula, have been
deceived,—in their expectations from the Cortes. There is a lamentable
want of wisdom in the country; among the peasantry its place is supplied by
their love of the soil and that invincible perseverance which so strongly marks
the Spanish character. Bonaparte never can
subdue them, even if his power had received no shock, and his whole attention
were exclusively directed towards Spain: his life, though it should be
prolonged to the length of Aurengzebe’s (as great a villain as himself),
| 12 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 39. |
“If Gifford prints what I have written, and lets it pass unmutilated, you will see in the next Quarterly some remarks upon the moral and political state of the populace, and the alarming manner in which Jacobinism (disappearing from the educated classes) has sunk into the mob; a danger far more extensive and momentous than is generally admitted. Very likely a sort of cowardly prudence may occasion some suppressions, which I should be sorry for. Wyndham would have acknowledged the truth of the picture, and have been with me for looking the danger in the face. It is an old fact that the favourite song among the people in this little town just now as I have happened to learn; is upon Parker the mutineer: it purports to have been written by his wife, and is in metre and diction just what such a woman would write.
“"What part do you take in the East Indian question? I perceive its magnitude, and am wholly incapable of forming an opinion.
“Coleridge’s tragedy*, which Sheridan and Kemble
* After the successful appearance of this tragedy, which was entitled “Remorse,” my father wrote—“I never doubted that Coleridge’s play would meet with a triumphant reception. Be it known now and remembered hereafter, that this self-same play, having had |
| Ætat. 39. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 13 |
“God bless you!
“. . . . . Wordsworth refers, in more than one of his poems, with a melancholy feeling of regret, to the loss of youthful thoughts and hopes. In the last six weeks he has lost two children—one of them a fine boy of seven years old. I believe he feels, as I have felt before him, that ‘there is healing in the bitter cup,’—that God takes from us those we love as hostages for our faith (if I may so express myself),—and that to those who look to a reunion in a better world, where there shall be no separation, and no mutability except that which results from perpetual progressiveness, the evening becomes more delightful than the morning, and the sunset offers brighter and lovelier visions than those which we would build up in the morning clouds, and which disappear before the strength of the day. The older I grow—and I am older in feeling than in years—the more I am sensible of this: there is
no other alterations made in it now than C. was willing to have made in it then, was rejected in 1797 by Sheridan and Kemble. Had these sapient caterers for the public brought it forward at that time, it is by no means improbable that the author might have produced a play as good every season: with my knowledge of Coleridge’s habits I verily believe he would.”—To G. C. B. Jan. 27. 1813. |
| 14 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 39. |
“God bless you!
“Before I say anything of my own doings, let me rejoice
with you over these great events in the North. Never in civilised Europe had
there been so great an army brought together as Bonaparte had there collected, and never was there so total and
tremendous a destruction. I verily think that this is the fourth act of the
Corsican, and that the catastrophe of the bloody drama is near. May his fall be
as awful as his crimes! The siege of Dantzic, and the accession of Prussia to
our alliance, will, probably, be our next news. Saxony will be the next
government to emancipate itself, for there the government is as well disposed
as the people. I wish I could flatter myself that Alexander were great enough to perform an act of true wisdom as
well as magnanimity, and re-establish Poland, not after the villanous manner of
Bonaparte, but with
| Ætat. 39. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 15 |
“Was there ever an infatuation like that of the party in this country who are crying out for peace? as if this country had not ample cause to repent of having once before given up the vantage ground of war, at a peace forced upon the state by a faction! Let us remember Utrecht, and not suffer the Whigs of this day to outdo the villany of the Tories of that. There can be no peace with Bonaparte, none with France, that is not dictated at the edge of the sword. Peace, I trust, is now not far distant, and one which France must kneel to receive, not England to ask.
“The opening of the Baltic will come seasonably for our
manufactures, and, if it set the looms to work again, we may hope that it will
suspend the danger which has manifested itself, and give time for measures
which may prevent its recurrence. You will see in the next Quarterly a paper upon the State of the
Poor,—or, rather, the populace,—wherein I have pointed out
the causes of this danger, and its tremendous extent, which, I believe, few
persons are aware of. I shall be sorry if it be mutilated from any false
notions of prudence. It may often be necessary to keep a patient ignorant of
his real state,
| 16 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 39. |
“In the last number I reviewed D’Israeli’s Calamities of Literature, the amusing book of a very good-natured man.
“The poem goes on slow and sure. Twenty years ago
nothing could equal the ardour with which I pursued such employments. I was
then impatient to see myself in print: it was not possible to long more eagerly
than I did for the honour of authorship. This feeling is quite extinct; and,
allowing as much as may be allowed for experience, wiser thoughts, and, if you
please, satiety in effecting such a change, I cannot but believe that much must
be attributed to a sort of autumnal or evening tone of mind, coming upon me a
little earlier than it does upon most men. I am as cheerful as a boy, and
retain many youthful or even boyish habits; but I am older in mind than in
years, and in years than in appearance; and, though none of the joyousness of
youth is lost, there is none of its ardour left. Composition, where any passion
is called forth, excites me more than it is desirable to be excited; and, if it
were not for the sake of gratifying two or three persons in the world whom I
love, and who love me,
| Ætat. 39. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 17 |
“The Life of Nelson* was completed this morning. The printer began with it before it was half written, but I have distanced him by ten sheets. Do not fear that I have been proceeding too fast: it is he who, after the manner of printers, has given me plenty of time by taking his own. This is a subject which I should never have dreamt of touching, if it had not been thrust upon me. I have walked among sea terms as carefully as a cat does among crockery; but, if I have succeeded in making the narrative continuous and clear—the very reverse of what it is in the lives before me—the materials are, in themselves, so full of character, so picturesque, and so sublime, that it cannot fail of being a good book. . . . . I am very much inclined to attempt, under some such title as the Age of George III., a sketch of the revolutions which, almost everywhere
* This, which was perhaps upon the whole the most popular of any of my father’s works, originated in an article in the fifth number of the Quarterly Review, which was enlarged at Murray’s request. My father received altogether 300l. for it. 100?. for the Review; 100l. when the Life was enlarged; and 100l. when it was published in the Family Library. |
| 18 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 39. |
“You wonder that I should submit to any expurgations in the Quarterly. The fact is, that there must be a power expurgatory in the hands of the editor; and the misfortune is, that editors frequently think it incumbent on them to use that power merely because they have it. I do not like to break with the Review, because Gifford has been something more than merely civil to me, and offered me services which I had no reason to expect, because the Review gives me (and shame it is that it should be so) more repute than anything else which I could do, and because there is no channel through which so much effect can be given to what I may wish to impress upon the opinion of the public. . . . .
“My aim and hope are, ere long, to support myself by the sale of half my time, and have the other half for the completion of my History. When I can command 500l. for the same quantity that Scott gets 3000l. for, this will be accomplished, and this is likely soon to be the case. God bless you!
My father’s publication of Kirke
White’s Remains very naturally drew upon him many applications for similar assistance;
and curious indeed would be the collections of verses, good, bad, and indifferent, which
from time to time were transmitted to him by
| Ætat. 39. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 19 |
It seems that at the beginning of the year a youth of the name of
Dusautoy, then about seventeen years of age, the
son of a retired officer residing at Totness, Devon, and one of a numerous family, had
written to my father, enclosing some pieces of poetry, and requesting his opinion and
advice as to their publication. Neither the letter nor the reply to it have been preserved;
but in Dusautoy’s rejoinder, he expresses his grateful thanks
for the warning given him; against the imprudence of prematurely throwing himself upon the
cold judgment of the public; and asks in what degree it was probable or possible that
literature would assist him in making his way to the bar, the profession to which at that
time he was most inclined. Being one of a large family, his
| 20 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 39. |
My father’s reply was as follows:—
|
* It appears that two years before writing to my father, young Dusautoy, then a school-boy of fifteen, had made a similar application to Sir Walter Scott; whose reply, which is now before me, is very characteristic of the kind-hearted frankness and sound judgment of the writer. Some portion of it will, I think, interest the reader, as it is now published for the first time. After saying that “though in general he had made it a rule to decline giving an opinion upon the verses so often sent him for his criticism, this application was so couched that he could not well avoid making an exception in their favour,” he adds,—“I have only to caution you against relying very much upon it: the friends who know me best, and to whose judgment I am myself in the constant habit of trusting, reckon me a very capricious and uncertain judge of poetry; and I have had repeated occasions to observe that I have often failed in anticipating the reception of poetry from the public. Above all, sir, I must warn you against suffering yourself to suppose, that the power of enjoying natural beauty, and poetical description, are necessarily connected with that of producing poetry. The former is really a gift of Heaven, which conduces inestimably to the happiness of those who enjoy it. The second has much more of a knack in it than the pride of poets is always willing to admit; and, at any rate, is only valuable when combined with the first. . . . . I would also caution you against an enthusiasm which, while it argues an excellent disposition and feeling heart, requires to be watched and restrained, though not repressed. It is apt, if too much indulged, to engender a fastidious contempt for the ordinary business of the world, and gradually to render us unfit for the exercise of the useful and domestic virtues, which depends greatly upon our not exalting our feelings above the temper of well ordered and well educated society. No good man can ever be happy when he is unfit for the career of simple and commonplace duty; and I need not add how many melancholy instances there are of extravagance and profligacy being resorted to under pretence of contempt for the common rules of life. Cultivate then, sir, your taste for poetry and the belles-lettres as an elegant and most interesting amusement; but combine it with studies of a more severe and solid cast, and such as are most intimately connected with your prospects in future life. In the words of Solomon—‘My son, get knowledge.’” The remainder of the letter consists of some critical remarks upon the pieces submitted to him; which, he says, appear to him “to have all the merits and most of the faults of juvenile composition; to be fanciful, tender, and elegant; and to exhibit both command of language and luxuriance of imagination.”—Ashiestiel, May 6. 1811. |
| Ætat. 39. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 21 |
“Your talents will do every thing for you in time, but nothing in the way you wish for some years to come. The best road to the bar is through the university, where honours of every kind will be within your reach. With proper conduct you would obtain a fellowship by the time you were one or two and twenty, and this would enable you to establish yourself in one profession or another, at your own choice.
“This course is as desirable for your intellectual as for your worldly advancement. Your mind would then have time and opportunity to ripen, and bring forth its fruits in due season. God forbid that they should either be forced or blighted! A young man cannot support himself by literary exertions, however great his talents and his industry. Woe be to the youthful poet who sets out upon his pilgrimage to the temple of fame with nothing but hope for his viaticum! There is the Slough of Despond, and the Hill of Difficulty, and the Valley of the Shadow of Death upon the way!
“To be called to the bar you must be five years a
member of one of the inns of court; but if you have a university degree, three
will suffice. Men who during this course look to their talents for support
usually write for newspapers or reviews: the former is destructively laborious,
and sends many poor fel-
| 22 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 39. |
“The stage, indeed, is a lottery where there is more chance of a prize: but there is an evil attending success in that direction which I can distinctly see, though you perhaps may not be persuaded of it. The young man who produces a successful play is usually the dupe of his own success: and being satisfied with producing an immediate and ephemeral effect, looks for nothing beyond it. You must aim at something more. I think your path is plain. Success at the university is not exclusively a thing of chance or favour; you are certain of it if you deserve it.
“Then you have considered this with your friends, tell me the result, and rest assured that my endeavours to forward your wishes in this, or in any other course which you may think proper to pursue, shall be given with as much sincerity as this advice; meantime read Greek, and write as many verses as you please. By shooting at a high mark you will gain strength of arm, and precision of aim will come in its proper season.
Upon further consideration it was determined that Dusautoy should enter at Cambridge; and my father having
taken some trouble in the matter, he was
| Ætat. 39. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 23 |
My father had at one time intended publishing a selection from Dusautoy’s papers, which were sent to him for that purpose; but further reflection convinced him that his first inspection of them “had led him to form too hasty a conclusion, not as to the intellectual power which they displayed, but as to the effect which they were likely to produce if brought before the public. To me,” he continues, “the most obvious faults of these fragments are the most unequivocal proofs of genius in the author, as being efforts of a mind conscious of a strength which it had not yet learnt to use,—exuberance, which
* The subject was Boadicea; and Dusautoy’s composition an ode, “injudiciously written in Spenser’s stanza.” |
| 24 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 39. |
“Do not be too sure of your victory in the House of
Commons. It is not unlikely that when the securities come to be discussed you
will find yourselves in a minority there, as well as in the country at large.
The mischief, however, is done. It is like certain bodily complaints, trifling
in themselves, but of infinite import as symptomatic of approaching death. The
more I see, the more I read, and the more I reflect, the more reason there
appears to me to fear that our turn of revolution is hastening on. In the minds
of the busy part of the public it is already effected. The save-all reformers
have made them suspicious; the opposition has made them discontented; the
anarchists are making them furious. Methodism is undermining the Church, and
your party, in league with all varieties of opinionists, have battered it till
you have succeeded in making a breach. I give you all credit for good
intentions; but I know the dissenters and the philosophists better than you do,
and know that the principle
| Ætat. 39. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 25 |
“The end of all this will be the loss of liberty, for that is the penalty which, in the immutable order of things, is appointed for the abuse of it. What we may have to go through, before we sit down quietly in our chains, God only knows.
“Have you heard of the strange circumstance about Coleridge? A man hanging himself in the Park with one of his shirts on, marked at full length! Guess C.’s astonishment at reading this in a newspaper at a coffee-house. The thing is equally ridiculous and provoking. It will alarm many persons who know him, and I dare say many will always believe that the man was C. himself, but that he was cut down in time, and that his friends said it was somebody else in order to conceal the truth. As yet, however, I have laughed about it too much to be vexed.
“I have just got General Mackinnon’s Journal*: never was any thing more faithful than his account of the country and the people. We have, I fear, few such men in the British army. I knew a sister of his well some years ago, and should rejoice to meet with her again, for she was one of the cleverest women I ever knew. When they lived in France, Bonaparte was a frequent visitor at their mother’s
* See Inscription, xxxv. p. 178. one vol. edit. |
| 26 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 39. |
In a former letter my father speaks of an article he had written for the forthcoming number of the Quarterly Review, on the state of the poor, and he there mentions briefly the heads of the general view he had taken of the subject. This had appeared, and Mr. Rickman now comments on it, whose practical and sensible remarks I quote here, as showing his frankness in stating differences of opinion, and his friend’s willingness to hear and consider them:—
“I have read your article on the poor with great satisfaction, for the abundance of wit it
contains, and the general truth of its statements and reflections. With some things you
know I do not agree,—for instance, not in your dislike of manufactures to the
same degree,—especially I do not find them guilty of increasing the poor. For
instance, no county is more purely agricultural than Sussex, where twenty-three persons, parents and children, in one
hundred receive parish relief; no county more clearly to be referred to the
manufacturing character than Lancashire, where
| Ætat. 39. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 27 |
“I am afraid nothing will settle my mind about your wide education plan—a great good or a great evil certainly, but which I am not sure while the liberty of the press remains. I believe that more seditious newspapers than Bibles will be in use among your pupils.
“We go on badly in the House of Commons. . . . . The Ministry considers nothing, forsooth, as a Cabinet question,—that is, they have no opinion collectively, I cannot imagine anything in history more pitiful than their junction and alliance with the high and mighty mob against the East India Company—an establishment second only, if second, to the English Government, in importance to mankind. As to the Catholics, they will gain little from the House of Commons, and nothing from the Lords.”*
|
* J. R. to R. S., March 12. 1813. |
| 28 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 39. |
“You and I shall agree about general education. Ignorance is no preventive in these days, if, indeed, it ever were one which could be relied on. All who have ears can hear sedition, and the more ignorant they are, the more easy is it to inflame them. My plan is (I know not whether Gifford has ventured to give it) to make transportation the punishment for seditious libelling. This and this only would be an effectual cure. The existence of a press in the state in which ours is in, is incompatible with the security of any Government.
“About the manufacturing system, as affecting the poor-rates, doubtless you are best informed. My argument went to show that, under certain circumstances of not unfrequent occurrence, manufactures occasioned a sudden increase of the craving mouths, and that the whole previous discipline of these persons fitted them to become Luddites. It is most likely there may be some ambiguity in that part of the article, from the vague use of the word poor, which ought to be distinguished from pauper,—a distinction I never thought of making till your letter made me see the necessity for so doing.
“You give me comfort about the Catholics, and
strengthen my doubts about the East India question. I have written on the
former subject in the forthcoming
| Ætat. 39. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 29 |
“God bless you!
“Tom is made
quite unhappy by these repeated victories of the Americans; and for my own part
I regard them with the deepest and gloomiest forebodings. The superior weight
of metal will not account for all. I heard a day or two ago from a
Liverpoolian, lately in America, that they stuff their wadding with bullets.
This may kill a few more men, but will not explain how it is that our ships are
so soon demolished, not merely disabled. Wordsworth and I agreed in suspecting some improvement in
gunnery (Fulton is likely enough to have
discovered something) before I saw the same supposition thrown out in the
‘Times.’ Still there
would remain something more alarming to be resolved, and that is, how it
happens that we injure them so little? I very much fear that there may be a
dreadful secret
| 30 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 39. |
“I do not know that the captain of the Macedonian was a tyrant. Peake certainly was not; he is well known here, having married a cousin of Wordsworth’s; his ship was in perfect order, and he as brave and able a man as any in the service. Here it seems that the men behaved well; but in ten minutes the ship was literally knocked to pieces, her sides fairly staved in; and I think this can only be explained by some improvements in the manufactory of powder, or in the manner of loading, &c. But as
| Ætat. 39. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 31 |
“My chief business in town will be to make arrangements for supplying the huge deficit which the termination of my labours in the Register occasions. I wish to turn to present account my Spanish materials, and still more the insight which I have acquired into the history of the war in the Peninsula; and to recast that portion of the Register, carry it on, and bring it forth in a suitable form. This cannot be done without the consent of the publishers—Ballantyne, Longman, and Murray. To the two latter I have written, and am about to write to James Ballantyne. Should the thing be brought to bear, I must procure an introduction to Marquis Wellesley,—that is, to the documents which I doubt not he would very readily supply; and I should have occasion for all the assistance from the Foreign Office which my friends could obtain. To the Marquis I have means of access through Mr. Littleton, and probably, also, via Gifford, through Canning. It may be of use if you make known my wishes in that quarter.
“Josiah Conder
had told me, though less particularly, the circumstances of your sister’s
happy death,
| 32 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 39. |
“Your letter, my dear Neville, represents just that state of mind which I expected to
find you in.
| Ætat. 39. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 33 |
“Montgomery’s poem came in the same parcel with your letter. I had previously written about it to the Quarterly, and was told, in reply, that it was wished to pass it by there, because it had disappointed every body. I wish I could say that I myself did not in some degree feel disappointed also; yet there is so much that is really beautiful, and which I can sincerely praise, and the outline of the story will read so well with the choicest passages interspersed, that I shall send up a reviewal, and do, as a Frenchman would say, my possible. Of what is good in the poem I am a competent judge; of what may be defective in it, my judgment is not, perhaps, so properly to be trusted, for having once planned a poem upon the Deluge myself, I necessarily compare my own outline with Montgomery’s. The best part is the death of Adam. Oh! if the whole had been like that! or (for that is impossible) that there had been two or three passages equal to it! Montgomery has crippled himself by a metre, which, of all others, is the worst for long and various narrative, and which most certainly betrays a writer into the common track and commonplaces of poetical language. He has thought of himself in Javan, and the character of Javan is hardly prominent enough to be made the chief personage. Yet there is much, very much to admire and to recur to with pleasure.
“God bless you! Remember me to your mother,
| 34 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 39. |
“Do you want to make your fortune in the philosophical world? If so, you may thank Owen Lloyd for the happiest opportunity that was ever put into an aspirant’s hands. You must have heard the vulgar notion that a horsehair, plucked out by the root and put in water, becomes alive in a few days. The boys at Brathay repeatedly told their mother it was true, that they had tried it themselves and seen it tried. Her reply was, show it me and I will believe it. While we were there last week in came Owen with two of these creatures in a bottle. Wordsworth was there; and to our utter and unutterable astonishment did the boys, to convince us that these long thin black worms were their own manufactory by the old receipt, lay hold of them by the middle while they writhed like eels, and stripping them with their nails down on each side, actually lay bare the horsehair in the middle, which seemed to serve as the backbone of the creature, or the substratum of the living matter which had collected round it.
“Wordsworth and
I should both have supposed that it was a collection of animalculæ round the
hair
| Ætat. 39. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 35 |
“No doubt you will laugh and disbelieve this, and half suspect that I am jesting. But indeed I have only told you the fact as it occurred; and you will at once see its whole importance in philosophy, and the use which you and Gooch may derive from it, coming forth with a series of experiments, and with
* “The Cyclopædia says that the Gordius Aquaticus is vulgarly supposed to be animated horsehair; the print of the creature represents it as much smaller than Owen Lloyd’s manufactory, which is as large as the other Gordii upon the same plate, and very like them. But I distinctly saw the hair when the accretion was stripped off with the nail.”—R. S. to J. R., August 2. 1813. |
| 36 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 39. |
“And if the horse’s hair succeeds, Sir Domine, by parallel reasoning you know, try one of your own.
“Your comedy came to hand a fortnight ago. . . . . The charitable dowager is drawn from the life. At least it has all the appearance of a portrait. As a drama there is a want of incident and of probability in that upon which the catastrophe depends; but the dialogue abounds with those felicities which flash from you in prose and verse, more than from any other writer. I remember nothing which at all resembles them, except in Jeremy Taylor: he has things as perfect and as touching in their kind, but the kind is different; there is the same beauty, the same exquisite fitness; but not the point and poignancy which you display In the comedy and in the commentary, nor the condensation and strength which characterise Gebir and Count Julian.
“I did not fail to notice the neighbourly compliment
which you bestow upon the town of Abergavenny. Even out of Wales, however,
something good may come besides Welsh flannel and lambswool stockings. I am
reading a great book from Brecknock; for from Brecknock, of all other places
under the sun, the fullest Mahommedan history which has
| Ætat. 39. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 37 |
“What Jupiter means to do with us, he himself best knows; for as he seems to have stultified all parties at home, and all powers abroad, there is no longer the old criterion of his intentions to help us in our foresight. I think this campaign will lead to a peace: such a peace will be worse than a continuance of the war if it leaves Bonaparte alive; but the causes of the armistice are as yet a mystery to me; and if hostilities should be renewed, which on the whole seems more probable than that they should be terminated, I still hope to see his destruction. The peace which would then ensue would be lasting, and during a long interval of exhaustion and rest perhaps the world will grow wiser and learn a few practical lessons from experience. . . . . God bless you!
At the beginning of September my father went for a visit of a few weeks
to London and the vicinity; and his letters from thence detail fully all the circumstances
connected with his appointment to the office of Poet-Laureate. These have been several
times related, but never so accurately as here by himself.
| 38 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 39. |
There is now, however, no reason for suppressing any of the circumstances, and no further comments of mine are needful to elucidate what the reader will find so clearly explained.
One of the letters which you forwarded was from James Ballantyne; my business in that quarter
seems likely to terminate rather better than might have been expected. I wish
you had opened the other, which was from Scott. It will be easier to transcribe it than to give its
contents; and it does him so much honour that you ought to see it without
delay.—‘My dear Southey,—On my return home I found, to my no small
surprise, a letter tendering me the laurel vacant by the death of the
poetical Pye. I have declined the
appointment as being incompetent to the task of annual commemoration; but
chiefly as being provided for in my professional department, and unwilling
to incur the censure of en-
| Ætat. 39. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 39 |
* Sir Walter Scott seems to have been under the impression that the emoluments of the Laureateship amounted to 300l. or 400l. a year,—See Life of Scott, vol. iv. p. 118. |
| 40 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 39. |
“I thought this was so likely to happen, that I had turned the thing over in my mind in expectation. So as soon as this letter reached me, I wrote a note to Croker to this effect,—that I would not write odes as boys write exercises, at stated times and upon stated subjects; but that if it were understood that upon great public events I might either write or be silent as the spirit moved, I should now accept the office as an honourable distinction, which under those circumstances it would become. To-morrow I shall see him. The salary is but a nominal 120l.; and, as you see, I shall either reject it, or make the title honourable by accepting it upon my own terms. The latter is the most probable result. . . . .
“No doubt I shall be the better on my return for this
course of full exercise and full feeding, which follows in natural order. By
good fortune this is the oyster season, and when in town I devour about a dozen
in the middle of the day; so that in the history of my life this year ought to
be designated as the year of the oysters, inasmuch as I shall have feasted on
them more than in any other year of my life. I shall work off the old flesh
from my bones, and lay on a new layer in its place,—a sort of renovation
which makes meat better, and therefore will not make me the worse. Harry complains of me as a
| Ætat. 39. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 41 |
“God bless you!
“I saw your letter about the Laurel, and you will not be sorry to hear how completely I had acted in conformity with your opinion.
“Pye’s
death was announced a day or two before my departure from Keswick, and at the
time I thought it so probable that the not-very-desirable succession might be
offered me, as to bestow a little serious thought upon the subject, as well as
a jest or two. On my arrival in town Bedford came to my brother’s to meet me at breakfast;
told me that Croker had spoken with him
about it, and he with Gifford; that they
supposed the onus of the office would be dropt, or if it were not, that I might
so execute it as to give it a new character; and that as detur digniori was the maxim upon which
the thing was likely to be bestowed, they thought It would become me to accept
it. My business, however, whatever might be my determination, was to call
without delay at the Admiralty, thank C. for what
| 42 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 39. |
“Accordingly I called on Croker. He had spoken to the Prince; and the Prince observing that I had written ‘some good things in favour of the Spaniards,’ said the office should be given me. You will admire the reason; and infer from it that I ought to have been made historiographer because I had written Madoc. Presently Croker meets Lord Liverpool, and tells him what had passed; Lord Liverpool expressed his sorrow that he had not known it a day sooner, for he and the Marquis of Hertford had consulted together upon whom the vacant honour could most properly be bestowed. Scott was the greatest poet of the day, and to Scott therefore they had written to offer it. The Prince was displeased at this; though he said he ought to have been consulted, it was his pleasure that I should have it, and have it I should. Upon this Croker represented that he was Scott’s friend as well as mine, that Scott and I were upon friendly terms; and for the sake of all three he requested that the business-might rest where it was.
“Thus it stood when I made my first call at the Admiralty. I more than half suspected that Scott would decline the offer, and my own mind was made up before this suspicion was verified. The manner in which Scott declined it was the handsomest possible; nothing could be more friendly to me, or more honourable to himself. God bless you!
| Ætat. 39. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 43 |
“I have stolen away from a room full of people, that I
might spend an hour in writing to you instead of wasting it at the card-table.
Sunday I went by appointment to Lord William
Gordon, who wanted to take me to see a young lady. Who should
this prove to be but Miss Booth; the
very actress whom we saw at Liverpool play so sweetly in Kotzebue’s comedy of the Birth-day. There was I taken to
hear her recite Mary the Maid of the
Inn! and if I had not interfered in aid of her own better sense.
Lord W. and her mother and sisters would have made her
act as well as recite it. As I know you defy the monster, I may venture to say
that she is a sweet little girl, though a little spoilt by circumstances which
would injure anybody; but what think you of this old lord asking permission for
me to repeat my visit, and urging me to ‘take her under my
protection,’ and show her what to recite, and instruct her how to
recite it? And all this upon a Sunday! So I shall give her a book, and tell her
what parts she should choose to appear in. And if she goes again to Edinburgh,
be civil to her if she touches at the Lakes; she supports a mother and brother,
and two or three sisters. When I returned to Queen Anne Street from the visit,
I found Davy sitting with the Doctor, and
awaiting my return. I could not dine with him to-morrow,
| 44 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 39. |
“I dined on Sunday at Holland House, with some eighteen or twenty persons. Sharp was there, who introduced me with all due form to Rogers and to Sir James Mackintosh, who seems to be in a bad state of health. In the evening Lord Byron came in.* He had asked Rogers if I was ‘magnanimous,’ and requested him to make for him all sorts of amends honourable for having tried his wit upon me at the expense of his discretion; and in full confidence of the success of the apology, had been provided with a letter of introduction to me in case he had gone to the Lakes, as he intended to have done. As for me, you know how I regard things of this kind; so we met with all becoming courtesy on both sides, and I saw a man whom in voice, manner, and countenance I liked very much more than either his character or his writings had given me reason to expect. Rogers wanted me to dine with him on Tuesday (this day): only Lord Byron and Sharp were to have been of the party, but I had a pending engagement here, and was sorry for it.
“Holland House is a most interesting building.
* The following is Lord Byron’s account of this meeting:—“Yesterday, at Holland House, I was introduced to Southey, the best looking bard I have seen for some time. To have that poet’s head and shoulders I would almost have written his Sapphics. He is certainly a prepossessing-looking person to look at, and a man of talent and all that, and—there is his eulogy.”—Life of Byron, vol ii. p. 244. |
| Ætat. 39. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 45 |
“We had a very pleasant dinner at Madame de Stael’s. Davy and his wife, a Frenchman whose name I never heard, and the Portuguese ambassador, the Conde de Palmella, a gentlemanly and accomplished man. I wish you had seen the animation with which she exclaimed against Davy and Mackintosh for their notions about peace.
“Once more farewell!
The following poetical announcement of his being actually installed may excite a smile:—
“I have something to tell you, which you will not be sorry at, ’Tis that I am sworn in to the office of Laureat. The oath that I took there could be nothing wrong in, ’Twas to do all the duties to the dignity belonging. Keep this, I pray you, as a precious gem, For this is the Laureat’s first poem. |
“There, my dear Edith, are some choice verses for you. I composed them in St. James’s Park yesterday, on my way from the Chamberlain’s office, where a good old gentleman usher, a worthy sort of fat old man in a wig and bag and a snuff coloured full dress suit with cut steel buttons and a sword, administered an oath.” . . . .
| 46 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 39. |
“If you have not guessed at the reason why your letter has lain ten weeks unanswered, you must have thought me a very thankless and graceless fellow, and very undeserving of such a letter. I waited from day to day that I might tell you all was completed, and my patience was nearly exhausted in the process. Let me tell you the whole history in due order, before I express my feelings towards you upon the occasion. Upon receiving yours I wrote to Croker, saying that the time was passed when I could write verses upon demand, but that if it were understood that, instead of the old formalities, I might be at liberty to write upon great public events or to be silent, as the spirit moved,—in that case the office would become a mark of honourable distinction, and I should be proud of accepting it. How this was to be managed he best knew; for, of course, it was not for me to propose terms to the Prince. When next I saw him he told me that, after the appointment was completed, he or some other person in the Prince’s confidence, would suggest to him the fitness of making this reform, in an office which requires some reform to rescue it from the contempt into which it had fallen. I thought all was settled, and expected every day to receive some official communication, but week after week past on. My headquarters at this time were at Streatham.* Going one
* His uncle, Mr. Hill, was then rector of that parish. |
| Ætat. 39. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 47 |
“At length, after sundry ineffectual attempts, owing
sometimes to his absence, and once or twice to public business, I saw Croker once more, and he discovered for me
that the delay originated in a desire of Lord
Hertford’s that Lord
Liverpool should write to him, and ask the office for me. This
calling in the Prime Minister about the disposal of an office,
| 48 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 39. |
| Ætat. 39. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 49 |
“The original salary of the office was 100 marks. It was raised for Ben Jonson to 100l. and a tierce of Spanish canary wine, now wickedly commuted for 26l.; which said sum, unlike the canary, is subject to income-tax, land-tax, and heaven knows what taxes besides. The whole net income is little more or less than 90l. It comes to me as a Godsend, and I have vested it in a life-policy: by making it up 102l. it covers an insurance for 3000l. upon my own life. I have never felt any painful anxiety as to providing for my family,—my mind is too buoyant, my animal spirits too good, for this care ever to have affected my happiness; and I may add that a not unbecoming trust in Providence has ever supported my confidence in myself. But it is with the deepest feeling of thanksgiving that I have secured this legacy for my wife and children, and it is to you that I am primarily and chiefly indebted.
“To the manner of your letter I am quite unable to reply. We shall both be remembered hereafter, and ill betide him who shall institute a comparison between us. There has been no race; we have both got to the top of the hill by different paths, and meet there not as rivals but as friends, each rejoicing in the success of the other.
“I wait for the levee, and hope to find a place in the mail for Penrith on the evening after it, for I have the Swiss malady, and am home-sick. Remember me to Mrs. Scott and your daughter; and believe me, my dear Scott,
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