“With regard to my labours in English history, the
plan which I not long ago communicated to you, of sketching it in a Book of the State down to the accession of the reigning
family, and following that by the Age of George the
Third, is all that I dream of accomplishing. The works on which
I ought to employ myself, Grosvenor, are
those for which I have laid in stores, on which a large portion of my previous
studies may be brought to bear, and for which
| 190 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 50. |
“I cannot but smile at your grave admonitions* concerning the Doctor, and would give something to have the satisfaction of reading to you the chapters which were written last week. Such a variety of ingredients I think never before entered into any book which had a thread of continuity running through it. I promise you there is as much sense as nonsense there. It is very much like a trifle, where you have whipt cream at the top, sweetmeats below, and a good solid foundation of cake well steeped in ratafia. You will find a liberal expenditure of long hoarded stores, such as the reading of few men could supply; satire and speculation; truths, some of which might beseem the bench or the pulpit, and others that require the sanction of the cap and bells for their introduction. And withal a narrative interspersed with interludes of every kind; yet still continuous upon a plan of its own, varying from grave to gay; and taking as wild and yet as natural a course as one of our mountain streams.
“I am reading Scaliger’s Epistles at this time,
* Mr. Bedford seemed to be under the apprehension that the “Cap find Bells” would be in too great requisition during the composition of the Doctor. “I am too ignorant,” he says, “of Dr. D. D.’s concerns to be able to speak about him, but there is one thing which ought not to be lost sight of, that a joke may be very well received across a table which would be considered the dullest thing in the world in print. The success of Tristram Shandy affords no argument in favour of a second attempt to induce the public to join in making fools of themselves.”—Oct. 7. 1824. |
| Ætat. 50. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 191 |
“God bless you!
