“My dear Sir,—I feel greatly indebted to you for your obliging and very encouraging answer to my application. . . .
“First, with regard to the Lakes, I am ashamed to say that I want much of the commonest
knowledge called for in so miscellaneous a subject. I am not an Ornithologist,
nor an Ichthyologist (unless a dissertation on Potted
Char would avail me, for that I could obtain); I am no Botanist, no
Mineralogist: as a Naturalist, in short, I am shamefully ignorant. And, in this
age of accuracy in that department, I doubt whether anybody less than a
Humboldt or a Davy would satisfy the miscellaneous demands of
this subject. By the way, I do not remember to have seen any scientific theme
treated with so much grace and attractions of popularity, combined with so much
original observation, as those of Forest Trees and the Salmon Fisheries, &c, by Sir Walter
Scott; and had I
| DE QUINCEY | 47 |
“Now, generally as to the want
of materials for works of any research wheresoever there are no great
libraries, what you say is feelingly known to me from long and rueful
experience. How Southey manages in that
respect, even with his private advantages of a tolerably well-mounted library,
and his extensive connections, I never could divine. For myself, as well on
this account as for the benefit of my children with a view
| 48 | LIFE OF J. G. LOCKHART. |
“I commend the project earnestly to your indulgent consideration. A readable—a popular book, I am satisfied that I could make it. And the accurate abstracts which I could manage to interweave, of dissertations upon the Byzantine Aulic ritual, and concerning works that, generally speaking, do not let themselves be read (to borrow a phrase from our German friends), might contribute to give it a permanent value, be the same little or much.
“Extremum (I speak of the epistolary bores I am inflicting on you—in that sense) Extremum hunc concede laborem.—And believe me, ever yours,
“My letters have to travel to Ambleside in the
1 De Quincey’s idea was executed by Dean Milman. |
| SCOTT ON PEEL | 49 |
