“I have not had the heart to write to you, though the long silence had lain like a load upon my conscience. When we parted I had as much present happiness as man could wish, and was full of all cheerful hopes: however, no man, if he be good for any thing, but is the better for suffering. It has long been my habit to look for the good that is to be found in every thing, and that alchemy is worth more than die grand secret of all the adepts.
“I had almost completed my arrangements for removing to
Richmond at Christmas, and here we are at the uttermost end of the north, and
here for some time we shall probably remain; how long, God knows. I am steady
in my pursuits, for they depend upon myself; but my plans and fortunes, being
of the τά ούκ έϕ΄ ήμιν, are more mutable; they are fairly
afloat, and the winds are more powerful than the steersman. Longman caught the alarm—the Bonaparte ague or English influenza—after
I left town, and sent to me to postpone my Bibliotheca, at the very time when I wished the engagement off my
mind, not being in a state of mind to contemplate it with courage. He shall now
wait my convenience, and I shall probably finish off my own works of choice
here, where living cheaper, I have more leisure. My History is in a state of
rapid progression. The
| 238 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 29. |
“Haslitt, whom you saw at Paris, has been here; a man of real genius. He has made a very fine picture of Coleridge for Sir George Beaumont, which is said to be in Titian’s manner; he has also painted Wordsworth, but so dismally, though Wordsworth’s face is his idea of physiognomical perfection, that one of his friends, on seeing it, exclaimed, ‘At the gallows—deeply affected by his deserved fate—yet determined to die like a man;’ and if you saw the picture, you would admire the criticism. We have a neighbour here who also knows you—Wilkinson, a clergyman, who draws, if not with much genius, with great industry and most useful fidelity. I have learnt a good deal by examining his collection of etchings.
“Holcroft, I
hear, has discovered, to his own exceeding delight, prophetic portraits of
himself and Coleridge among the damned
in your Michael Angelo. I have found out
a more flattering antetype
| Ætat. 29. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 239 |
“Edith desires to be remembered to you; she is but in indifferent health. I myself am as well as I ever was. The weather has been, and is, very severe, but it has not as yet hurt me; however, it must be owned the white bears have the advantage of us in England, and still more the dormice. If their torpor could be introduced into the human system, it would be a most rare invention. I should roll myself up at the end of October, and give orders to be waked by the chinmey-sweeper on May-day.
