“The motto* to those Metrical Tales is strictly true; but there is a history belonging to them which will show that I was not trifling when I wrote them. With the single exception of Gualberto (the longest and best), all the others were written expressly for the Morning Post; and this volume-full is a selection from a large heap, by which I earned 149l. 4s., and is now published for the very same reason for which it was originally composed. Besides the necessity for writing such things, there was also a great fitness, inasmuch as, by so doing, a facility and variety of style was acquired, to be converted to better purposes, and I had always better purposes in view.
|
* I am unable to refer to this edition. |
| 314 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 30. |
“. . . . . I have been reading the earliest travels in
Abyssinia, namely, the History of the Portuguese
Embassy in 1520, by Francisco
Alvares, the chaplain; a book exceedingly rare,—my copy,
which is the Spanish translation, a little 24mo. volume, having cost a moidore.
As I cannot bear to lose anything, I shall draw up just such an abstract as if
for a review, and throw whatever is not essential to the main narrative among
the works of supererogation, which will be enough for a volume. The king, or,
to give him his proper title, the Neguz, dwelt like an Arab in his tent. . . .
. What every where surprises me in the history of these discoveries is, that so
little should be known of the East in Europe, when so many Europeans were to be
found in the East, for the Neguz was never without some straggler or other.
Still more that in Europe such idle dreams about Ethiopia should prevail, when
Abyssinians so often found their way to Rome. The opportunities lost by foolish
ministers and foolish kings makes me swear for pure vexation. If Alboquerque had lived, I verily believe he
would have expelled the Mamelukes from Egypt, by the help of the African
Christians, and have made that country a Christian instead of a Turkish
conquest. I should like to give Egypt to the Spaniards; they are good
colonists. . . . . . . Do you know that reflecting mirrors of steel were used
instead of spectacles for weak or dim-eyed persons to read in? This must have
been so troublesome and so expensive that it never can have been common.
| Ætat. 30. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 315 |
“God bless you!
