“I heard with sorrow of your ill health. Perhaps you
are at this time a happier man than if you were in the enjoyment of vigorous
health, and had never known sickness or sorrow. Any price is cheap for
religious hope. The evidence for Christianity is as demonstrative as the
subject admits: the more it is investigated, the stronger it appears. But the
root
| 112 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 48. |
“When we observe what things men will believe, who will not believe Christianity, it is impossible not to acknowledge how much belief depends upon the will.
“I shall have a large share of abuse in the course of
this year. In the first place, my Book of the Church, which I am writing con amore and with great diligence, will strike both
the Catholics and the Puritans harder blows than they have been of late years
accustomed to receive. The Emancipationists, therefore, and the Dissenters will
not be pleased; and you know the temper of the latter. My History of the War smites the Whigs,
and will draw upon me, sans doubt, as much hatred from
the Buonapartists in France, as I have the satisfaction of enjoying from their
friends in England. This volume is in great forwardness; more than five hundred
pages are printed. As for Lord Byron and his
coadjutors in the Times, Chronicle, &c. &c., I shall
of course not
| Ætat. 48. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 113 |
“God bless you!
