“I have delayed thus long to acknowledge and thank you
for your last consignment of books in the hope of telling you, what I am now at
last enabled to do, that Gifford has
finally given up the Quarterly
Review, and that, after the forthcoming number, it will be under
John Coleridge’s management.
This is a matter which I have had very much at heart, that there might be an
end of that mischievous language concerning your country. I opposed it always
with all my might, and forced in that paper upon Dwight’s Travels; yet in the very next number the old system was renewed.
You may be assured that they have occasioned almost as much disgust here as in
America. So far is it from being the language or the wish of the Government,
that one of the Cabinet ministers complained of it to me as most mischievous,
and most opposite to the course which they were desirous of pursuing. There is
an end of it now, and henceforth that journal will do all in its power towards
establishing that feeling which ought to exist between the two nations. Let
| Ætat. 50. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 195 |
“I know not what the forthcoming number may contain; but I can answer for the Review afterwards. A friend of mine (Hughes, who wrote a pleasant book about the South of France) is preparing a paper upon your literature; and Buckminster’s sermons are reprinting at my suggestion.
“Now, then, let me thank you for Philip’s War, so long desired; for
G. Fox, digged out of his burrows, and
their companions. These Quaker books are very curious; it is out of such
rubbish that I have to pick out the whole materials for my intended edifice,
and good materials they are when they are found. Before this reaches you I
shall have finished the Tale of
Paraguay, which has hung like a millstone about my neck, owing to
the difficulty which the stanza occasioned. As soon as I am rid of it I shall
take up the New England poem
as a regular employment, and work on with it steadily to the end. A third part
is done; I am not making a hero of Philip, as it now seems the fashion to represent him. In my story
the question between the settlers and the natives is very fairly represented,
without any disposition either to favour the cause of savage life against
civilisation, or to dissemble the injuries which trading colonists (as well as
military ones) have always committed upon people in an inferior grade of
society to themselves. Better characters than the history affords me, or, to
speak more accurately, characters more capable of serving
| 196 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 50. |
“My niece desires me to thank you for the sweet story of Undine, which is surely the most graceful fiction of modern times. Some other pieces of the same author have been translated here, all bearing marks of the same originality and genius.
“I had made a half promise of going to Ireland, to visit one of the best and ablest persons there, the Bishop of Limerick. But it is not likely that the intention can be fulfilled. An Irishman, well informed of the state of things there, writes to me in these words, ‘Pray don’t think of going to Ireland. I would not insure any man’s life for three months in that unhappy country. The populace are ready for a rebellion; and if their leaders should for their own purpose choose to have one, they may have to-morrow a second edition of the Irish massacre.’
“Wordsworth was
with me lately, in good health, and talked of you. His brother, the Master of Trinity, has just
published a volume concerning
the
| Ætat. 50. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 197 |
“Remember me to all my Boston friends; it is a pleasure to think I have so many there. The only American whom I have seen this year is Bishop Hobart of New York. God bless you!
