“I thought to have seen you before this time, and am daily, indeed hourly, in anticipation of being able to say when I set out. You know that I design to take up with me the first part of Madoc, and leave it with the printer. Now have I been thinking that your worship would, perhaps, be not unwilling to stand man-midwife upon the occasion, and be appointed grand plenipotentiary over commas, semicolons, and periods. My books have all suffered by misprinting. In fact, there is a lurking hope at the bottom of this request, that when you have once been brought into a habit of dealing with the devil on my account, you may be induced to deal with him on your own.
“I shall bring up with me as much towards the
Specimens as can be supplied by Anderson’s Collection, Cibber’s Lives, and an imperfect series of the European Magazine. The names omitted in these may,
beyond all doubt, be supplied from the obituary in the Gentleman’s Magazine, alias the Oldwomania, a work which I have begun to take in here at
Keswick, to enlighten a Portuguese student among the mountains, and which does
amuse me by its exquisite inanity,
| 282 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 29. |
“’Tis a long way to London! I wish I were on my
way, and then shall I wish myself arrived, and then be wishing myself back
again; for complete rest, absolute, unprospective, rooted rest, is the great
object of my desires. Near London must be my final settlement, unless any happy
and unforeseen fortune should enable me to move to the south, and thus take a
longer lease of life; in fact, if I could afford the money sacrifice, I would
willingly make the other, and keep my History unpublished all my life, that I
might pass it in Portugal. Society, connections, native language,—all
these are weighty things; but what are they to the permanent and perpetual
exhilaration of a climate that not merely prolongs life, but gives you double
the life while it lasts? I have actually felt a positive pleasure in breathing
there; and even here, in this magnificent spot, the recollection of the Tagus,
and the Serra de Ossa, of Coimbra, and its cypresses, and orange
| Ætat. 29. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 283 |
