“Infailix homo! infailix homo! said a German to Coleridge, who did not understand for whom he was inquiring by the name of Tωctωr Tωd; infailix homo! suspensus a patibulo! Without any patibulary reflexion, infailix homo is the soul of exclamation that your letter prompts. Zounds! if Giardini were in your inside, what an admirable solo he might play upon guts that must, by this time, have been fretted to fiddle-strings! I verily believe that your gripes must be organic, and not, as in all other men, bagpipical.
“The plain English of all this is, that your metaphysics, as you call them, are to your mind what a regular course of drastic physic would be to your body,—very disagreeable, and very weakening; that, being neither a man of business, nor of fashion, nor of letters, you want object and occupation in the world; and that if you would study Arabic, Welsh, or Chinese, or resolve to translate Tristram Shandy into Hebrew, you would soon be a happy man.
“. . . . . Here we live as regularly as clock-work;
indeed, more
| Ætat. 29. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 249 |
“Of the only three visitable families within reach, one is fled for the winter, and the others flying. N’importe, our dog Dapper remains, and he is as intimate with me as heart could wish. I want my books, and nothing else; for, blessed be God, I grow day by day more independent of society, and feel neither a want nor a wish for it. Every thing at present looks, from the window, like the confectioners’ shops at this season in London; and Skiddaw is the hugest of twelfth-cakes: but when I go down by the lake side, it would puzzle all my comparison-compounding fancy to tell you what it looks like there—the million or trillion forms of beauty soon baffle all description.
“Coleridge is
gone for Devonshire, and I was going to say I am alone, but that the sight of
Shakspeare, and Spenser, and Milton, and the Bible, on my table, and Castanheda, and Barros, and Osorio at my
elbow, tell me I am in the best of all possible company. Do not think of
getting any subscribers for Madoc; I am
convinced the plan of publishing it by subscription was foolish, and shall
doubtless convince those who induced me to think of it. Have you seen the Critical Reviewal of Thalaba? I wish to see it,
for it comes not only from one of my best friends, but from one of the most learned, most able, and most
excellent men within the circle of my knowledge. . . . .
| 250 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 29. |
