“I am writing, Grosvenor, as you know, the History of Portugal,—a country of which I
probably know more than any foreigner, and as much as any native. Now has it
come athwart me, this after-noon, how much more accurate, and perhaps, a
thousand years hence, more valuable, a book it would be, were I to write the
History of Wine Street below the Pump, the street wherein I was born, recording
the revolutions of every house during twenty years. It almost startles me to
see how the events of private life, within my own knowledge, et quorum pars maxima, etc., equal or
outdo novel and comedy; and the conclusion to each tale—the mors omnibus est communis,—makes me more serious
than the sight of my own grey hairs in the glass; for the hoar frosts,
Grosvenor, are begun with me. Oh,
there would be matter for moralising in such a history, beyond all that history
offers. The very title is a romance. You, in London, need to be told that Wine
Street is a street in Bristol, and that there is a pump in it, and that by the
title I would mean to express, that the historian does not extend his subject
to that larger division of the street which lies above the pump. You, I say,
need all these explanations, and yet, when I first went to school, I never
thought of Wine Street and of that pump without tears, and such a sorrow at
heart, as by Heaven! no child of mine shall ever suffer while I am living to
prevent
| Ætat. 32. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 33 |
“Let me begin with the church at the corner. I remember the old church: a row of little shops were built before it, above which its windows received light; and on the leads which roofed them, crowds used to stand at the chairing of members, as they did to my remembrance when peace was proclaimed after the American war. I was christened in that old church, and at this moment vividly remember our pew under the organ, of which I certainly have not thought these fifteen years before. —— was then the rector, a humdrum somnificator, who, God rest his soul for it! made my poor mother stay at home Sunday evenings, because she could not keep awake after dinner to hear him. A
* Baron Trenck, in his account of his long and wretched imprisonment, says, “I had lived long and much in the world; vacuity of thought, therefore, I was little troubled with.” May not this give some clue to the cause why solitary confinement makes some insane and does not affect others? I have read somewhere of a man who said, if his cell had been round he must have gone mad, but there was a comer for the eye to rest upon.—Ed. |
| 34 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 32. |
“There were quarter-boys to this old church clock, as at St. Dunstan, and I have many a time
* These are still held by one person; but as the population of the latter is stated at fifty-five only in the Clergy List, and the income of the two under 400l., it would seem to be an unobjectionable union.—Ed. |
| Ætat. 32. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 35 |
“The church was demolished, and sad things were said
of the indecencies that occurred in removing the coffins for the new foundation
to be laid. We had no interest in this, for our vault was at Ashton. I sent you
once, years ago, a drawing of this church. It is my only freehold—all the
land I possess in the world—and is now full—no matter! I never had
any feeling about a family grave till my mother was buried in London, and that
gave me more pain than was either reasonable or right. My little girl lies with
my dear good friend Mrs. Danvers. I, myself, shall lie
where I fall; and it will be all one in the next world. Once more to Christ
Church. I was present in the heart of a crowd when the foundation stone was
laid, and read the plates wherein posterity will find engraved the name of
Robert Southey—for my father
was churchwarden—by the same token that that year he gave me a penny to
go to the fair instead of a shilling as
| 36 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 32. |
