“There are two poets who must come into our series,
and I do not remember their names in your list: Sir
John Moore, of whom the only poem which I have ever seen should be given.
It is addressed to a lady, he himself being in a consumption. If you do not
remember it, Wynn will, and I think can help you to it, for it is very
beautiful.
| Ætat. 32. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 43 |
“Our last month has been so unusually fine, that the
farmers want rain. July will probably give them enough. September and October
are the safest months to come down in; though, if you consider gooseberry-pie
as partaking of the nature of the summum
bonum (to speak modestly of it), about a fortnight hence
will be the happiest time you can choose. If Tom and Harry should be
with me in time for the feat, I have thoughts of challenging all England at a
match at gooseberry-pie: barring Jack the
Giganticide’s leathern bag, we are sure of the victory.
Thank God, Tom has escaped the yellow fever! and if ever
he lives to be an admiral, Grosvenor,—as by God’s blessing he may,—
| 44 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 32. |
“I have been inserting occasional rhymes in Kehama, and have in this way altered and amended about six hundred lines. When what is already written shall be got through in this manner, I shall think the poem in a way of completion: indeed, it will most likely supply my ways and means for the next winter, instead of reviewing. Elmsley advised me to go on with it; and the truth is, that my own likings and dislikings to it have been so equally divided, that I stood in need of somebody’s encouragement to settle the balance. It gains by rhyme, which is to passages of no inherent merit what rouge and candle-light are to ordinary faces. Merely ornamental parts, also, are aided by it, as foil sets off paste. But where there is either passion or power, the plainer and more straightforward the language can be made the better. Now, you will suppose that upon this system I am writing Kehama. My proceedings are not quite so systematical; but what, with revising and re-revising over and over again, they will amount to something like it at last.
“God bless you.
