“You tell me to write as an egotist, and I am well
disposed so to do; for what else is it that gives private letters their
greatest value, but the information they bring us of those for whom we are
interested? I saw your marriage in the papers, and perhaps one reason why my
letter has remained so long unfinished in my desk is, a sort of fear lest I
should mention it after death might have dissolved it,—a sort of
superstitious feeling to which I am subject. I wish you—being a father
myself—as large a family as you can comfortably bring up, and if you are
not provided with a godfather upon the next occasion, I beg you to accept of
me, as an old and
| Ætat. 32. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 21 |
“I have for some time looked on with pleasure to the hope of seeing you next autumn, when, in all probability, if the situation of affairs abroad does not prevent me, I shall once more visit Portugal, not for health’s sake, but to collect the last materials for my history, and to visit those parts of the kingdom which I have not yet seen. In this case my way will lie through Devonshire, and I will stop a day or two at Crediton, and talk over old times.
“You inquire of the wreck of the Seward family,—a name as dear to my inmost heart as it can be to yours. No change has taken place among them for some years, as I understand from Duppa, who was my guest here the autumn before last, and with whom I have an occasional correspondence.
“I passed through Oxford two years ago, and walked through the town at four o’clock in the morning; the place never before appeared to me half so beautiful. I looked up at my own windows, and, as you may well suppose, felt as most people do when they think of what changes time brings about.
“If you have seen or should see the Annual Review, you may like to know that I have
borne a great part in it thus far, and I may refer you for the state of my
opinions to the Reviewals of the Periodical Accounts of the Baptist Mission, vol. i., of
| 22 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 32. |
“In other respects time has not much altered me. I am as thin as ever, and to the full as noisy: making a noise in any way whatever is an animal pleasure with me, and the louder it is the better. Do you remember the round hole at the top of the staircase, opposite your door?*
“Coleridge is daily expected to return from Malta, where he has been now two years for his health. I inhabit the same house with his wife and children,—perhaps the very finest single spot in England. We overlook Keswick Lake, have the Lake of Bassen-
* See p. 87. |
| Ætat. 32. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 23 |
“My dislike was not to schoolmasters, but to the rod, which I dare warrant you do not make much use of. Here is a long letter, and you have in it as many great I’s as your heart can wish. It will give me much pleasure to hear again from you, and to know that your family is increased. If I cannot be godfather now, let me put in a claim in time for the next occasion; but I hope you will write to tell me that three things have been promised and vowed in my name by proxy. No man can more safely talk of defying the world, the flesh, and the devil. With the world my pursuits are little akin; the flesh and I quarrelled long ago, and I have been nothing but skin and bone ever since; and as for the devil, I have made more ballads in his abuse than anybody before me.
“God bless you, Lightfoot!
