“When I wished you never to read the Classics again it
was because, like many other persons, you read nothing
else, and were not likely ever to get more knowledge out of them than
you had got already, especially as you chiefly (I may say exclusively) read
those from whom least is to be got, which is also another sin of the age. Your
letter contains the usual blunders which the ignorance of the age is
continually making, and upon which, and nothing else, rests the whole point at
issue between such critics as Jeffrey
and myself: you couple Homer and Virgil under the general term of classics, and
suppose that both are to be admired upon the same grounds. A century ago this
was better understood; the critics of that age did read what they wrote about,
and understood what they read, and they knew that whoever thought the one of
these
| Ætat. 33. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 87 |
“You ask me about the Catholic question. I am against admitting them to power of any kind, because the immediate use that would be made of it would be to make proselytes, for which Catholicism is of all religions best adapted. Every ship which had a Catholic captain would have a Catholic chaplain, and in no very long time a Catholic crew: so on in the army; just as every rich Catholic in England at this time has his mansion surrounded with converts fairly purchased,—the Jerningham family in Norfolk for instance. I object to any concessions, because no concession can possibly satisfy them; and I think it palpable folly to talk or think of tolerating any sect (beyond what they already enjoy) whose first principle is that their church is infallible, and, therefore, bound to persecute all others. This is the principle of Catholicism everywhere, and when they can they avow it and act upon it.
“If our statesmen (God forgive me for degrading the
word),—if our traders in politics,—had better information of how
things are going on abroad, they would not talk of the distinction between
Catholic
| 88 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 33. |
“I have a favour to ask of Horace,—which is, that he will do me the kindness to send
me the titles of such Portuguese manuscripts as are in the Museum. There cannot
be so many as to make this a thing of much trouble; and there are some of great
value, which were, I believe, part of the plunder of
Osorio’s library carried off from Sylvas by
Sir F. Drake. I wish to know what
they are, for the purpose of ascertaining how many among them are not to be
found in their own country, and either taking myself, or causing to be taken,
if a fit transcriber can be found, copies to present to some fit library at
Lisbon:
| Ætat. 33. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 89 |
“I pray you remember that what I think upon the Catholic question by no means disposes me in favour of the new ministry. I, Mr. Bedford, am, as you know, a court pensioner, and have, as you well know, deserved to be so for my great and devoted attachment to the person of His Majesty and the measures of his government. Nevertheless, Mr. Bedford, his ministers are men of tried and convicted incapacity; they have always been the contempt of Europe; whether they can be more despised than their predecessors have uniformly and deservedly been, I know not. I cannot tell how far below nothing the political barometer can sink till it has been tried.
“God bless you!
