“I do not know that I should have taken up my pen with
the intention of inflicting a letter upon you, if it had not been for a
suspicion, produced by your last letter, that you expect me in London sooner
than it is anyways possible for me to be there, and that peradventure,
therefore, you may think it is not worth while to look after my pension till I
arrive in proper person to receive it. Now, Mr.
Bedford, touching this matter there are two things to be said.
My going to London seems to me no very certain thing. It depends something on
my uncle’s movements, of whose
arrival from Lisbon I daily expect to hear; and, of course, if I go, my journey
must be so timed as to meet him. It depends, also, something on my finances;
and I begin to think that I cannot afford the expense of the journey, for I
have had extraordinary goings-out this year in settling myself, and no
extraordinary comings-in to counterbalance them. The Constable is a
leaden-heeled rascal, and if I do not take care, will be left confoundedly
behind. I must work like a negro the whole winter to set things right, and the
nearer the time for my projected journey approaches, the less likely is it that
I can spare it. My object in going would be to consult certain books for the
preliminaries and notes for the
Cid; and these books I should assuredly feel myself bound to consult
if it required no other sacrifices than those of time
| 114 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 33. |
“I thought to have brought up my lee-way by doing a
specific piece of job-work, of which I have been rather unhandsomely
disappointed. The story is simply this:—Smirke has projected a splendid edition of Don Quixote with Cadell and Davies. They
proposed to Longman to take a share in
it, and he was authorised by them to ask me to translate it. While I was
corresponding with them upon the fitness of revising the first translation in
preference, and forming such a plan for preliminaries and annotations as would
have made a great body of Spanish learning, Cadell and
Davies, unknown to them, struck a bargain with a
Mr. Balfour, who is no more able to
translate Don Quixote than he would have been to
write it. This is some disappointment to me, as I should have been paid a
specific sum for my work, and could have calculated upon it. The
Longmans behave as they ought to do in the business.
They refuse to take any share in the work, in consequence of this unhandsome
dealing towards me, and offer to
| Ætat. 33. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 115 |
“My affairs are not in a bad train, except for the present. The profits of the current edition of Espriella, and of the unborn one of the Cid, are anticipated and gone. Those of the Specimens, of the small edition of Madoc, and of Palmerin, are untouched. But if the three send me in 100l., at the end of the year’s sale, it will be more than I expect. The first volume of Brazil will be ready for the press next summer. I think also of publishing my travels in Portugal, for which good materials have long lain by me, and we are now talking of editing Morte d’ Arthur. Reviewing comes among the ordinaries of the year; in my conscience I do not think anybody else does so much and gets so little for it. Have I told you that my whole profits upon Madoc up to Midsummer last amount to 25l.? and the whole it is likely to be, unless the remaining 134 copies be sold as waste paper.
“I shall do yet; and if there be anything like a
dispirited tone in this letter, it is more because my eyes are weak, than for
any other cause. It is likely that Espriella will bear me out,—I
must be more than commonly unlucky if it does not,—and if it does not, I
will seek more review employment, write in more magazines, and scribble verses
for the newspapers. As long as I can keep half my time for labours worthy of
myself and of posterity, I shall not feel debased by sacrificing the other,
however unworthily it may be employed. You will say, why do
| 116 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 33. |
“Now do not fancy me bent double like the Pilgrim, under this load upon my back; I am as bolt upright as ever, and in as wholesome good spirits, and, as soon as this letter is folded and sent off, shall go on with reviewing Buchanan’s Travels, and forget everything except what I know concerning Malabar.
“God bless you!
