“I very much wish you were here. You may have heard that there is an island which sometimes comes up in this lake, and, after awhile, goes down again. Five years have I been expecting this appearance, and now, sure enough, it is above water. It may stay there for some weeks,—sometimes six or eight,—it may already have sunk. But Davy ought to put himself in the first mail-coach; and perhaps curiosity may induce you to expedite your journey for the sake of seeing the oddest thing you are ever likely to see.
“How it is effected is for Davy to discover; but as much of the bottom of the lake as is
equal to the area of your house has been forced up to the surface in several
pieces, and in other parts you plainly see that there are rents in the bottom
where parts have sunk in, for it is not a deep part of the lake. The gas which
follows the immersion of a pole stinks, and over one part of the water a thin
steam was plainly
| Ætat. 34. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 155 |
“A Portuguese sermon has just helped me to a discovery which will amuse you. Who was the first man that doubled the Cape of Good Hope? The prophet Jonah. Examine his track in the whale, and this proves to be the case; and you will observe that this magnifies the miracle prodigiously, for what a passage he had from the Mediterranean to the Persian Gulf!
“My friends the Spaniards and Portuguese are justifying the opinion which I have long given of them to the astonishment of those who heard me. Bonaparte will, I suppose, pour in upon them with his whole force; so let him. You know how little respect I have for what is called the spirit of history, or the philosophy of history, by those people who want to have everything given them in extracts and essences; but the truth of the present history is, that a great military despotism, in its youth and full vigour—like that of France—will and must beat down corrupt establishments and worn-out govern-
* The floating island still appears at intervals. There is said to be a bottom wind, when the lake is violently agitated without any disturbance in the atmosphere—a phenomenon which does not seem ye to have been satisfactorily accounted for. |
| 156 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 34. |
“God bless you!
