“Your letter followed me to London. The hope which it held out that we might meet here, and the endless round of occupations in which I was involved during the whole nine weeks of my absence, prevented me from thanking you for Marmion so soon as I ought, and should otherwise have done.
“Half the poem I had read at Heber’s before my own copy arrived. I
went punctually to breakfast with him, and he was long enough dressing to let
me devour so much of it. The story is made of better materials than the Lay, yet they are not so well fitted
together. As a whole it has not pleased me so much; in parts it has pleased me
more. There is
| 140 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 34. |
“The introductory epistles I did not wish away, because as poems they gave me great pleasure, but I wished them at the end of the volume or at the beginning,—any where except where they were. My taste is perhaps peculiar in disliking all interruptions in narrative poetry. When the poet lets his story sleep, and talks in his own person, it is to me the same sort of unpleasant effect that is produced at the end of an act; you are alive to know what follows, and lo—down comes the curtain, and the fiddlers begin with their abominations. The general opinion, however, is with me in this particular instance.
“I am highly gratified by the manner in which you speak of Kirke White’s Remains. That book has been received to my heart’s desire. The edition (750) sold in less than three months, and there is every probability that it will obtain a steady sale, so as to produce something considerable to his mother and sisters.
“I saw Frere in
London, and he has promised to let me print his translations from the Poema del Cid. They are admirably
done,—indeed, I never saw any thing so difficult to do, and done so
excellently, except your supplement to Sir Tristrem. I do not believe that many men
have a greater command of language and versification than myself, and yet this
task of giving a specimen of that wonderful poem I shrunk from, fearing the
difficulty. At present I
| Ætat. 34. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 141 |
“So much of my life passes in this blessed retirement,
that when I go to London the effect is a little like what Nourjahad used to find after one of his long
naps. I find a woful difference of political opinion between myself and most of
those persons who have hitherto held the same feelings with me; and yet it
should seem that they have been sleeping over the great events of these latter
years, not I. There is a base and cowardly feeling abroad, which would humble
this country at the feet of France. This feeling I have everywhere been
combating with vehemence; but at the same time I have execrated with equal
vehemence the business of Copenhagen: Ishmael-like, my
hand has been against everybody, and everybody’s hand against me.
Wordsworth is the only man who
agrees with me on both points. I require, however, no other sanction to
convince me that I am right. Coleridge
justifies the attack on Denmark, but he justifies it upon individual testimony
of hostile intentions on the part of that court, and that testimony by no means
amounts to proof in my judgment. But what is done is done; and the endless
debates upon the subject, which have no other meaning and can have no other end
than that of harassing the ministry, disgust me, as they do every one who has
the honour of England at heart. Such a system makes the publicity of
| 142 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 34. |
“Is there any hope of seeing you this year at the Lakes? I should much like to show you Kehama. During my circuit I fell in with Savage Landor, the author of Gebir, to whom I spoke of my projected series of mythological poems, and said also for what reason the project had been laid aside. He besought me to go on with them, and said he would print them at his expense. Without the least thought of accepting this princely offer, it has stung me to the very core; and as the bite of the tarantula has no cure but dancing, so will there be none but singing for this. Great poets have no envy; little ones are full of it. I doubt whether any man ever criticised a good poem maliciously, unless he had written a bad one himself.
