“I am brooding a poem upon Philip’s War with the
New Englanders, which was the decisive struggle between the red and white races
in America. Nothing can be more anti-heroic than stiff puritan manners; but
these may be kept sufficiently out of sight; and high puritan principles are
fine elements to work with. One of my main characters is a
| 294 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 36. |
“You have done wonders with C. Julian. 1200 lines in a week were the quickest run (in sailors’ phrase) that I ever made. But this is nothing to what you have accomplished; and your manner involves so much thought (excess of meaning being its fault), that the same number of lines must cost thrice as much expense of passion and of the reasoning faculty to you than they would to me. I am impatient to see this tragedy. I hear nothing of Kehama except that forty copies have been sold at Edinburgh, and that Scott has reviewed it for the next Quarterly.
“What is the meaning of the monogram in the title-page
of your Ode to Gustavus? I
never read your Latin without wishing it were English, and
| Ætat. 36. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 295 |
“Your abhorrence of Spenser is a strange heresy, I admit that he is inferior to Chaucer (who for variety of power has no competitor except Shakspeare), but he is the great master of English versification, incomparably the greatest master in our language. Without being insensible to the defects of the Fairy Queen, I am never weary of reading it. Surely Chaucer is as much a poet as it was possible for him to be when the language was in so rude a state. There seems to be this material point of difference between us,—you think we have little poetry which was good for any thing before Milton; I, that we have little since, except in our own immediate days. I do not say there was much before, but what there was, was sterling verse in sterling English. It had thought and feeling in it. At present, the surest way to become popular is to have as little of either ingredient as possible.
“Have you read Captain Pasley’s book? I take it for my text in the next Quarterly, and would fain make it our political Bible.
“God bless you!
