“It is somewhat late to speak of Christmas and the New
Year; nevertheless I wish you as many as you may be capable of enjoying, and
the more the better. Winter is passing on mildly with us; and if it were not
for our miry soil and bad ways, I should not wish for pleasanter weather than
January has brought with it. Ailments rather than inclination have led me of
late to take regular exercise, which I was wont to think I could do without as
well as a Turk; so I take two or three of the children with me, and, giving
them leave to call upon me for their daily walk, their eagerness overcomes my
propensities for the chair and the desk; we now go before breakfast, for the
sake of getting the first sunshine on the mountains, which, when the snow is on
them, is more glorious than at any other season. Yesterday I think I heard the
wild swan, and this morning had the finest sight of wild-fowl I ever beheld:
there was a cloud of them above the lake, at such a height, that frequently
they became invisible, then twinkled
| Ætat. 39. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 11 |
“Your godson is determined to be a poet, he says; and I was not a little amused by his telling me this morning, when he came near a hollow tree which has caught his eye lately, and made him ask me sundry questions about it, that the first poem he should make should be about that hollow tree. I have made some progress in rhyming the Greek accidence for him,—an easier thing than you would perhaps suppose it to be; it tickles his humour, and lays hold of his memory.
“This last year has been full of unexpected events, such indeed as mock all human foresight. The present will bring with it business of importance at home, whatever may happen abroad.
“There is one point in which most men, however opposite
in their judgments about the affairs of the Peninsula, have been
deceived,—in their expectations from the Cortes. There is a lamentable
want of wisdom in the country; among the peasantry its place is supplied by
their love of the soil and that invincible perseverance which so strongly marks
the Spanish character. Bonaparte never can
subdue them, even if his power had received no shock, and his whole attention
were exclusively directed towards Spain: his life, though it should be
prolonged to the length of Aurengzebe’s (as great a villain as himself),
| 12 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 39. |
“If Gifford prints what I have written, and lets it pass unmutilated, you will see in the next Quarterly some remarks upon the moral and political state of the populace, and the alarming manner in which Jacobinism (disappearing from the educated classes) has sunk into the mob; a danger far more extensive and momentous than is generally admitted. Very likely a sort of cowardly prudence may occasion some suppressions, which I should be sorry for. Wyndham would have acknowledged the truth of the picture, and have been with me for looking the danger in the face. It is an old fact that the favourite song among the people in this little town just now as I have happened to learn; is upon Parker the mutineer: it purports to have been written by his wife, and is in metre and diction just what such a woman would write.
“"What part do you take in the East Indian question? I perceive its magnitude, and am wholly incapable of forming an opinion.
“Coleridge’s tragedy*, which Sheridan and Kemble
* After the successful appearance of this tragedy, which was entitled “Remorse,” my father wrote—“I never doubted that Coleridge’s play would meet with a triumphant reception. Be it known now and remembered hereafter, that this self-same play, having had |
| Ætat. 39. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 13 |
“God bless you!
