“According to all form, I ought to write you a letter of congratulation*: but some unlucky ingredient in my moral, physical, and intellectual composition has all my life long operated upon me with respect to forms, like that antipathy which some persons feel towards cats, or other objects equally inoffensive. I get through them so badly at all times, that, whenever I am obliged to the performance, my chief concern is, how to slink out of it as expeditiously as possible. I have, moreover, a propensity which may seem at first, not very well to accord with that constitutional hilarity which is my best inherit-
* On his marriage. On some similar occasion, my father remarks, “I never wish people joy of their marriage; that they will find for themselves: what I wish them is—patience.” |
| Ætat. 40. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 121 |
“Monday, the 21st of August, was not a more remarkable day in your life than it was in that of my neighbour Skiddaw, who is a much older personage. The weather served for our bonfire*, and never, I believe, was such an assemblage upon such a spot. To my utter astonishment. Lord Sunderlin rode up, and Lady S., who had endeavoured to dissuade me from going as a thing too dangerous, joined the walking party. Wordsworth, with his wife, sister, and eldest boy, came over on purpose. James Boswell arrived that morning at the Sunderlins. Edith, the Senhora†, Edith May, and Herbert were my convoy, with our three maid-servants, some of our neighbours, some adventurous Lakers, and Messrs. Rag, Tag, and Bobtail, made up the rest of the assembly. We roasted beef and boiled plum-pud-
* In honour of the Battle of Waterloo. † Miss Barker, a lady with whom my father first became acquainted at Cintra, |
| 122 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 40. |
“The only mishap which occurred will make a famous
anecdote in the life of a great poet, if James
Boswell, after the example of his father, keepeth a diary of the sayings of remarkable men. When
we were craving for the punch, a cry went forth that the kettle had been
knocked over, with all the boiling water! Colonel Barker,
as Boswell named the Senhora, from her having had the command on this occasion,
immediately instituted a strict inquiry to discover the culprit, from a
suspicion that it might have been done in mischief, water, as you know, being a
commodity not easily replaced on the summit of Skiddaw. The persons about the
fire declared it was one of the gentlemen—they did not know his name; but
he had a red cloak on; they pointed him out in the circle. The red cloak (a
maroon one of Edith’s) identified
him; Wordsworth had got hold of it, and
was equipped like a Spanish Don—by no means the worst figure in the
company. He had committed this fatal faux
pas, and thought to slink off undiscovered. But as soon as,
in my inquiries concerning the punch, I learnt his guilt from the
| Ætat. 40. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 123 |
“The consequences were, that we took all the cold water upon the summit to supply our loss. Our myrmidons and Messrs. Rag and Co. had, therefore, none for their grog; they necessarily drank the rum pure; and you, who are physician to the Middlesex Hospital, are doubtless acquainted with the manner in which alcohol acts upon the nervous system. All our torches were lit at once by this mad company, and our way down the hill was marked by a track of fire, from flambeaux dropping the pitch, tarred ropes, &c. One fellow was so drunk that his companions placed him upon a horse, with his face to the tail, to bring him down, themselves being just sober enough to guide and hold him on. Down, however, we all got safely by midnight; and nobody, from the old Lord of seventy-seven to my son Herbert, is the worse for the toil of the day, though we were eight hours from the time we set out till we reached home. . . . .
“God bless you!
“I heard of your election from your good and trusty ally, Neville White. If that man’s means were equal to his spirit, he would be as rich as Crœsus.”
