The Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey
Robert Southey to John May, 6 October 1815
“Liege, Oct. 6. 1815, six p.m.
“My dear Friend,
“I have a happy habit of making the best of all things;
and being just at this time as uncomfortable as the dust and bustle, and all
the disagreeables of an inn in a large filthy manufacturing city can make me, I
have called for pen, ink, and paper, and am actually writing in the bar, the
door open to the yard opposite to this unwiped table, the doors open to the
public room, where two men are dining and talking ![]()
| Ætat. 42. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 133 |
![]()
French,
and a woman servant at my elbow lighting a fire for our party. Presently the
folding-doors are to be shut, the ladies are to descend from their chambers,
the bar will be kept appropriated to our house, the male part of the company
will get into good humour, dinner will be ready, and then I must lay aside the
grey goose-quill. As a preliminary to these promised comforts, the servant is
mopping the hearth, which is composed (like a tesselated pavement) of little
bricks about two inches long by half an inch wide, set within a broad black
stone frame. The fuel is of fire-balls, a mixture of pulverised coal and clay.
I have seen a great deal, and heard a great deal,—more, indeed, than I
can keep pace with in my journal, though I strive hard to do it; but I minute
down short notes in my pencil-book with all possible care, and hope, in the
end, to lose nothing. As for Harry and
his party, I know nothing more of them than that they landed at Ostend a week
before us, and proceeded the same day to Bruges. To-morrow we shall probably
learn tidings of them at Spa. Meantime, we have joined company with some
fellow-passengers, Mr. Vardon, of
Greenwich, with his family, and Mr. Nash,
an artist, who has lived many years in India. Flanders is a most interesting
country. Bruges, the most striking city I have ever seen, an old city in
perfect preservation. It seems as if not a house had been built during the last
two centuries, and not a house suffered to pass to decay. The poorest people
seem to be well lodged, and there is a general air of sufficiency, cleanliness,
industry, and comfort, which I have never seen in any other ![]()
| 134 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 42. |
![]()
place. The cities have grown worse as we advanced. At Namur we reached a
dirty city, situated in a romantic country; the Meuse there reminded me of the
Thames from your delightful house, an island in size and shape resembling that
upon which I have often wished for a grove of poplars, coming just in the same
position. From thence along the river to this abominable place, the country is,
for the greater part, as lovely as can be imagined, especially at Huy, where we
slept last night, and fell in with one of the inhabitants, a man of more than
ordinary intellect, from whom I learnt much of the state of public opinion,
&c.
“Our weather hitherto has been delightful. This was
especially fortunate at Waterloo and at Ligny, where we had much ground to walk
over. It would surprise you to see how soon nature has recovered from the
injuries of war. The ground is ploughed and sown, and grain and flowers and
seeds already growing over the field of battle, which is still strewn with
vestiges of the slaughter, caps, cartridges, boxes, hats, &c. We picked up
some French cards and some bullets, and we purchased a French pistol and two of
the eagles which the infantry wear upon their caps. What I felt upon this
ground, it would be difficult to say; what I saw, and still more what I heard,
there is no time at present for saying. In prose and in verse you shall some
day hear the whole. At Les Quatre Bras, I saw two graves, which probably the
dogs or the swine had opened. In the one were the ribs of a human body,
projecting through the mould; in the other, the whole skeleton exposed. ![]()
| Ætat. 42. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 135 |
![]()
Some of our party told me of a third, in which the worms
were at work, but I shrunk from the sight. You will rejoice to hear that the
English are as well spoken of for their deportment in peace as in war. It is
far otherwise with the Prussians. Concerning them there is but one opinion;
their brutality is said to exceed that of the French, and of their intolerable
insolence I have heard but too many proofs. That abominable old Frederic made them a military nation, and this
is the inevitable consequence. This very day we passed a party on their way
towards France—some hundred or two. Two gentlemen and two ladies of the
country, in a carriage, had come up with them; and these ruffians would not
allow them to pass, but compelled them to wait and follow the slow pace of foot
soldiers! This we ourselves saw. Next to the English, the Belgians have the
best character for discipline.
“I have laid out some money in books—four or
five-and-twenty pounds—and I have bargained for a set of the Acta
Sanctorum to be completed and sent after me—the price 500 francs. This is
an invaluable acquisition. Neither our time or money will allow us to reach the
Rhine. We turn back from Aix-la-Chapelle, and take the route of Maestricht and
Louvaine to Antwerp, thence to Ghent again, and cross from Calais. I bought at
Bruges a French History of Brazil, just published by M. Alphonse de Beauchamp, in three volumes
octavo. He says, in his Preface, that having finished the two first volumes, he
thought it advisable to see if any new light had been thrown upon the subject
by modern ![]()
| 136 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 42. |
![]()
authors. Meantime, a compilation upon this
history had appeared in England, but the English author, Mr. Southey, had brought no new lights; he had
promised much for his second volume, but the hope of literary Europe had been
again deceived, for this second volume, so emphatically promised, had not
appeared. I dare say no person regrets this delay so much as M.
Beauchamp, he having stolen the whole of his two first volumes,
and about the third part of the other, from the very Mr.
Southey whom he abuses. He has copied my references as the list
of his own authorities (manuscripts and all), and he has committed blunders
which prove, beyond all doubt, that he does not understand Portuguese. I have
been much diverted by this fellow’s impudence.
“The table is laid, and the knives and forks rattling a
pleasant note of preparation, as the woman waiter arranges them.
“God bless you! I have hurried through the sheet, and
thus pleasantly beguiled what would have been a very unpleasant hour. We are
all well, and your god-daughter has seen a live emperor at Brussels. I feel the
disadvantage of speaking French ill, and understanding it by the ear worse.
Nevertheless, I speak it without remorse, make myself somehow or other
understood, and get at what I want to know. Once more, God bless you, my dear
friend.
“Believe me always most affectionately yours,
Alphonse de Beauchamp (1769-1832)
French historian and journalist, he was Minister of Police until banished by Napoleon;
after the Revolution he wrote for the
Moniteur and the
Gazette de France.
Frederick II of Prussia (1712-1786)
King of Prussia (1740-86) and military commander in the War of the Austrian Succession
and Seven Years War.
Edward Nash (1778-1821)
English painter who after spending time in India befriended Robert Southey and
accompanied him on his travels.
Henry Herbert Southey (1783-1865)
The younger brother of Robert Southey; educated at Edinburgh University, he was physician
to George IV, Gresham Professor of Medicine, and friend of Sir Walter Scott.
Robert Southey (1774-1843)
Poet laureate and man of letters whose contemporary reputation depended upon his prose
works, among them the
Life of Nelson, 2 vols (1813),
History of the Peninsular War, 3 vols (1823-32) and
The Doctor, 7 vols (1834-47).
Thomas Vardon (1817 fl.)
Of Battersea-rise, Greenwich, iron manufacturer; he died before 1851. He traveled on the
Continent with Robert Southey in 1815.
