“Many happy returns of the new year to you and yours.
It is now thirty years since you and I first met in Dean’s Yard, and in
the course of these years half the human race who were then living have gone
under ground. How long either of us may keep above it, God knows; but while we
do, there is little likelihood that any circumstances can break or loosen an
attachment which has continued so long. Your path has been just what might have
been predicted,—straight, honourable, and in full view, only that one
might have expected to have found you on the other side the house and in
office; and one day or other (the sooner the better) I trust to see you there.
What mine might have been without your helping hand, when I was among the bogs
and briars, I know not. With that help it has been a very pleasant uphill road,
with so many incidents by the way, that the history of them would make no bad
Pilgrim’s
Progress, especially as I am now at rest among the
| Ætat. 44. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 293 |
“We are enjoying a beautiful winter here. No snow has yet fallen in the valley, and it lies on the fells not raggedly, but in an even line, so that Skiddaw and Grisdale bear no distant resemblance to the Swiss mountains, and imbibe tints at morning and evening which may vie with any thing that ever was seen upon Mont Blanc or Jungfrau.
“I am writing for the Quarterly Review upon the Poor Laws, or, rather, upon the means of improving the lower classes,—a practical paper, containing, I think, some hints which any clergyman or other influential person In a parish may usefully improve. It is not unlikely that I may gradually withdraw from the Review; that Is to say, as soon as I can live without it. It takes up far too great a portion of my time; for although no man can take to task-work with less reluctance, still, from the very circumstance of its being task-work,—something which must be done, and not what I desire at the time to do,—it costs me twice or thrice the time of any other composition, as much in the course of the year as it took to write Thalaba or Kehama. This last poem is going to press for a fourth edition; they sell slowly and steadily.
“The life
of Wesley is my favourite employment just now, and a very curious
book it will be, looking at Methodism abroad as well as at home, and
comprehending our religious history for the last hundred years. I am sure I
shall treat this subject with moderation. I hope I come to it with a sober
| 294 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 44. |
“My books from Milan have reached London;—something more than 100 volumes. Ramusio is among them, and the Gesta Dei. I have not yet heard of my Acta Sanctorum, the arrival of which will form a grand day in my life. Little leisure as I find for poetry, and seldom indeed as I think of it, there is yet a sort of reluctance in me wholly to give up any scheme of a poem on which I have ever thought with, any degree of fondness; and because I had meditated a Jewish poem many years ago, I bought at Milan the great Bibliotheca Rabinica of Barlotacci, as a repository of materials. Could I have afforded to have written verses during those years when nobody bought them, I verily believe I should have written more than any of my predecessors. God bless you!
