“This is a most remarkable season with us. On the 20th
of November we had French beans at dinner, and now (on the 28th), there has not
been the slightest snow on the mountains, nor the slightest appearance of frost
in the valley. The late flowers continue to blossom still, and the early ones
are pushing forward as if it were spring. The great scarlet poppy has two large
buds ready to burst, and your favourite blue thistle has brought forth a
flower. But what is more extraordinary, the annual poppies, whose stalks, to
all appearance dead and dry, were left in the ground, merely till Mrs. Lovel should give directions for clearing
them away, have in many instances shot out fresh leaves of diminutive
| 322 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 44. |
“Gifford will tell you that I have been speaking a good word in behalf of the historical painters. (By the bye, get Nash to take you to see Haydon’s great picture, which is prodigiously fine.) I am now upon the Copyright question, which I shall make as short as possible; a few days will finish it, and a few days more finish a paper upon the Catacombs, in which I have brought together a great collection of facts from out-of-the-way sources, some of them very curious. The Copyright must have place in the present number, and no doubt it will, being much more for Murray’s interest than mine. The Catacombs will eke out my ways and means for the next quarter, and I shall have done with the Quarterly Review for the next six months.
“I shall not move southward, till both the Brazil and the Wesley are finished. Three
winter months will do wonders, as I hope to be entirely free from
interruptions. Other circumstances would not allow me to leave home before
March, nor will I move then unless these works are off my hands. I shall then
start fairly, without impediment, and in full force for the Peninsular War; and thus my life
passes, looking to the completion of one work for the sake of beginning
another, and having to start afresh for a new career as often as I reach the
goal. And so I suppose it will be, till I break down and founder
| Ætat. 44. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 323 |
“God bless you!
