“I am not a little pleased that the paper has passed through the hands of
Gifford with so little mutilation. .
. . . My letter to Murraymagne in reply
to his intended act of exclusion, has had its proper effect; but behold the
said Murraymagne does not regard the Poor Law paper as
political:
| 300 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 44. |
“The second Police Report is not of the character which
you supposed. There is much valuable matter in it; and indeed, both Reports
furnish stronger positions for me than for the enemy to occupy. The Bow-street
men appear to great advantage in both. It really appears as if the coffee shops
would almost supersede dram-drinking, so comfortable do the working classes
find warmth and distention (your
philosophy). Do you know that of all known substances coffee produces the most
of that excitement which is required in fatigue? The hunters in the Isle of
France and Bourbon take no other provision into the woods. And Bruce tells us that the viaticum of the Galla
in their expeditions consists of balls of ground coffee and butter, one
per diem (I believe) the size of a walnut sufficing to
prevent the sense of hunger. I have just made a curious note upon the same
subject for the History of
Brazil: a people in the very heart of S. America, living beside a
lake of unwholesome water, instead of making maize beer, like all their
neighbours, carbonised their maize,—as good a substitute for coffee as
any which was
| Ætat. 44. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 301 |
“Edith May has found a brazen or copper spearhead, upon Swinside, in a craggy part of the mountain, where it may have laid unseen for centuries. It is perfectly green but not corroded; exceedingly brittle, quite plain, but of very neat workmanship, as if it had been cast,—one of my spans in length.
“God bless you!
