“My conscience will not let me direct a letter to your care without directing one to yourself by the same post.
“A great event has happened to me within this fortnight,—the birth of a child, after an interval of nearly seven years, and that child a son. This was a chance to which I looked rather with dread than with hope, after having seen the flower of my earthly hopes and happiness cut down. But it is well that these things are not in our own disposal; and without building upon so frail a tenure as an infant’s life, or indulging in any vain dreams of what may be, I am thankful for him now that he is come.
“You would have heard from me ere long, even if Mr. Ticknor* had not given a spur to my tardy
* The accomplished author of “The History of Spanish Literature.” Murray, 1850. |
| 338 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 45. |
“Our successors (for you and I are now old enough in
authorship to use this term) are falling into the same faults as the Roman
poets after the Augustan age, and the Italians after the golden season of their
poetry. They are overlabouring their productions, and overloading them with
ornament, so that all parts are equally prominent, everywhere glare and
glitter, and no keeping and no repose. Henry
Milman has spoilt his Samor in this way. It is full of power and of beauty, but too full
of them. There is another striking example in a little volume called Night, where some of the most
uncouth stories imaginable are told in a strain of continued tip-toe effort;
and you are vexed to see such uncommon talents so oddly applied, and such
Herculean strength wasted in preposterous exertions. The author’s name is
Elliott, a
self-taught man, in business
| Ætat. 45. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 339 |
“It was reported that you were about to bring forth a play, and I was greatly in hopes it might be true; for I am verily persuaded that in this course you would run as brilliant a career as you have already done in narrative, both in prose and rhyme, for as for believing that you have a double in the field,—not I! Those same powers would be equally certain of success in the drama; and were you to give them a dramatic direction, and reign for a third seven years upon the stage, you would stand alone in literary history. Indeed, already I believe that no man ever afforded so much delight to so great a number of his contemporaries in this or any other country.
“God bless you, my dear Scott! Remember me to Mrs. S. and your daughter, and believe me,
