“In looking over your volumes*, you will, I think, wherever you perceive that a passage has been struck out, perceive at the same time for what reason it was omitted. The reason for every omission was such that, I am persuaded, you would, without hesitation, have assented to it, had you been upon the spot. A most powerful and original book it is, in any one page of which—almost in any single sentence—I should have discovered the author, if it had come into my hands as an anonymous publication. Notice it must needs attract; but I suspect that it will be praised the most by those with whom you have the least sympathy, and that the English and Scottish Liberals may perhaps forgive you even for being my friend.
“I have not been from home since the summer of 1820. Even since that time, London has been so altered as to have almost the appearance of a new city. Nothing that I have seen elsewhere can bear comparison with the line of houses from Regent’s Park to Carleton House. A stranger might imagine that our shopkeepers were like the merchants of Tyre, and lived in palaces. I wish the buildings were as substantial as they are splendid; but every thing is done in the spirit of trade. Durability never enters into the builder’s speculations, and the unsub-
* The proof sheets of a work of Mr. Landor’s, on the Writings of Charles Fox, had passed through my father’s hands. |
| 116 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 48. |
“In London I scarcely went out of the circle of my own
immediate friends. But as I went east and west upon a round of flying visits to
old friends and familiar acquaintances, some of whom I had not seen for more
than twenty years, I had opportunity enough of perceiving a more general
disposition to be satisfied with things as they are, than ever existed within
my memory at any former time. There happened to be no question afloat with
which any party feeling could be connected, and the people were sensible of
their general prosperity. Few, indeed, are they who apprehend the momentous
consequences of the changes which are taking place. One effect of general
education (such as that education is) is beginning to manifest itself. The
twopenny journals of sedition and blasphemy lost their
| Ætat. 48. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 117 |
