“I have been reading the four first numbers of
‘The
Flagellant:’ they are all I possess. My dearest Grosvenor, they have recalled past times
forcibly to my mind, and I could almost weep at the retrospect. Why have I not
written to you before? Because I could only have told you of uncertainty and
suspense. There is nothing more to say now. The next six months will afford
more variety of incidents. But, my dear Bedford, though
you will not love me the less, you will shake your head, and lament the effects
of what you call enthusiasm. Would to God that we agreed in sentiment! for then
you could enter
| Ætat. 21. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 231 |
“There is the strangest mixture of cloud and of sunshine! an outcast in the world! an adventurer I living by his wits! yet happy in the full conviction of rectitude, in integrity, and in the affection of a mild and lovely woman: at once the object of hatred and admiration: wondered at by all; hated by the aristocrats; the very oracle of my own party. Bedford! Bedford! mine are the principles of peace, of non-resistance; you cannot burst our bonds of affection. Do not grieve that circumstances have made me thus; you ought to rejoice that your friend acts up to his principles, though you think them wrong.
“Coleridge is writing at the same table; our names are written in the book of destiny, on the same page.
“Grosvenor, I
must put your brains in requisition. We are about to publish a magazine on a
new plan. One of the prospectuses, when printed, shall be forwarded to you.
’Tis our intention to say in the titlepage, S. T. C. and R. S.,
Editors; and to admit nothing but what is good. A work of the kind must not be
undertaken without a certainty of indemnification, and then it bids very fair
to be lucrative, so the booksellers here tell us. To be called The Provincial Magazine, and published at Bristol if we
settle here. We mean to make it the vehicle of all our poetry: will you not
give us some essays, &c. &c.? We can undoubtedly make it the best thing
of the kind ever published; so, Bedford, be very wise and
very witty. Send us whole essays, hints, good things,
| 232 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 21. |
“What think you of this? I should say that the work will certainly express our sentiments, so expressed as never to offend; but, if truth spoken in the words of meekness be offence, we may not avoid it.
“I am in treaty with The Telegraph, and hope to be their correspondent. Hireling writer to a newspaper! ’Sdeath! ’tis an ugly title: but, n’importe, I shall write truth, and only truth. Have you seen, in Friday’s Telegraph, a letter to Canning, signed Harrington? ’Twas the specimen of my prose.
“You will be melancholy at all this, Bedford; I am so at times, but what can I do? I could not enter the Church; nor had I finances to study physic; for public offices I am too notorious. I have not the gift of making shoes, nor the happy art of mending them. Education has unfitted me for trade, and I must, perforce, enter the muster roll of authors.”
“My days are disquieted, and the dreams of the night
only retrace the past to bewilder me in vague visions of the future. America is
still the place to which our ultimate views tend; but it will be years before
we can go. As for Wales, it is not practicable. The point is, where can I best
subsist? . . . . London is certainly the place for all who, like me, are on the
world. . . . . London must be the place: if I and Coleridge can only get a fixed salary of 100l. a-year
| Ætat. 21. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 233 |
“You can give me no advice, nor point out any line to
pursue; but you can write to me, and tell me how you are, and of your friends.
Let me hear from you as soon as possible: moralise, metaphysicise, pun, say
good things, promise me some aid in the magazine, and shake hands with me as
cordially by letter, as when we parted in the Strand. I look over your letters,
and find but little alteration of sentiment from the beginning of ’92 to
the end of ’94. What a strange mass of matter is in mine during those
periods! I mean to write my own life, and a most useful book it will be. You
shall write the Paraleipomena; but do not condole too much over my mistaken
principles, for such pity will create a mutiny in my sepulchred bones, and I
shall break prison to argue with you, even from the grave. God love you! I
think soon to be in London, if I can get a situation there: sometimes the
prospect smiles upon me. I want but fifty pounds a-year certain, and can trust
myself for enough beyond that. . . . .
| 234 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 21. |
Ah spirit pure That error’s mist had left thy purged eye! . . . . . . . |
“Peace be with you, and with all mankind, is the earnest hope of your
