“And where, Grosvenor, do you suppose the fates have condemned me for the next six months?—to Spain and Portugal! Indeed, my heart is very heavy. I would have refused, but I was weary of incessantly refusing all my mother’s wishes, and it is only one mode of wearing out a period that must be unpleasant to me anywhere.
“I now know neither when I go, nor where, except that we
cross to Coruña, and thence by land to Lisbon. Cottle is delighted with the idea of a volume of travels. My
Edith persuades me to go, and then
weeps that I am going, though she would
| 252 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 21. |
“Then the advantageous possibility of being captured by the French, or the still more agreeable chance of going to Algiers. . . . . Then to give my inside to the fishes on the road, and carry my outside to the bugs on my arrival; the luxury of sleeping with the mules, and if they should kick in the night. And to travel, Grosvenor, with a lonely heart! . . . . When I am returned I shall be glad that I have been. The knowledge of two languages is worth acquiring, and perhaps the climate may agree with me, and counteract a certain habit of skeletonisation, that though I do not apprehend it will hasten me to the worms, will, if it continues, certainly cheat them of their supper. . . . . We will write a good opera; my expedition will teach me the costume of Spain.
“By the bye I have made a discovery respecting the story
of the ‘Mysterious
Mother.’ Lord O. tells
it of Tillotson: the story is printed in
a work of Bishop Hall’s, 1652; he
heard it from Perkins (the clergyman
whom Fuller calls an excellent
chirurgeon at jointing a broken soul: he would pronounce the word
‘damn’ with such an emphasis as left a doleful echo in his
auditors’ ears a good while after. Warton-like I must go on with Perkins, and
give you an epigram. He was lame of the right hand: the Latin is as blunt as a
good-humoured joke need be:—
| Ætat. 21. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 253 |
Dextera quantumvis fuerat tibi manca, docendi Pollebas mira dexteritate tamen; |
Though Nature thee of thy right hand bereft, Right well thou writest with thy hand that’s left: |
“Grosvenor, I am not happy. When I get to bed, reflection comes with solitude, and I think of all the objections to the journey; it is right, however, to look at the white side of the shield. The Algerines, if they should take me, it might make a very pretty subject for a chapter in my Memoirs; but of this I am very sure, that my biographer would like it better than I should.
“Have you seen the ‘Mœviad?’ The poem is not equal to
the former production of the same author, but the spirit of panegyric is more agreeable than that of
satire, and I love the man for his lines to his
| 254 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 21. |
“I am in hopes that the absurd fashion of wearing powder has received its death-blow; the scarcity we are threatened with (and of which we have as yet experienced only a very slight earnest) renders it now highly criminal. I am glad you are without it. . . . .
