“. . . . . You do not tell me that you are better, which is what I most wish to hear. If a wish could bring you and your father here, you should see these mountains as they are now, in the full glory of snow, and clouds, and sunshine.
“I have a melancholy letter from Leyden. Mrs. Bilderdijk has been for fifteen weeks
confined to her chamber, and mostly to her bed, and it is not intimated that
she is recovering. B., himself, speaks
of his own health and faculties as sensibly impairing day by day. The only
hopeful sign is the warmth and animation with which he writes. I wish I could
go to see him this year; but that is not possible, and therefore I can hardly
hope to meet him again in this world. I am now reading his fragment of the
Deluge, and shall go through the rest of his
| Ætat. 52. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 285 |
“My old acquaintance (those, I mean, who were elders when I was a young man) are dropping on all sides. One very remarkable one is just gone to his rest after a pilgrimage of fourscore years. Edward Williams, the Welsh bard, whom, under his Welsh name of Iolo*, some lines in Madoc were intended to describe and gratify. He was the most eccentric man I ever knew, in whose eccentricity there was no affectation, and in whose conduct there was nothing morally wrong. Poor fellow! with a wild head and a warm heart, he had the simplicity of a child and the tenderness of a woman, and more knowledge of the traditions and antiquities of his own country than it is to be feared will ever be possessed by any one after him. I could tell you some odd anecdotes of him which ought not to be lost.
“God bless you!
