“. . . . . I have no wish to see the Examiner.* What there is there proceeds either from the Elegant Pragmatic himself, or from Hazlitt, both of whom hate me, but have a sort of intellectual conscience which makes them respect me in spite of themselves. But it is evident that the constant hostility of newspapers and journals must act upon an author’s reputation, like continued rain upon grass which is intended to be
* A review of the Colloquies had appeared in that paper, and Mr. Taylor had offered to send him the number that contained it. |
| Ætat. 55. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 49 |
“As for my readiness to admit any exculpation of the Spaniards, I shall not acknowledge any such bias, till I see that any writer has more distinctly perceived their manifold errors, or more plainly stated them.
“Lockhart has sent me Doddridge’s Correspondence to review: a pleasant and easy subject, though the first half volume, which is all I have read, is a most curious specimen of elaborate insipidity. From his youth Doddridge kept short-hand copies of all the letters which he wrote! and the series begins in his nineteenth year, and anything so vapid, so totally devoid of easy and natural playfulness, I could hardly have conceived. Withal he was an excellently good man, and when I have read his works (to which I am an entire stranger at present, but I have sent to Lockhart for them), I may then perceive that he has deserved his reputation as a writer. At any rate, insipid materials may be made into a good dish by the help of suitable seasoning and sauces, and I like to deal with no subjects so well as those which I can play with.
“Blackwood I have not seen.
“I have the raw materials of more ballads ready to be
worked out, and am about a prelude, which I think you will like, to the next.
Allan offers 35l.
| 50 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 55. |
“God bless you!
