“I have not seen Landor’s second edition, though Colburn was desired to send it me. Your
judgment of the book is
quite in conformity with mine, if (as I suppose) you except a few dialogues
from the general censure, one or two being (to my feeling)
| 76 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 55. |
“I am pleased, also, to find you expressing an opinion respecting Milton and Wordsworth which I have never hesitated to deliver as my own when I was not likely to do harm. A greater poet than Wordsworth there never has been, nor ever will be. I could point out some of his pieces which seem to me good for nothing, and not a few faulty passages, but I know of no poet in any language who has written so much that is good.
“Now, ——, I want you, and pray you to read Berkeley’s Minute Philosopher*; I want you to
* To the same friend he writes at another time:—“It is because your range of reading has lain little in that coarse that you suppose religious subjects have rarely been treated in a philosophical spirit I believe you have cast an eye of wonder upon the three folios of Thomas Jackson’s works, and that it would be hopeless to ask you to look into them for the philosophy and the strength of faith, and the warmth of sincere religious belief with which they abound. I do not recommend you to Dr. Clark as a philosophical writer, because I have never yet had an opportunity of reading him myself; but I believe you would find head-work to your heart’s content there. But I again recommend you to Berkeley’s Minute Philosopher and to Philip Skelton’s works. “But he did not arrive at his belief by philosophical reasoning; this was not the foundation, but the buttress. Belief should be first inculcated as an early prejudice,—that is, as a duty; then confirmed by historical evidence and philosophical views. Whether the seed thus sown and thus cultivated shall bring forth in due season its proper fruit, depends upon God’s mercy. Butler, I believe, was a very pious man, though the bent of his mind was towards philosophical inquiry; but you may find among our divines, men of every imagin- |
| Ætat. 55. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 77 |
“God bless you!
