“The endless round of occupation in which my days are
past, has prevented me from thanking you, as long ago I ought and intended to
have done, for the trouble and the care which you took for, and of, my
daughter. This delay lies on my conscience for another reason, though happily
what I have to say is not yet too late; it is to give you my most serious and
earnest opinion, that when the cholera reaches Manchester, your duty is not to
look after the sick. Upon the Roman Catholic system it would be; it is not upon
the principle of the Reformed Church. The progress of the disease is too rapid,
and when it proves fatal, its effects are also too violent, to admit of any
good being done by religious instruction: this matter I have talked over with
Mr. Whiteside here, and he entirely
agrees with me. Preach rousing sermons to your people, tell them death is at
their doors, and exhort them to hold themselves in readiness for his summons.
Do as you are doing to pre-
| Ætat. 58. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 177 |
“I think it would be prudent, if those who have authority were to enjoin that the funeral service should not be performed where the disease is raging in individual cases, nor even over many at one time; but that when the disease has ceased, there should be a general service in every place for those who have died of it; this would much lessen the spread of the contagion, and have a solemn effect at last.
“One good I confidently hope for from this visitation. The preparatory measures of precaution have made the squalid misery of the lower orders matter of public notoriety. What you and I have so long known, and what was always known to those whose business or duty leads them among the poor, is now brought publicly to the knowledge of those who, if not ignorant of it, might at least excuse their gross inattention to this great and crying evil, by affecting to be so. They who are insensible to the moral evils of such poverty, and even to its political dangers, may be roused by the physical consequences, when they see it acting as a recipient and conductor not only for sedition and rebellion, but for pestilence also. . . . .
“There will be only a short paper of mine in the next
Quarterly Review upon
Mary Colling’s Fables. You will be interested
with her story, and amused
| 178 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 58. |
“Pray remember me to Mr. Swain when you see him. I had been much pleased with his poems, and was not less pleased with him; for, indeed, he seemed to be in all things such as I could have wished to find him.
“To-night I begin the last chapter of the Peninsular War, and you may well suppose that I shall proceed rapidly, seeing the end so near.
“Take care of yourself; that is, do not attempt more than flesh and blood can perform. You can do no greater good to others than by sparing yourself, and keeping yourself in health for the service of some more manageable flock in a different sort of pasture.
“God bless you, my dear James!
