“. . . . . In how different a situation should we now be if Ministers had looked to the real evils of the country, and left the imaginary ones alone! The great remedy for pauperism can be nothing but constant emigration, to which I would have all pauper children destined who are orphans, or whose parents have deserted them: they are easily transported, easily settled, and in this manner best provided for. Always bearing in mind that the country cannot be healthy unless the great drain of emigration is kept open, the means of more immediate relief which I should look to would be, from bringing wastes into cultivation, thinking it profit enough if those who must otherwise be supported by the public can raise their own food there.
“I wish Government would employ ——— upon a digest of the agricultural surveys,—a work of national importance, for which he is peculiarly qualified, and in the course of which much would suggest itself upon this very subject of the poor.
I like your simile of the pyramid*, and am con-
* “I shall be very glad to see the third volume of the Peninsular War appear. It will be a great work, I suppose the greatest of its kind, and yet I should almost regret to see you engage again in any narrative of so much detail; a great portion of the labour bestowed upon such a work must be not of a kind to bring into play the faculties of your mind in all their extent and variety, and I doubt whether now or henceforward die growth of literature will admit of works being |
| 182 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 58. |
“The History of Portugal, if I live to execute it, will be my best historical work. There, as in the Brazil, industry in collecting materials, and skill in connecting them, may be manifested, and a great deal brought to light which will be deemed of no little interest in the history of European society, and of the human mind. A good deal of the Peninsular story required, as you observe, little more than the mere patience of detailing it on my part; but the whole has an entireness of subject which can belong to the history of very few wars, and an interest from the importance of the cause and the peculiarity of the circumstances, which is quite as uncommon. I believe none of my works have been read with more
constructed on such a scale. This sort of Great Pyramid will be allowed to be a wonderful structure, but it will not be commonly resorted to.”—H. T. to R. S., Feb. 28. 1832. |
| Ætat. 58. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 183 |
