“A copy of the ‘unique Opus’ came to me upon its first appearance, with my name printed in red letters on the back of the title-page, and ‘from the author’ on the fly-leaf, in a disguised hand; in which hand, through the disguise, I thought I could recognise that of my very intimate friend, the author of Philip Van Artevelde. He, however, if my theory of the book be well founded, is too young a man to be the author. I take the preparatory postscript to have been written in sincerity and sadness: and if so, Henry Taylor was a boy at the time when (according to the statement there) the book was begun.
“It may, I think, be inferred from everything about
the book, and in it, that the author began it in his blithest years, with the
intention of saying, under certain restrictions, quidlibet de quolibet, and making it a receptacle for
his shreds and patches; that beginning in jest, he grew more and more in
earnest as he proceeded; that he dreamt over it, and brooded over it—laid
it aside for months and years,
| Ætat. 60. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 269 |
“To the reasons which he has assigned for not choosing to make himself publicly known, this no doubt may be added, that the mask would not conceal him from those who knew him intimately, nor from the few by whom he might wish to be known; but it would protect his face from dirt, or any thing worse that might be thrown at it
“I see in the work a little of Rabelais, but not much; more of Tristram Shandy, somewhat of Burton, and perhaps more of Montaigne; but methinks the quintum quid predominates.
“I should be as much at a loss to know who is meant by
REVERNE as you have been, if I had not accidentally heard that the only person
to whom the authorship is ascribed, upon any thing like authority, is the
Rev. Erskine Neale. Mrs. Hodson (formerly Margaret
Holford) being in the neighbourhood of Doncaster, and desirous
to hunt out, if she could, the history of the Opus, inquired about it there,
and was assured by a bookseller that it was written by this gentleman, who had
once resided in
| 270 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 60. |
“I can resolve another of your doubts. The concluding signature is not in the Garamna tongue, but in cryptography, or, what might more properly be called, in Dovean language comicography. If you look at it, and observe that k, e, w spell Q, you will find that when the nut is cracked it contains no kernel.
“So much concerning a book which is a great favourite with my family, and has helped them sometimes to beguile what otherwise must have been hours of sorrow. Ten months have elapsed since our great affliction came upon us. . . . . This is the fortieth year of our marriage, and I know not whether the past or the present seems now to me most like a dream.
“Amid these griefs, you will be glad to know that some
substantial good has befallen us. One of the last acts of Sir Robert Peel’s administration was to
give me a pension of 300l., in addition to that of
200l. which I before possessed, the new one being (I
am told) free from deductions; and this will emancipate me from all
booksellers’ work, when my present engagements are completed. If my life
be prolonged, I shall then apply myself to the histories of Portugal, of the
Monastic Orders, and of English Literature, from the point where Warton breaks off. Do not
| Ætat. 60. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 271 |
“Farewell, my dear Sir. Present my best wishes to your brother and sister, and
