“I heard good accounts of you on my journey, and having since seen that you were present at the prorogation, venture to infer that you are no longer under the oculist’s care.
“Nothing could be more fortunate than my expedition
was in every thing. The weather was as fine as it could be. During six weeks
there was not one wet day; what rain fell was generally by night, and never
more than sufficed for laying the dust and cooling the air. We got to Camac.
Chantrey had de-
| Ætat. 64. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 379 |
“The Bretons are the most miserable people I have ever seen, except those inhabitants of the Alps who suffer with goitres, and among whom the Cretons are found. They look, indeed, as if they lived in an unhealthy country, and as if they were only half fed. Yet I know not that there are any causes to render it insalubrious: it is not ill cultivated, and there is no want of industry in the inhabitants. The only cause that I can imagine for their squalid appearance, and their evidently stunted stature, (if that cause be sufficient) is their extreme uncleanness. The human animal cannot thrive in its own filth, like the pig; and the pig, no doubt, is a very inferior creature in its tame state to what it is when wild in the forest.
“I never saw so many dwarfs any where as in
* We found a number of these stones, all in one place, as if they had been poured out in a heap, nearly overgrown with grass and weeds. I brought some home, and took them to Sir. F. Chantrey, who recognised them as of the same description as those he had seen before.—Ed. |
| 380 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 64. |
“There is one work which Mr. Telford would have regarded with great interest if he ever happened to see it. The Levée, as it is called, which protects a large tract of country from the inundations of the Loire. This work is of such antiquity that it is not known when it was commenced, but it seems first to have been taken up as a public work by our Henry II. Perhaps there is no other embankment which protects so great an extent of country.
“I am finishing here the reviewal of Telford’s book, which I hope to complete in about a week’s time, taking care not to make it too long, and therefore passing rapidly over his latter works, and winding up in the way of an eulogium, which no man ever was more worthy of.
“I derived all the benefit that I hoped for from my journey, and am in good condition in all respects.
“God bless you!
