The portrait of Savonarola is safely lodged at Keswick; I should have thanked you for it sooner, if I had known whither to direct to you. I have seldom seen a finer picture or a finer face; the countenance seems to bespeak credit for one whose character may perhaps be still considered doubtful.
“Mr. C. Bowles Fripp wrote to me some time last year, asking me to supply an epitaph for the proposed monument to Chatterton. I said to him, in reply, that I was too much engaged to undertake it; that, as far as related to Chatterton, I had done my duty more than thirty years ago; that of all men, men of genius were those who stood least in need of monuments to perpetuate their memory. Moreover, as to an epitaph, I never would attempt to compose any thing of the kind, unless I imagined that I could do it satisfactorily to myself, which in this case appeared to me impossible. How, indeed, could the circumstances of Chatterton’s history be comprised in a monumental inscription? It is to the credit of Bristol that my fellow-townsmen should show how different a spirit prevails among them now from that which was to be found there fifty years ago; but how this might best be effected I know not.
“The portrait of Chatterton, which Mr. Dix
discovered, identifies itself if ever portrait did. It brought his sister,
Mrs. Newton, strongly to my
| Ætat. 64. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 385 |
“My daughter Bertha’s marriage to her cousin, Herbert Hill, is especially fortunate in this respect, that for a few years it will remove her no farther from Keswick than Rydal. Very different has been her elder sister’s lot; for being, to all likelihood, fixed upon the coast of Sussex (and the very worst part of it), she has been lost to us ever since. I have now only one daughter left, and my son divides the year between college and home. Oxford has done him no harm; indeed, I never apprehended any. Reduced in number as my family has been within the last few years, my spirits would hardly recover their habitual and healthful cheerfulness, if I had not prevailed upon Miss Bowles to share my lot for the remainder of our lives. There is just such a disparity of age as is fitting; we have been well acquainted with each other more than twenty years, and a more perfect conformity of disposition could not exist; so that, in resolving upon what must be either the weakest or the wisest act of a sexagenarian’s life, I am well assured that, according to human foresight, I have judged well and acted wisely, both for myself and my remaining daughter. God bless you!
