“. . . . . I have declared war against metaphysics, and would push my arguments as William Pitt would his successes, even to the extermination of the enemy. ‘Blessed be the hour I ’scaped the wrangling crew.’
“I think it may be proved, that all the material and necessarian controversies are ‘much ado about nothing;’ that they end exactly where they began; and that all the moral advantages said to result from them by the illuminated, are fairly and more easily deducible from religion, or even from common sense.
“What of Carlisle’s wings? I believe my flying scheme—that
of breaking in condors and riding them—is the best; or if a few rocs could be naturalised—though it might be a
hard matter to break them. Seriously, I am very far from
convinced that flying is impossible, and have an admirable tale of a Spanish
bird for one of my letters, which will just suit Carlisle.
. . . . Yes, your friends shall be mine, but it is we (in the dual number) who
must be intimate. If Momus had made a
window in my breast, I should by this time have had sense enough to add a
window-shutter. London is not the only place for me: I have an unspeakable
loathing for that huge city. ‘God made the country, and man made the
town.’ Now, as God made me likewise, I love the country. Here I
am in the skirts of Bristol; and in ten minutes
| 278 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 22. |
“I have told you what I am about; writing letters to the
world is not, however, quite so agreeable as writing to you, and I do not love
shaping a good thing into a good sentence. . . . . Then for a volume of poems,
and then for the Abridgment of the Laws, or the Lawyer’s Pocket
Companion, in fifty-two volumes folio! Is it not a pity, Grosvenor, that I should not execute my
intention of writing more verses than Lope de
Vega, more tragedies than Dryden, and more epic poems than Blackmore? The more I write, the more I have to write. I have a
Helicon kind of dropsy upon me, and crescit
indulgens sibi. The quantity of verses I wrote at
Brixton is astonishing; my mind was never more employed: I killed wasps, and
was very happy. And so I will again, Grosvenor, though
employed on other themes; and, if ever man was happy because he resolved to be
so, I will. . . . . Of Lightfoot it is
long since I have heard anything. . . . .
| Ætat. 22. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 279 |
“‘When blew the loud blast in the air, So shrill, so full of woe, Unable such a voice to bear, Down fell Jericho.’ |
“Lightfoot, on the authority of some rum old book, used to assert the existence of a tune that would shake a wall down, by insinuating its sounds into the wall, and vibrating so strongly as to shake it down. Now, Grosvenor, to those lines in the fourth book of Joan that allude to Orlando’s magic horn, was I going to make a note, which, by the help of you and Lightfoot, would have been a very quaint one, and by the help of Dr. Geddes, not altogether unlearned, not to mention great erudition in quotations from Boyardo, Ariosto, Archbishop Turpin, and Spencer.
“Farewell, Grosvenor! Have you read Count Rumford’s Essays? I am ashamed to say that I have not yet. Have you read Fawcett’s Art of War? With all the faults of Young, it possesses more beauties, and is, in many parts, in my opinion, excellent.
