“. . . . . My walk to Ilfracombe led me through
Lynmouth, the finest spot, except Cintra and the Arrabida, that I ever saw. Two
rivers join at Lynmouth, You probably know the hill streams of Devonshire: each
of these flows down a coombe, rolling down over huge stones like a long
waterfall; immediately at their junction they enter the sea, and the rivers and
the sea make but one sound of uproar. Of these coombes the one is richly
wooded, the other runs between two high, bare, stony hills. From the hill
between the two is a prospect most magnificent; on either hand, the coombes and
the river before the little village. The beautiful little village, which, I am
assured by one who is familiar with Switzerland, resembles a Swiss
village,—this alone would constitute a view beautiful enough to repay the
weariness of a long journey; but, to complete it, there is the blue and
boundless sea, for the faint and feeble line of the Welsh coast is only to be
seen on the right hand if the day be perfectly clear. Ascending from Lynmouth
up a road of serpentining perpendicularity,
| Ætat. 25. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 23 |
“Of Beddoes you
seem to entertain an erroneous opinion. Beddoes is an experimentalist in cases
where the ordinary remedies are notoriously, and fatally, inefficacious: if you
will read his late book on consumption, you will see his opinion upon this
subject; and the book is calculated to interest unscientific readers, and to be
of use to them. The faculty dislike Beddoes, because he is
more able, and more successful, and more celebrated, than themselves, and
because he labours to reconcile the art of
| 24 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 25. |
“God bless you.
