“. . . . . About Harry, it is necessary to remove him,—his room is wanted for a more profitable pupil, and he has outgrown his situation. I have an excellent letter from him, and one from William Taylor, advising me to place him with some provincial surgeon of eminence, who will for a hundred guineas board and instruct him for four or five years;—a hundred guineas! well, but thank God, there is Thalaba ready, for which I ask this sum. I have therefore thus eat my calf, and desired William Taylor to inquire for a situation,—and so once more goes the furniture of my long expected house in London*. . . . .
* The sum ultimately received for the first edition of Thalaba (115l.) was not required for this purpose; the fee for his brother’s surgical education being paid by Mr. Hill. |
| Ætat. 26. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 125 |
“Our weather is most delightful,—not a cloud,
cool enough to walk, and warm enough to sit still; purple evenings, and
moonlight more distinct than a November noon in London. We think of mounting
jackasses and rambling some two hundred miles in the country. I shall laugh to
see Edith among the dirt and fleas, who
I suspect will be more amused with her than she will with them. She is going in
a few days to visit the nuns: they wanted to borrow some books of an English
woman,—‘What book would you like?’ said
Miss Petre, somewhat puzzled by the question, and
anxious to know. ‘Why, we should like novels;—have you got Ethelinde, or the Recluse of
the Lake? we have had the first volume, and it was so
interesting! and it leaves off
| 126 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 26. |
“We are afraid the expedition under Sir Ralph Abercrombie is coming here; his men are dying of the scurvy, and have been for some time upon a short allowance of salt provisions; they will starve us if they come. What folly, to keep five-and-twenty thousand men floating about so many months! horses and soldiers both dying for want of fresh food. . . . .
