Ætat. 34. | Ætat. 34. | 129 |
“. . . . . I have seen both the Scotch and the more rascally British Reviews
of our Specimens,—both a good deal worse than the book itself, which is
a great consola-
130 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 34. |
“How soon I may see you Heaven knows: the sooner the better. My uncle is in town, and applications are made to him from all quarters for that information which Lord Gr. rejected last year, as relating to the wrong side of S. America,—a strong fact, between you and I, against his statesmanship. I am in hopes he will draw up an account of the present state of Brazil (which no other person living can do so well), while I proceed with the history. This removal of the Braganza family is a great event, though it has been done not merely without that dignity which might have been given to it, but even meanly and pitifully. . . . . Still, the event itself is a great one: and if I could transfuse into you all the recollections, &c. which it brings with it to me, you would feel an interest in it which it is not very easy to describe.
“I am hard at work, and shall be able to send my first
volume to press as soon as I return from London. Meanwhile, the thought of the
journey plagues me,—the older I grow the more do I dislike going from
home. Oh dear! oh dear! there is such a comfort in one’s old coat and old
shoes, one’s own chair and own fireside, one’s own writing-desk and
own library,—with a little girl climbing up to my neck, and saying,
‘Don’t go to London, papa,—you must stay with
Edith,’—and a
little boy, whom I have taught to speak
the language of cats, dogs, cuckoos, and jack-
Ætat. 34. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 131 |
“I should long ago have thanked you for your offer of Sir Lancelot, but as I had written to Heber requesting from him all his Round-table books, I waited, or rather have been waiting, to see whether or not it would be among them. It is above two months since news came that Heber would look them out for me; but as they are not yet arrived, and my appearance in London has been expected for the last two or three weeks, it is probable that he is waiting to let me look them out for myself. I go for London next week, my family having just been increased by the birth of another girl,—an event for which I have been waiting.
“Wordsworth has
completed a most masterly poem upon the fate of the Nortons; two or three lines
in the old Ballad of the Rising in the North gave him
the hint. The story affected me more deeply than I
132 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 34. |
“My Chronicle
of the Cid is printed, and waits for the introduction and
supererogatory notes, both which will be of considerable length, and must be
completed at Holland House, where I shall find exactly those books which were
out of reach of my means. The History of Brazil will be in the press as soon as this is out of
it. What an epoch in history will this emigration of the
Braganzas prove, if we are not frightened by cowardly
politicians into making peace, and cajoling them back again to Portugal! Such
men as these have long since extinguished all political morality and political
honesty among us, and now they would extinguish national honour, which is all
we have left to supply their place! My politics would be, to proclaim to France
and to the world that England will never make peace with Napoleon Bonaparte, because he has proved
himself to be one whom no treaties and no ties can bind, and still more
Ætat. 34. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 133 |
“De Origine et Progressu Officii S. Inquisitionis, ejusque dignitate et utilitate, Antone Ludovico a Panamo, Boroxense, Archidiaconio et Canonico Legionense. . . 1598, folio. The book is in the Red Cross Street Library. I read it six years ago, and sent up an account of it within the last six weeks for Dr. Aikin’s Biography, where it will be in villanously bad company. You will find there that God was the first Inquisitor, and that the first Auto da Fè was held upon Adam and Eve. You will read enough to show you that Catholic writers defend the punishment of heretics, and quite sufficient to make your blood run cold. I have the History of the Portuguese Inquisition to write, and look on to the task with absolute horror. I am decidedly hostile to what is called Catholic Emancipation, as I am to what is called peace.
134 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 34. |
“I have had a correspondence with Clarkson concerning the best mode of publishing my Brazilian history; and what he points out as the best plan is little better than the half-and-half way, and involves a great deal of trouble, and what is worse, a great deal of solicitation. I am a bad trading author, and doomed always to be so, but it is not the bookseller’s fault; the public do not buy poetry unless it be made fashionable; mine gets reviewed by enemies who are always more active than friends; one reviewer envies me, another hates me, and a third tries his hand upon me as fair game. Thousands meantime read the books; but they borrow them, even those persons who are what they call my friends, and who know that I live by these books, never buy them themselves, and then wonder that they do not sell. Espriella has sold rapidly, for which I have to thank Stuart; the edition is probably by this time exhausted, and, I verily believe, half the sale must be attributed to the puffs in the Courier. The sale of a second edition would right me in Longman’s books. Puff me, Coleridge! if you love me, puff me! Puff a couple of hundreds into my pocket!
“As for the booksellers, I am disposed to distinguish
between Longman
and Tradesman nature (setting human nature out of the question): now Tradesman
nature is very bad, but Longman
nature is a great deal better, and I am inclined to believe that it will get
the better of the evil principle, and that liberal dealing may even prove
catching. It is some proof of this that his opinion of me and conduct
Ætat. 34. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 135 |
“I am strongly moved by the spirit to make an attack upon Jeffrey along his whole line, beginning with his politics. Stuart would not be displeased to have half a dozen letters. Nothing but the weary work it would be to go through his reviews for the sake of collecting the blunders in them, prevents me. He, and other men who are equally besotted and blinded by party, will inevitably frighten the nation into peace, the only thing which can be more mischievous and more dishonourable than our Danish expedition. I wish to God you would lift up your voice against it. Alas! Coleridge, is it to be wondered at, that we pass for a degenerated race, when those who have the spirit of our old worthies in them, let that spirit fret itself away in silence!
“Lamb’s book I have heard of, and know not what it is. If co-operative labour were as practicable as it is desirable, what a history of English literature might he and you and I set forth! . .
“God bless you!
“On opening a box to-day, the contents of which I had
not seen since the winter of 1799, your picture
136 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 34. |
“What you say of my copyrights affected me very much. Dear Cottle, set your heart at rest on that subject. It ought to be at rest. They were yours, fairly bought, and fairly sold. You bought them on the chance of their success, which no London bookseller would have done; and had they not been bought, they could not have been published at all. Nay, if you had not purchased Joan of Arc, the poem never would have existed, nor should I, in all probability, ever have obtained that reputation which is the capital on which I subsist, nor that power which enables me to support it.
“But this is not all. Do you suppose, Cottle, that I have forgotten those true and
most essential acts of friendship which you showed me when I stood most in need
of them? Your house was my house when I had no other. The very money with which
I bought my wedding-ring and paid my marriage fees, was supplied by you. It was
with your sisters I left Edith during my
six months’ absence, and for the six months’ after my return it was
from you that I received, week by week, the little on which we lived, till I
was enabled to live by other means. It is not the settling of a cash account
that can cancel obligations like these. You are in the habit
Ætat. 34. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 137 |
“From one scene of confusion to another. You saw me in
London everlastingly at work in packing my books; and here they are now lying
in all parts about me, up to my knees in one place, up to my eyes in another,
and above head and ears in a third. I can scarcely find stepping places through
the labyrinth, from one end of the room to the other. Like Pharaoh’s
frogs, they have found their way everywhere, even into the bedchambers. . . . .
And now, Grosvenor, having been married
above twelve years, I have for the first time collected all my books together.
What a satisfaction this is you cannot imagine, for you cannot conceive the
hundredth part of the inconvenience and vexation I have endured for want of
them. But the joy which they give me brings with it a mingled
feeling,—the
138 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 34. |
“At Bristol I met with the man of all others whom I was
most desirous of meeting,—the only man living of whose praise I was
ambitious, or whose censure would have humbled me. You will be curious to know
who this could be. Savage Landor, the
author of Gebir, a poem
which, unless you have heard me speak of it, you have probably never heard of
at all. I never saw any one more unlike myself in every prominent part of human
character, nor any one who so cordially and instinctively agreed with me on so
many of the most important subjects. I have often said before we met, that I
would walk forty miles to see him, and having seen him, I would gladly walk
fourscore to see him again. He talked of Thalaba, and I told him of the series of
mythological poems which I had planned,—mentioned some of the leading
incidents on which they were to have been formed, and also told him for what
reason they were laid aside;—in plain English, that I could not afford to
write them. Landor’s reply was, ‘Go on
Ætat. 34. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 139 |
“Your letter followed me to London. The hope which it held out that we might meet here, and the endless round of occupations in which I was involved during the whole nine weeks of my absence, prevented me from thanking you for Marmion so soon as I ought, and should otherwise have done.
“Half the poem I had read at Heber’s before my own copy arrived. I
went punctually to breakfast with him, and he was long enough dressing to let
me devour so much of it. The story is made of better materials than the Lay, yet they are not so well fitted
together. As a whole it has not pleased me so much; in parts it has pleased me
more. There is
140 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 34. |
“The introductory epistles I did not wish away, because as poems they gave me great pleasure, but I wished them at the end of the volume or at the beginning,—any where except where they were. My taste is perhaps peculiar in disliking all interruptions in narrative poetry. When the poet lets his story sleep, and talks in his own person, it is to me the same sort of unpleasant effect that is produced at the end of an act; you are alive to know what follows, and lo—down comes the curtain, and the fiddlers begin with their abominations. The general opinion, however, is with me in this particular instance.
“I am highly gratified by the manner in which you speak of Kirke White’s Remains. That book has been received to my heart’s desire. The edition (750) sold in less than three months, and there is every probability that it will obtain a steady sale, so as to produce something considerable to his mother and sisters.
“I saw Frere in
London, and he has promised to let me print his translations from the Poema del Cid. They are admirably
done,—indeed, I never saw any thing so difficult to do, and done so
excellently, except your supplement to Sir Tristrem. I do not believe that many men
have a greater command of language and versification than myself, and yet this
task of giving a specimen of that wonderful poem I shrunk from, fearing the
difficulty. At present I
Ætat. 34. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 141 |
“So much of my life passes in this blessed retirement,
that when I go to London the effect is a little like what Nourjahad used to find after one of his long
naps. I find a woful difference of political opinion between myself and most of
those persons who have hitherto held the same feelings with me; and yet it
should seem that they have been sleeping over the great events of these latter
years, not I. There is a base and cowardly feeling abroad, which would humble
this country at the feet of France. This feeling I have everywhere been
combating with vehemence; but at the same time I have execrated with equal
vehemence the business of Copenhagen: Ishmael-like, my
hand has been against everybody, and everybody’s hand against me.
Wordsworth is the only man who
agrees with me on both points. I require, however, no other sanction to
convince me that I am right. Coleridge
justifies the attack on Denmark, but he justifies it upon individual testimony
of hostile intentions on the part of that court, and that testimony by no means
amounts to proof in my judgment. But what is done is done; and the endless
debates upon the subject, which have no other meaning and can have no other end
than that of harassing the ministry, disgust me, as they do every one who has
the honour of England at heart. Such a system makes the publicity of
142 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 34. |
“Is there any hope of seeing you this year at the Lakes? I should much like to show you Kehama. During my circuit I fell in with Savage Landor, the author of Gebir, to whom I spoke of my projected series of mythological poems, and said also for what reason the project had been laid aside. He besought me to go on with them, and said he would print them at his expense. Without the least thought of accepting this princely offer, it has stung me to the very core; and as the bite of the tarantula has no cure but dancing, so will there be none but singing for this. Great poets have no envy; little ones are full of it. I doubt whether any man ever criticised a good poem maliciously, unless he had written a bad one himself.
“I have sent you all that is written of the Curse of Kehama: you offered
to print it for me; if ever I finish the poem it will be because of that offer,
though without the slightest intention of accepting it. Enough is written to
open the story of the poem, and serve as a specimen of its manner, though much
of what is to follow would be in a wilder strain.—Tell me if your ear is
offended with the rhymes when
Ætat. 34. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 143 |
“My history as an author is not very honourable to the age in which we live. By giving up my whole time to worthless work in reviews, magazines, and newspapers, I could thrive, as by giving up half my time to them, I contrive to live. In the time thus employed every year I could certainly produce such a poem as Thalaba, and if I did I should starve. You have awakened in me projects that had been laid asleep, and recalled hopes which I had dismissed contentedly, and, as I thought, for ever. If you think Kehama deserves to be finished, I will borrow hours from sleep, and finish it by rising two hours before my customary time; and when it is finished I will try whether subscribers can be procured for five hundred copies, by which means I should receive the whole profit to myself. The bookseller’s share is too much like the lion in the fable: 30 or 33 per cent, they first deduct as booksellers, and then half the residue as publishers. I have no reason to complain of mine: they treat me with great respect and great liberality, but I wish to be independent of them; and this, if it could be effected, would make me so.
“The will and the power to produce anything great are
not often found together. I wish you would write in English, because it is a
better language than Latin, and because the disuse of English as a living and
literary language would be the greatest evil that
144 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 34. |
“Literary fame is the only fame of which a wise man ought to be ambitious, because it is the only lasting and living fame. Bonaparte will be forgotten before his time in Purgatory is half over, or but just remembered like Nimrod, or other cut-throats of antiquity, who serve us for the commonplaces of declamation. If you made yourself King of Crete, you would differ from a hundred other adventurers only in chronology, and in the course of a millennium or two, nothing more would be known of your conquest than what would be found in the stereotype Gebir prefixed as an account of the author. Pour out your mind in a great poem, and you will exercise authority over the feelings and opinions of mankind as long as the language lasts in which you write. . . . .
“Farewell! I wish you had purchased Loweswater instead of Llantony. I wish you were married, because the proverb about a rolling stone applies to a single heart, and I wish you were as much a Quaker as I am. Christian stoicism is wholesome for all minds; were I your confessor, I should enjoin you to throw aside Rousseau, and make Epictetus your manual. Probatum est.
Ætat. 34. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 145 |
“You have bound me to the completion of Kehama, and, if I have health and eye-sight, completed it will be within twelve months. Want of practice has not weakened me: I have ascertained this, and am proceeding.
“I will use such materials as have stood the test; those materials are the same in all languages, and we know what they are. With respect to metre it is otherwise: there we must look to English only, and in English we have no other great poem than the Paradise Lost. Blank verse has long appeared to me the noblest measure of which our language is capable, but it would not suit Kehama. There must be quicker, wilder movements; there must be a gorgeousness of ornament also,—eastern gem-work, and sometimes rhyme must be rattled upon rhyme, till the reader is half dizzy with the thundering echo. My motto must be,—
Ποιχίλον είδος έχων, οτι ποιχίλον άϕάσσω. |
146 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 34. |
“One inference I think must be drawn from the obscurity of Pindar’s metre,—that, be it what it may, the pleasure which it gave did not result from rhythm. Indeed, the whole system of classical metres seems to have been that of creating difficulty for the sake of overcoming it. We mis-read Sapphics without making them worse; we mis-read Pentameters and make them better; and the Hexameter remains the most perceptible of all measures, though in our pronunciation we generally distort four feet out of the six.
“A great deal more may be done with rhyme than has yet been done with it; there is a crypto-rhyme which may often be introduced with excellent effect; the eye has nothing to do with it, but the ear feels it without, perhaps, perceiving anything more than the general harmony, and not knowing how that harmony is produced. Sometimes the sparing intermixture of rhymes in a paragraph may be so managed as to satisfy the ear, and give greater effect to their after profusion. These are not things which one thinks of in composition, but they are thought of in correcting; they are the touches in finishing off, when a little alteration produces a great difference.
“Your dislike to the ballad metre is, perhaps, because
you are sick of a tune which has been sung
Ætat. 34. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 147 |
“I have the last census of Spain here, and perhaps you
may like to give the Courier a statement of the
148 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 34. |
Population. | Males from the Age of 16 to 50. | |
Asturias | 364,238 | 80,554 |
Galicia | 1,142,630 | 225,454 |
These Provinces are what we call Biscay. | ||
Alava | 67,523 | 15,367 |
Guipuzcoa | 104,491 | 23,343 |
Vizcaya | 111,436 | 25,801 |
———— | ||
400,519 |
These are the provinces which have asked assistance; but there is probably a French force at Ferrol, which may, for awhile, keep part of Galicia in awe. The people are a hardy race, and most of them good shots, because there are no game laws, plenty of game, and wolves in the country. Probably every man has his gun. One hardly dares indulge a hope; but if Europe is to be redeemed in our days, you know it has always been my opinion that the work of deliverance would begin in Spain. And now that its unhappy government has committed suicide, the Spaniards have got rid of their worst enemy.
“This account of Lisbon, which has just reached me, may
also fitly appear in the Courier,
for the edification of Roscoe and such
politicians;—‘Every private family has a certain number of French
officers and soldiers quartered upon them, who behave with their accustomed
insolence and brutality. The ladies of one family very naturally, upon the
intrusion of these unwelcome guests, retired to their own apartments, where
they proposed remaining; but these civilised Frenchmen required their presence,
and
Ætat. 34. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 149 |
“Were I minister, I would send half the regular army without delay to Spain; the distance is nothing,—a week would be but an average passage; and these seas are not like the German Ocean, where so many brave men have been sacrificed in useless expeditions during stormy seasons.
“Of public affairs enough! We have had a bilious fever
in the house, which was epidemic among the children of the place. Herbert has suffered severely from it; I
thought we should lose him. The disease has reduced him very much, and left him
in a state of great debility. Keswick is scarcely ever without some kind of
infectious fever, generally among the children. When these things get into a
dirty house, they hardly ever get out of it; and I attribute this more to the
want of cleanliness than to the climate. But ague is beginning to re-appear,
which had scarcely been heard of during the last generation;—this is the
case over the whole kingdom, I believe. What put a stop to it then, or what
brought it back now, is beyond the reach of our present knowledge.
150 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 34. |
“I have read that play of Calderon’s since my return: its story is precisely as you stated it, and in the story the wonder lies. Are we not apt to do with these things as naturalists do with insects?—put them in a microscope, and exclaim how beautiful!—how wonderful!—how grand!—when all the beauty and all the grandeur are owing to the magnifying medium? A shaping mind receives the story of the play and makes it terrific;—in Calderon it is extravagant. The machinery is certainly most extraordinary; and most extraordinary must the state of public opinion be, where such machinery could be received with the complacency of perfect faith,—as undoubtedly this was, and would be still in Spain.
“At last I have got all my books about me, and right
rich I am in them—above 4000 volumes. With your Germans, &c., there
is probably no other house in the country which contains such a collection of
foreign literature. My Cid will
be published in about six weeks. Brazil is not yet gone to press,—
Ætat. 34. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 151 |
“This is the moment for uniting Spain and Portugal; and the greater facility of doing this in a commonwealth than in a monarchy would be reason enough for preferring that form of government were there no other. Portugal loses something in importance and in feeling by being incorporated in the Spanish monarchy; it would preserve its old dignity by uniting in a federal republic,—a form which the circumstances of Spain more especially require, and its provincial difference of laws and dialects. Each province should have its own cortes, and the general congress meet at Madrid,—otherwise, that city would soon waste away. No nation has ever had a fairer opportunity for reforming its government and modelling it anew. But I dare say this wretched cabinet will be meddling too much in this, and too little in the desperate struggle which must be made;—that we shall send tardy and inefficient aid—enough to draw on a heavier French force, and not enough to resist the additional force which it will occasion.
“The crown, like the Ahrimanes of the earth, will sacrifice any thing rather than see the downfal of royalty.
“That best of all good women, Mrs. Wilson, has borne the winter better than any former one since we have known her.
“I am thinking about a poem upon Pelajo, the restorer of Spain. Do you wish to serve me? Puff
152 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 34. |
“The box arrived about an hour ago. Sir William Jones’s works are placed
opposite my usual seat, and on the most conspicuous shelf in the room. . . . .
I have retired to my library to thank you for the most splendid set of books it
contains. I thank you for them, Neville,
truly and heartily; but do not let it hurt you if I say, that so costly a
present gives me some pain as well as pleasure. Were you a rich man, you could
not give me more books than I would joyfully accept, for I delight in
accumulating such treasures as much as a miser does in keeping together gold;
but, as things are at present, no proof was needed of your generous spirit,
and, from the little you have to spare, I cannot but feel you are giving me too
much. You will not be offended at my expressing this feeling, nor will you
impute it to any unjust pride, which, blessed be God, I am too poor a man, and
too wise a one, to be guilty of in any, even the smallest degree. Be assured
that I shall ever value the books far more than if they had come from a
wealthier donor, and that I write the donor’s name in them with true
respect and esteem. You will be pleased to hear they are
Ætat. 34. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 153 |
“I have not seen the Scotch review of Marmion, but I have heard that on its appearance, Walter Scott showed Jeffrey the letter in which I had refused to bear a part in his review . . . . I do not know whether Scott may have shown him another letter, in which I spoke of the ‘Remains.’ Scott may perhaps review them himself, unless this affair of Marmion, or, what is more likely, their utter and irreconcileable difference of political opinion, should make him withdraw from the journal altogether.
“Henceforward we shall have little business to write
about. You may supply the place by telling
154 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 34. |
“I very much wish you were here. You may have heard that there is an island which sometimes comes up in this lake, and, after awhile, goes down again. Five years have I been expecting this appearance, and now, sure enough, it is above water. It may stay there for some weeks,—sometimes six or eight,—it may already have sunk. But Davy ought to put himself in the first mail-coach; and perhaps curiosity may induce you to expedite your journey for the sake of seeing the oddest thing you are ever likely to see.
“How it is effected is for Davy to discover; but as much of the bottom of the lake as is
equal to the area of your house has been forced up to the surface in several
pieces, and in other parts you plainly see that there are rents in the bottom
where parts have sunk in, for it is not a deep part of the lake. The gas which
follows the immersion of a pole stinks, and over one part of the water a thin
steam was plainly
Ætat. 34. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 155 |
“A Portuguese sermon has just helped me to a discovery which will amuse you. Who was the first man that doubled the Cape of Good Hope? The prophet Jonah. Examine his track in the whale, and this proves to be the case; and you will observe that this magnifies the miracle prodigiously, for what a passage he had from the Mediterranean to the Persian Gulf!
“My friends the Spaniards and Portuguese are justifying the opinion which I have long given of them to the astonishment of those who heard me. Bonaparte will, I suppose, pour in upon them with his whole force; so let him. You know how little respect I have for what is called the spirit of history, or the philosophy of history, by those people who want to have everything given them in extracts and essences; but the truth of the present history is, that a great military despotism, in its youth and full vigour—like that of France—will and must beat down corrupt establishments and worn-out govern-
* The floating island still appears at intervals. There is said to be a bottom wind, when the lake is violently agitated without any disturbance in the atmosphere—a phenomenon which does not seem ye to have been satisfactorily accounted for. |
156 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 34. |
“God bless you!
“The thought of writing to you,—or, rather, the thought that I had not written,—has very often risen in my conscience heavily. Joanna Southcote has been the cause. Her books, with Sharp’s dirty treasure, are now on their way to London. It is so much better to say I have done a thing than I will do it, that I really have deferred writing for the sake of saying these books were actually gone.
“For the last three weeks I have suffered from a
blinding and excoriating catarrh; always with me a very obstinate disease, and
more violent than I have ever seen it in any person except one of my own
family. Diseases are the worst things a man can
Ætat. 34. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 157 |
“The Lakers are coming in shoals, and some of them find their way here. Among others, I have had the satisfaction of seeing Joanna Baillie: she drank tea with us, and very much pleased we were with her,—as good-natured, unaffected, and sensible a woman as I have ever seen.
“A month ago you might, perhaps, have been gratified
by knowing what were my thoughts of the state of Spain; now, I suppose,
everybody thinks alike. But I have always said that, if the deliverance of
Europe were to take place in our days, there was no country in which it was so
likely to begin as Spain; and this opinion, whenever I expressed it, was
received with wonder, if not with incredulity. But there is a spirit of
patriotism, a glowing and proud remembrance of the past, a generous shame for
the present, and a living hope for the future, both in
158 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 34. |
“God bless you!
“I have never seen the name of Nicola Luiz, except in Murphy; and the title of the Portuguese
Plautus which he gives him, being
generally applied to Gil Vicente,
thought it not unlikely that he might have written Richard
for Robert, as he is apt to do so. Barbosa’s great Bibliotheca is not in my possession, and I have referred in vain to
Nicolas Antonio, to the Mappa de
Portugal, which contains a
Ætat. 34. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 159 |
“It is possible that Antonio Ferreira’s play may have been originally published under this fictitious name. I have no other reason for supposing so than that it seems almost certain if the name of Nicola Luiz were a real one, it would have been included in one or all of the works which I have consulted; and Ferreira did in one instance practise an artifice of this kind, yet I think you must have seen his play. It begins:—
‘Colhey, colhey alegres,
Donzellas minhas, mil cheirosas flores.’
|
“The tragedy of Domingos dos Reis Quita, upon the same story, has been Englished by Benjamin Thompson. There are two Spanish ones by Geronimo Bermudez (published originally under the name of Antonio de Silva), in the sixth volume of the Parnaso Español. Henry K. White had merely begun the first scene of his projected play, and that, as was evident from the handwriting, at a very early age.
160 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 34. |
“The Portuguese have two poems upon the same story, the Penasco de las Lagrimas, written in Spanish by Francisco de França da Costa, and the Saudades de D. Ignes de Castro, by Manoel de Azevedo. This latter I have myself planned a play upon, The Revenge of Pedro: whether it will ever be executed, is very doubtful, but this part of the story is far fitter for dramatic poetry than the foregoing.
“I thank you for your translation, and will, by the first carrier, send off the plays of Ferreira and Quita, and the Saudades.
“You have mistaken the meaning of Xarifalte. Portuguese orthography is very loose in any but modern authors, and it is sometimes necessary to hunt a word through every possible mutation of labial or guttural letters. Under gérafalte it is to be found, which is the ger-falcon of our ancestors.
“The story of Iñez is, in any point of view, sufficiently atrocious, but the
poets have not been true to history. It is expressly asserted by Fernan Lopez, that Pedro denied his marriage during his father’s life, and
never affirmed it till some years afterwards: what is still worse, that
Affonso repeatedly asked him
Ætat. 34. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 161 |
“If your play be of modern date, Nicola Luiz is probably a modern author, and that removes all difficulty concerning him. There was a tragedy upon the same subject, published by Dr. Simmonds about ten years ago, which obtained considerable praise.
“Your translation, I dare say, does justice to the original; had it been still unprinted, I would have noticed a few instances in which the proper names are mis-accented. What pleases me best in the play, is to perceive that the author has avoided the fault of Camoens, and not made his heroine talk about Hyrcanian tigers, and such other commonplaces which pass current for passion and for poetry.”
“I have seen the Fonte das Lagrimas; Link omits to mention that two beautiful cedars brush its surface with their boughs. I have also seen the tombs of Iñez and Pedro; they are covered with bas-relief, which ought to be accurately copied and engraved.
162 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 34. |
“There is a shocking story of one of the children of Iñez,—the Infant D. Joam, who murdered his wife; it is a worse story than even the murder of his mother. If at any time chance should bring you this way, I shall have great pleasure in showing you all those facts of Portuguese history relating to your subject, which have occurred to me in the course of long and laborious employment upon the history and literature of Portugal.
“—— is gone to Spain! to fight as a private in the Spanish army, and he has found two Englishmen to go with him. A noble fellow! This is something like the days of old, as we poets and romancers represent them;—something like the best part of chivalry: old honours, old generosity, old heroism, are reviving, and the cancer of that nation is stopped, I believe and fully trust, now and for ever. A man like —— cannot long remain without command; and, of all things in this world, I should most rejoice to hear that King Joseph had fallen into his hands;—he would infallibly hang him on the nearest tree, first, as a Bonaparte by blood; secondly, as a Frenchman by adoption; thirdly, as a king by trade.
Ætat. 34. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 163 |
“Miss Seward’s criticism has appeared in the Gentleman’s Magazine. Her verses have not been inserted in the Courier, which is rather odd. She reads Madoc to all her acquaintance, and must be the means of selling several copies.
“Another island came up on Saturday last, which I shall visit the first fine day,—probably with Jackson and Jonathan Ottley, who is going to measure it and catch a bottle of the gas, Jonathan being, as you know, our Keswick philosopher. We are now having a spell of wind and rain.
“We have got the prettiest kitten you ever saw,—a dark tabby,—and we have christened her by the heathenish name of Dido. You would be very much diverted to see her hunt Herbert all round the kitchen, playing with his little bare feet, which she just pricks at every pat, and the faster he moves back the more she paws them, at which he cries ‘Naughty Dido!’ and points to his feet and says, ‘Hurt, hurt, naughty Dido.’ Presently he feeds her with comfits, which Dido plays with awhile, but soon returns to her old game. You have lost the amusing part of Herbert’s childhood,—just when he is trying to talk, and endeavouring to say every thing.
“. . . . . I have been in the water very seldom since you went; but the last time I accomplished the great job of fairly swimming on my back, which is a step equal to that of getting one’s first commission.
“I hope that the opening of Pelayo is pretty well arranged, but I
will not begin upon it till I come to
164 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 34. |
“By Heaven, I’ll wreak my woes Upon the cowslip and the pale primrose.” |
Ætat. 34. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 165 |
“Are you not half ready to suspect, Grosvenor, that I have foresworn letter writing? I write as seldom to any of my friends as I do to you; and yet letters of business and of common courtesy accumulate upon me so fast, that they occasion a very considerable, and even inconvenient, expense of time; especially to a man who, in the summer, is troubled with an influenza called laziness, and all the year round with the much more troublesome disease of poverty.
“It is not to be told how I rejoice at seeing my friends the Spaniards and Portuguese proving themselves to the eyes of the world to be what I have so long said they were. Huzza! Santiago and St. George! Smite them, as my Cid said, for the love of charity.
“Grosvenor! the most deserving of His Majesty’s pensioners thinketh of his pension,—it is low water with him.
“Have you seen a defence, or rather eulogium, of Madoc, in the last Gentleman’s Magazine, by Miss Seward? who preaches up its praise wherever she goes.
“You will have the Cid in about a fortnight. The translations in
the appendix are by Frere, and they are,
without any exception, the most masterly I have seen. The introduction, to be
what it ought to be, and what I could have made it, would have required
166 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 34. |
“Tom has been
lucky in his admiralty appointment, being first in a flag-ship, the Dreadnought. He says, and very justly, that our troops
to Spain might have been conveyed in half the time, at half the expense, and
without any risk at all, by putting as many on board some of our large ships of
war as they could take (800 or 1000 they could carry very well), and letting
each ship make the best of her way to the port nearest the scene of action. A
convoy may be wind-bound for months, and any single transport which parts
company would fall to the first
Ætat. 34. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 167 |
“Farewell! I am getting on with S. America.
“My son is the oddest fellow in the world: I wish you could see his bright eyes. . . . .
“God bless you!
“Had I been a single man, I should long ere this have found my way into Spain.* I do not perceive any possibility of my going now,—for this plain reason, my pension would not support my family during my absence, and there is no reason to suppose that any salary which might be allotted me, would be more than sufficient for my own expenses abroad. So much the better, for if it were otherwise, and the offer were made me, I believe I ought to accept it, and this could not be done without a great sacrifice. Three children, and a fourth in prospect, are not easily left, and ought not to be left unless some important
* This letter was in reply to one from Mr. Bedford, conveying an offer from Gifford to endeavour to procure him an appointment in Spain, that he might write an account of the transactions then going forward there. |
168 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 34. |
“So far was written last night, immediately on the receipt of your letter. In matters of any import this is my way,—to reply from the instantaneous feeling, and then let the reply lie quietly for cooler judgment. You see what my thoughts are upon the subject. I should accept an advantageous offer, but am so certain of being desperately homesick during the whole time of absence, that I am glad there is so little probable chance of any offer sufficiently advantageous. Yet had I 500l. to dispose of, I would go in the first packet for Lisbon, expressly to purchase books. The French have, without doubt, sold off the convent libraries, and perhaps the public ones, and such a collection may now be made, as could never at any other time be within reach.
“As for a history of the Spanish Revolution, Landor is in the country, and if he is disposed to do it, there never was that man upon earth who could do it better.
“God bless you
Ætat. 34. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 169 |
“Your estimate of Spain is right.* The difference- between our age and that of Elizabeth is, that the bulk of the people are better in no respect, and worse in some. The middle classes are veneered instead of being heart of oak, and the higher ones are better classics, and worse in every other possible point of view. Ours is a degrading and dwarfing system of society. I believe, as you do, that the Spaniards have displayed more spirit than we should have done, and that the peace-mongers were ready to have sacrificed the honour of England for their looms and brewhouses; yet in the end we should have beaten France. Religion has done much for Spain; in what light I regard it, you will see by the introduction to the Cid written six years ago, and only re-modelled now, and that before these late events took place. But much has also been done by those awakening recollections of the deeds of their forefathers, which every Spaniard felt and delighted to feel. The very ballads of the Cid must have had their effect. . . . . .
“I am very idle; boating and walking about, and laying in health and exercise for the next season of hybernation. Right glad shall I be when you come
* “I do not know whether you allow credit to my opinion that the Spanish resistance is all from religion. . . . . You know I reckon the state of Spain to be about like that of England under Elizabeth and James the First . . . .—J. R. to R. S., Sept. 10. 1808. |
170 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 34. |
“God bless you!
“An Irishman who was abroad, came in one day and said that he had seen that morning what he had never seen before,—a fine crop of anchovies growing in the garden. ‘Anchovies?’ said an Englishman, with a half laugh and a tone of wonder. And from this the other, according to the legitimate rules of Irish logic, deduced a quarrel, a challenge, and a duel, in which the poor Englishman, who did not believe that anchovies grew in the garden, was killed on the spot. The moment he fell, the right word came into the challenger’s head. ‘Och! what a pity!’ he cried, ‘and I meant capers all the while!’ Mr. Spence knew the parties, and told this story the other day at Calvert’s, from whence it travelled to me.
“What, think you, was announced the other day
Ætat. 34. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 171 |
“It occurred to me last night, I know not how, that I have never, to the best of my recollection, seen one of the large house-snails in this country, and very few indeed of the smaller kind, which are so numerous, and of such beautiful varieties in our part of the kingdom. You know what a collector of snail shells I was in my time, hoarding up all the empty ones I could find. The rocks used to be my hunting place. That amusement has made me familiar with every variety in that neighbourhood, and certain I am that the greater number are not to be found here. Slugs we have in plenty. By the by, I have lately seen it mentioned in an old French book, that frogs eat snails, shells and all.
“I wish you had the Cid to have shown the Spaniards; they would have been pleased to see that the Campeador was beginning to have his fame here in England, 700 years after his death. Unquestionably that Chronicle is one of the finest things inthe world; and so I think it will be admitted to be. Coleridge is perfectly delighted with it. Frere, passionately as he admired the poem, had never seen the Chronicle, which is remarkable enough. You will see, by comparing the Dumb-ee scene in both, that the Chronicle is sometimes the most poetical of the two.* I am so fond of this kind of contemporary his-
* Cid, Book ix. c. xiii. |
172 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 34. |
“I am getting on with my Letters from Portugal. The evenings close in by tea-time, and fire and candle bring with them close work at the desk, and nothing to take me from it. The Long-man of the Row recommends the small size in preference to quarto, as producing greater profits, in consequence of its readier sale. To this I willingly assent. They will probably extend to three such volumes as Espriella. When they are done, the fresh letters of Espriella will come in their turn; and so I go on. Huzza! two and twenty volumes already; the Cid, when reprinted, will make two more; and, please God, five a year in addition as long as I live.
“Edith has just
been in with her kiss—as regular as the evening gun. She wants to know
when Uncle will come home. Sooner perhaps than he himself thinks, for the
glorious revolution in Spain will bring Bonaparte down. It is morally impossible that such a nation can
be subdued. If King Joseph should fall into
their hands, I pray that —— may
Ætat. 34. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 173 |
“God bless you!
“A recommendation to the booksellers to look at a manuscript is of no use whatever. In the way of business they glance at every thing which is offered them; and no persons know better what is likely to answer their purpose. Poetry is the worst article in the market;—out of fifty volumes which may be published in the course of a year, not five pay the expense of publication: and this is a piece of knowledge which authors in general purchase dearly, for in most cases these volumes are printed at their risk.
“From that specimen of your productions which is now
in my writing desk, I have no doubt that you possess the feeling of a poet, and
may distinguish yourself; but I am sure that premature publication would
eventually discourage you. You have an example in Kirke White;—his Clifton Grove sold only to the extent of
the subscription he obtained for it; and the treatment which it experienced
drove him, by his own account, almost to madness. My advice to you is, to go on
improving yourself, without hazarding any thing: you cannot practise without
improvement. Feel your way before you with
174 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 34. |
“If, however, you are bent upon trying your fortune with the Soldier’s Love, can you not try it by subscription? 250 names will indemnify you for the same number of copies. I will give you a fair opinion of your manuscript if you will direct Longman to forward it to me, and will willingly be of what little use I can. But be assured that the best and wisest plan you can pursue is, to try your strength in the London newspapers.
Ætat. 34. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 175 |
“I have had a visit this morning from S—— and C—— upon the subject of this convention in Portugal. They, and some of their friends, are very desirous of bringing before the country, in some regular form, the main iniquity of the business,—which has been lost sight of in all the addresses,—and of rectifying public opinion by showing it in its true light.* A military inquiry may or may not convict Sir Hugh Dalrymple of military misconduct. This is the least part of his offence, and no legal proceedings can attach to the heinous crime he has committed; the high treason against all moral feeling, in recognising Junot by his usurped title, and deadening that noble spirit from which, and which only, the redemption of Europe can possible proceed,—by presuming to grant stipulations for the Portuguese which no government ever pretended to have power to make for an independent ally,—covenanting for the impunity of the traitors, and guaranteeing the safety of an
* The feeling of the country seems to have been more generally roused on this occasion than almost on any other:—“The London newspapers joined in one cry of wonder and abhorrence. On no former occasion had they been so unanimous, and scarcely ever was their language so energetic, so manly, so worthy of the English press. The provincial papers proved that from one end of the island to the other the resentment of this grievous wrong was the same. Some refused to disgrace their pages by inserting so infamous a treaty; others surrounded it with broad black lines, putting their journal into mourning for the dismal information it contained.”—Edinburgh Annual Register, 1808, p. 368. |
176 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 34. |
“It is important to make the country feel this; and
these sentiments would appear with most effect if they were embodied in a
county address, of which the ostensible purport might be to thank his Majesty
for having instituted an inquiry, and to request that he would be pleased to
appoint a day of national humiliation for this grievous national disgrace. This
will not be liable to the reproof with which he thought proper to receive the
city address, because it prejudges nothing,—military proceedings are out
of the question: what is complained of is, a breach of the law of nations, and
an abandonment of the moral principle which the words of the convention
Ætat. 34. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 177 |
“I have sometimes thought of publishing translations
from the Spanish and Portuguese, with the originals annexed, but there was no
prospect of profit to tempt me; and as certainly, if I live, it is my intention
to enter fully into the literary history of both countries. That made me lay
aside the
178 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 34. |
“I am planning something of great importance, a poem upon Pelayo, the first
restorer of Spain: it has long been one of my chosen subjects; and those late
Ætat. 34. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 179 |
“It gives me great pleasure to hear that you have done with the Edinburgh Review. Of their article respecting Spain, I heard from Coleridge. That subject is a fair touchstone whether a man has any generous sympathies in his nature. There is not in history such another instance of national regeneration and redemption. I have been a true prophet upon this subject, and am not a little proud of the prophecy. Of the eventual issue I have never felt a moment’s doubt. Such a nation, such a spirit, are invincible. But what a cruel business has this convention of Cintra been. Junot clearly expressed his own feelings of our commander-in-chief when he recommended him to take up his quarters at Quintella’s house as he had done: “the man,” he said, “kept a very good table, and he had seldom had reason to find fault with it.” My blood boils to think that there should be an English general to whom this rascal could venture to say this! In one of the Frenchmen’s knapsacks, among other articles of that property which they bargained to take away with them, was a delicate female hand with rings upon the fingers.
“Our ministers do not avail themselves as they might
do of their strong cause. They should throw away the scabbard and publish a
manifesto, stating why this country never will make peace with Bona-
180 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 34. |
“A reviewal of my Cid by you will be the best aid that it can possibly receive. Five hundred only were printed, and in spite of the temporary feeling and the wonderful beauty of the book, I dare say they will hang upon hand.
“It will rejoice me to see you here, and show you my treasures, and talk of the days of the shield and the lance. We have a bed at your service, and shall expect you to be our guest. Wordsworth, who left me to-day, desires his remembrances. He is about to write a pamphlet upon this precious convention, which he will place in a more philosophical point of view than any body has yet done. I go to press in a few weeks with my History of Brazil, and have Thalaba at present in Ballantyne’s hands—that poem having just reached the end of its seven years’ apprenticeship. And I have got half way through my Hindoo poem, which, it is to be hoped, will please myself, inasmuch as it is not likely to please anybody else. It is too strange, too much beyond all human sympathies; but I shall go on, and as, in such a case, I have usually little but my labour for my pains, the certainty that it never can be popular will not deter me from gratifying my own fancy.
“Mrs. Southey joins me in remembrances to Mrs. Scott.
Ætat. 34. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 181 |
The autumn of this year was marked by a circumstance which exercised considerable influence over my father’s future literary labours—the setting on foot of the Quarterly Review, in which, up to the last few years of his life, he bore so constant and prominent a part. At this time the Edinburgh Review had the field all to itself; and though it had commenced upon principles of “neutrality,” or something of the kind as to party politics*, its “Whiggery” had gradually Increased until it had become of the deepest dye. We have seen that in the preceding year Sir Walter Scott (at that time himself a contributor) had endeavoured also to enlist my father under its banners, with what success the reply has shown. Now he had not only himself withdrawn his aid, but also his name from the subscribers’ list†, so highly did he disapprove of the political tone It had assumed: and viewing the matter as one of great importance from its large circulation (9000 copies being then printed quarterly), from there being no periodical to compete with it in literary criticism, and from the impression which the “flashy and bold character of the work” was likely to make upon youthful minds, he was especially desirous that some counteracting influence should be established. In him therefore the idea originated. The first intimation of it my father received was from his friend Mr. Bedford, who was intimately acquainted with Gifford, the appointed future editor, and who, knowing how decidedly he was opposed to the principles advocated in the Edin-
* See Life of Sir Walter Scott, 2d Edit., vol ill p. 65. † Ibid. 126—129. |
182 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 34. |
“I am ready, desirous, and able to bear a part in this
said Review. You will, however,
think it odd, that the very subject on which you think me most able, is one
which I should rather avoid. I have not the sort of talent requisite for
writing a political pamphlet upon the state of Spain; these things require a
kind of wire-drawing which I have never learnt to perform, and a method of
logical reasoning to which my mind has never been habituated, and for which it
has no natural aptitude. What I feel about Spain you know; what I think about
it is this,—the country has much to suffer, in all probability there will
be many and dreadful defeats of the patriots, and such scenes as have never
been witnessed in Europe since the destruction of Saguntum and Numantia may
perhaps be renewed there. Joseph will very
likely be crowned at Madrid, and many of
Ætat. 34. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 183 |
“Now Grosvenor,
understand me clearly. I could not fill half a score of pages by dilating and
diluting this—that is, I should be a sorry pamphleteer; but I believe
myself to be a good reviewer in my own way, which is that of giving a succinct
account of the contents of the book before me, extracting its essence, bringing
my own knowledge to bear upon the subject, and, where occasion serves,
seasoning it with those opinions which in some degree leaven all my thoughts,
words, and actions. If you had read the Annual Reviews, you would comprehend this better by example than I
can make you in a letter. Voyages and travels I review better than anything
else, being well read in that branch of literature; better, indeed, than most
men. Biography and history are within my reach; upon any of these topics I will
do my best. . . . . You know my way of thinking upon most subjects. I despise
all parties too much to be attached to any. I believe that this country must
continue the war while Bonaparte is at the
head of France, and while the system which he has perfected remains in force; I
therefore, from my heart and soul, execrate and abominate the peace-mongers. I
am an enemy to any further concessions to the Catholics; I am a friend to the
Church establishment. I wish for reform, because I cannot but see that all
things are tending towards revolu-
184 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 34. |
“Thus much is said to you that it may be said through you. To yourself I add that the pay proposed will be exceedingly suitable to my poor finances, and that the more books of travels they send me the better. I had almost forgotten to say, that if a fit text be sent me, the subject of converting the Hindoos is one upon which I am well prepared.
“Farewell, and God bless you!
Very shortly after the date of this letter some further doubts crossed my father’s mind, as to the projected Review being sufficiently independent in its politics for him to contribute to it with perfect satisfaction. The circumstance of there being reason to expect “political information to be communicated from authentic sources,” seemed to him to imply that silence would be observed on such points as it might be unpleasing to the ministry to have strongly animadverted upon, and he consequently expresses these fears to Mr. Bedford in the strong language he naturally used to a familiar correspondent. This produced a further exposition of the principles upon which the Review was to be conducted; and his reply will show, that notwithstanding these passing doubts, he entered at the first heartily and zealously into the plan.
It is however right to state, that at no period could the Quarterly Review be said fairly to represent my father’s opinions, political or otherwise, and great
Ætat. 34. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 185 |
“You have taken what I said a little too seriously;
that is, you have given it more thought than it de-
186 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 34. |
“I know from Walter Scott that he reviews the Cid; it is not a text for entering directly upon the present Spanish affairs, though a fine one for touching upon them. Two things are required for the review of that book which will not be found in one person—a knowledge of Spanish literature, and of the manners of chivalry, so as to estimate the comparative value of my Chronicle. The latter knowledge Scott possesses better than any body else.
“About Cevallos
you best know your own stock of materials. Authors may be divided into silk-
Ætat. 34. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 187 |
“Elmsley may be
applied to, and, I think, with success. As for Davy, I know not whether the prize which he received from
Bonaparte sticks to his fingers or no;
I would sooner have cut mine off than accepted it. It is likely to co-operate
with some of his Royal Institution associates in making him cry out for peace:
yet Davy’s heart is sound at the core,
188 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 34. |
“It would attract much notice, and carry with it much
recommendation, if an account of the Welsh Archæology could be procured.
Turner may be asked for it; I am
afraid he is too busy: William Owen,
alas! is one of Joanna Southcote’s
four-and-twenty elders; and Bard
Williams is, God knows where, and nothing is to be got out of
him except by word of mouth. There is, however, the chance of
Turner; there is Davies of
Olveston, the author of
Ætat. 34. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 189 |
“Farewell! I finish my Annualising in a few days, and shall then set about the Missions.
“God bless you!
“Let not Gifford suppose me a troublesome man to deal with, pertinacious about trifles, or standing upon punctilios of authorship. No, Grosvenor, I am a quiet, patient, easy-going hack of the mule breed; regular as clockwork in my pace, sure-footed, bearing the burden which is laid on me, and only obstinate in choosing my own path. If Gifford could see me by this fireside where, like Nicodemus, one candle suffices me in a large room, he would see a man in a coat ‘still more threadbare than his own’ when he wrote his ‘Imitation,’ working hard and getting little,—a bare maintenance, and hardly that; writing poems and history for posterity with his whole heart and soul; one daily progressive in learning, not so learned as he is poor, not so poor as proud; not so proud as happy. Grosvenor, there is not a lighter-hearted nor a happier man upon the face of this wide world.
“Your godson thinks that I have nothing to do but to play with him, and anybody who saw what reason he has for his opinion would be disposed to agree with him. I wish you could see my beautiful boy!”
190 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 34. |
“The earliest chronicle in French is that of Geoffrey Vilhardouin, so often quoted by Gibbon, which relates the capture of Constantinople by the Latins, and is, therefore, long subsequent to My Cid. I believe the earliest histories of the Normans are in Latin, and believe also that all Latin chronicles will be found either as you describe them, or florid and pedantic. Men never write with feeling in any language but their own; they never write well upon subjects with which they do not sympathise; and what sympathy could there ever be between monks and chivalry? My Cid is the finest specimen of chivalrous history: it is so true a book that it bespeaks belief for the story of his victory after death, and it requires arguments and dates to prove that this part is not authentic.
“I am brimful of this kind of knowledge, and much more of it will appear in the first vol. of Portuguese History than in the Cid. There are two other subjects on which I am as well informed as those for which you give me credit*,—savage manners and monastic history; and the latter, not the least curious of the whole, certainly the most out-of-
* “Two out-of-the-way things, you certainly know better than all other men—Eastern fable and European chivalry and romance; and this nobody will dispute who has read the annotations to Thalaba and My Cid.” J. R. to R. S. |
Ætat. 34. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 191 |
“The Saxon language, you say, ousted the Welsh as completely as its possessors. But there is reason to believe that a part only of our prior population was Celtic, and that we had previously hived Teutonic and Cantabrian swarms. A Basque dictionary would be a treasure; none of our etymologists have had recourse to it. I was told by the only person I ever met with who had studied this language, that there was far more of it than had been supposed both in the Spanish and Portuguese,—about as much, probably, as we have of Welsh. Bilbao would be the place to get Basque books; but I will try to obtain a dictionary through Frere, who has offered his services to my uncle in this line,—a new species of diplomacy of more use than the old.
“In one point, and only in one, does China offer—an exception to the evil consequences of polygamy*, and that is, it has remained an undivided empire. This, I suppose, is owing to the unique circumstance of its having a literary aristocracy, all subordinate authority being in the hands of men whose education
* “In your introduction to My Cid, I was not surprised that you insist largely on the evils of polygamy, knowing that to be your particular aversion. I myself do not admire polygamy, nor much more that idea of Dr. Johnson’s, that happiness would not be less in quantity if all marriages were made by law without consulting the inclinations of the couples. However, in taking a general view, we must not forget that the largest and most populous empire in the world, China, goes on pretty well under both these inconveniences, for I think in fairness you will allow that the want of an alphabet accounts sufficiently for the frozen limits of Chinese science, without calling in the aid of polygamy or of aught else.”—J. R. to R. S. Oct. 12, 1808. |
192 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 34. |
“I recommend and exhort you to read Captain Beaver’s African Memoranda; you will find a book and a man after your own heart: I would walk to the Land’s End to have the satisfaction of shaking hands with him. . . . .
“God bless you!
“I am not quite sure which deserves the severest cart’s tailing, you or your admiral; you for what you say of Frere’s translation, he for what he says of mine. A translation is good precisely in proportion as it faithfully represents the matter, manner, and
* The title of a Chinese novel. |
Ætat. 34. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 193 |
“Now to the Admiral’s criticism. He seems to
suppose that a book ought always to be rendered into English of the newest
fashion; and, if not, that it then should be given in the English of its own
age,—a book of the fifteenth century (sixteenth he means) in that of the
fifteenth. He did not recollect that in the thirteenth century there was no
such thing as English, which is, I think, answer enough. But the fact is, that
both in this Chronicle and in
Amadis, I have not
formed a style, but followed one. The original, when represented as literally
as possible, ran into that phraseology, and all I had to do was to avoid words,
and forms of words, of modern creation, and also such as were unintelligibly
obsolete. There is, as you must have heard Wordsworth point out, a lan-
194 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 34. |
“The new Review is to appear in April. Among the persons who are calculated
upon to write in it there are Frere;
G. Ellis; your admiral’s brother, a man of more than
common talents, and well to be liked; Heber; Coplestone, the
Oxford Poetry Professor (a great admirer of Madoc); Miss
Baillie; Sharon Turner;
and Captain Burney. A good many of these
persons I know have the same thorough conviction of the destructive folly it
would be to make peace that I and Walter
Scott have; for, to do Scott justice, all
his best and bravest feelings are alike upon that subject. I think we shall do
good, and will do my part with a hearty good-will. What I said to Bedford was, that as long as this govern-
Ætat. 34. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 195 |
“—— has not written to me. There will be such a tremendous campaign that the chances are much against any individual, especially one who will seek the hottest service, as he will do. In the field he is but one, and as obnoxious to a ball as the merest machine of a soldier; but, should he be in a besieged town, such a man is worth a whole regiment there.
“God protect him, wherever he be!
“God bless you!
“In the height of our indignation here at the infamy in Portugal, one of our first thoughts was what yours would be. We in England had the consolation to see that the country redeemed itself by the general outcry which burst out. Never was any feeling within my recollection so general; I did not meet a man who was not boiling over with shame and rage.
“The Spaniards will be
victorious. I am prepared
196 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 34. |
“Find out a woman whom you can esteem, and love will grow more surely out of esteem than esteem will out of love. Your soul would then find anchorage. There are fountain springs of delight in the heart of man, which gush forth at the sight of his children, though it might seem before to be hard as the rock of Horeb, and dry as the desert sands. What I learnt from Rousseau, before I laid Epictetus to my heart, was, that Julia was happy with a husband whom she had not loved, and that Wolmer was more to be admired than St. Preux. I bid no man beware of being poor as he grows old, but I say to all men, beware of solitariness in age. Rest is the object to be sought. There is no other way of attaining it here, where we have no convents, but by putting an end to all those hopes and fears to which the best hearts are the most subject. Experto crede Roberto. This is the holy oil which has stilled in me a nature little less tempestuous than your own.
“I have 1800 lines of Kehama to send you as soon
Ætat. 34. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 197 |
“We used our endeavours here to obtain a county meeting and send in a petition which should have taken up the Convention upon its true grounds of honour and moral feeling, keeping all pettier considerations out of sight. Wordsworth,—who left me when we found the business hopeless,—went home to ease his heart in a pamphlet, which I daily expect to hear he has completed. Courts of Inquiry will do nothing, and can do nothing. But we can yet acquit our own souls, and labour to foster and keep alive a spirit which is in the country, and which a cowardly race of hungry place-hunters are endeavouring to extinguish.
“The ill news is just come, and ministers are quaking
for Sir John Moore, for whom I do not
quake, as he and his army will beat twice their number of French. The fall of
Madrid must be looked for, and, perhaps, Zaragoza may be the Sa-
198 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 34. |
“God bless you!
“Here is my vindication of the Indian Mission packed
up on the table; but, unluckily, too late for to-day’s coach, so it
cannot reach London before Monday. It is written with hearty good-will, and
requires no signature to show whence it comes. Now I wish you would ask
Mr. Gifford—if he thinks it
expedient to use the pruning-knife—to let the copy be returned to me when
the printer has done with it, because it is ten to one that the passages which
he would curtail—being the most Robert Southeyish of
the whole—would be those that I should like best myself; and, therefore,
I would have the satisfaction of putting them in again for my own satisfaction,
if for nobody’s else. I must still confess to you, Grosvenor, that I have my fears and
Ætat. 34. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 199 |
“Spain! Spain! . . . were the resources of the nation
at my command, I would stake my head upon the deliverance of that country, and
the utter overthrow of Bonaparte. But,
good God! what blunders, what girlish panics, what absolute cowardice are there
in our measures! Disembarking troops when we ought to be sending ship after
ship as fast as they could be put on board. It is madness to wait for
transports; send ships of the line, and let them run singly for Lisbon, and
Cadiz, and Catalonia. Nothing can ruin the Spaniards unless they
200 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 34. |
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