“I have been long in your debt; my summers are more like those of the grasshopper than of the ant. Wynn was here nearly a week, and when he departed I rejoined him with my friend Nash at Lowther. . . . . This, and a round home by way of Wordsworth’s employed a week; and what with the King of Prussia’s librarian, the two secretaries of the Bible Society, and other such out of the way personages who come to me by a sort of instinct, I have had little time and less leisure since my return.
“The last odd personage who made his appearance was Owen of Lanark*, who is neither more nor
* On this subject see Colloquies, vol. i. p. 132. &c. |
| 196 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 42. |
“To this system he says we must come speedily. . . . .
What he says of the manufacturing system has much weight in it; the machinery
which enables us to manufacture for half the world has found its way into other
countries; every market is glutted; more goods are produced than can be
consumed; and every improvement in mechanism that performs the work of hands,
throws so many mouths upon the public,—a growing evil which has been
increasing by the premature employment of children, bringing them into
competition with the grown workmen when they should have been at school or at
play. He wants Government to settle its paupers and supernumerary hands in
villages upon waste lands, to live in community; urging that we must go to the
root of the evil at once. He talks of what he
| Ætat. 42. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 197 |
“You talk of brain transfusion, and placing one man’s memory upon another man’s shoulders. That same melancholy feeling must pass through the mind of every man who labours hard in acquiring knowledge; for, communicate what we can, and labour as assiduously as we may, how much must needs die with us? This reflection makes me sometimes regret (as far as is allowable) the time which I employ in doing what others might do as well, or what might as well be left undone. The Quarterly might go on without me, and should do so if I could go on without it. But what would become of my Portuguese acquirements and of yonder heap of materials, which none but myself can put in order, if I were to be removed by death?
“For the two voted monuments, I want one durable one, which should ultimately pay itself,—a pyramid not smaller than the largest in Egypt, the inside of which should serve London for Catacombs: some such provision is grievously wanted for so huge a capitol. God bless you!
