In the last volume the reader has had several specimens of the
obloquy which my father’s political
| 2 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 46. |
It has been the fashion with many of those persons whose opinions were most
opposed to those my father held in later life, taking up their cue from the abuse which was
for a long period showered upon him in the Liberal journals, to assume, as an undoubted
truth, that at some particular period his views had changed totally and suddenly, under the
influence of unworthy motives,—that he had veered round (like a weather-cock upon a
gusty day) from the levelling opinions set forth in Wat Tyler to high Toryism,—that he was a
“renegade,” an “apostate,” an “hireling,” and I know
not what; and they attributed this change, on the one hand, to the mortification he felt at
the squibs of the Anti-Jacobin, and at the
various satirical attacks which he experienced; and, on the other, to the hope of basking
in Court smiles, and comfortably “feathering his nest” under ministerial
favour. His pension (which the reader need not be reminded, left him a poorer man than it
found him) was by some considered as the pivot upon which he had turned round; and the
Laureateship, paid by the magnificent income of 90l., and taken at a
time when the office was considered as all but ridiculous, was by such persons regarded as
the second instalment of a series of payments for this tergiversation. Others, again,
unable to find that these had been the agents in effecting the changes in his
| Ætat. 46. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 3 |
I think it needless now to attempt to rebut charges like these, because the candid render of the past volumes, having seen the ardour and frankness with which my father expressed the same opinions in his unguarded correspondence which he advocated in his public writings, will hardly be disposed to acquiesce in them, especially as his reasons for refusing to join the Edinburgh Review, at a period antecedent to the existence of the Quarterly, are on record.
But as my father’s views upon politics have been so often
misrepresented and misunderstood, a brief sketch of the chief of these can hardly be
misplaced here; and I am the more impelled to make such a sketch, because I have lately
seen it asserted that “the only opinions England has cause to dread are those held
and advocated by Robert Southey during middle
life.” A notable sentence, showing how little his political opponents either
know or consider how many of the improvements and changes which he advocated have been, or
ore now being, carried into
| 4 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 46. |
Now, as in politics there are two great and opposite evils to be dreaded,—tyrannical government on the one hand, and anarchy on the other,—my father believed that the time for dreading the former was gone by, and that the latter danger was imminent; and on this account, as we have seen, he directed his energies to supporting the supreme authority, by urging the adoption of strong measures towards the seditious writers and speakers of the time,—by opposing such proposals as seemed to have a tendency to strengthen the democratic element,—and by himself proposing and urging the adoption of measures for improving the condition of the poorer classes.
Under these three heads are comprised, I believe, most of my father’s
political acts. Of the two first I need not speak; they are sufficiently understood; but on
the third I would wish to dilate a little further. Let me, however, first guard against
being supposed to claim infallibility for my father in his political opinions. Doubtless,
he sometimes erred in his estimate both of the good and the evil likely to result from
certain measures. Who, indeed, has not so erred? What politician or what party does not
occasionally anticipate exaggerated effects, alike from what they support or what they
deprecate? But I would submit that, with respect to the ultimate
effects of those great measures he most strongly opposed, time has not yet fully set his
seal upon them; that we have not yet seen the whole results either of Catholic Emancipation
or of
| Ætat. 46. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 5 |
But while the correctness or the fallacy of my father’s opinions, and of those who thought with him upon these points in great measure has yet to be decided, I would lay much more stress upon his views on social subjects—upon his earnest advocacy of those measures he thought most calculated to ameliorate the condition of the lower orders, and to cement the bonds of union between all classes of society, and this as proving that both in early and in later life the objects he aimed at were the same, although he had learned to think that political power was not the panacea for all the poor man’s evils.
Among the various measures and changes he advocated may be named the
following, many of which were topics he handled at greater or less length in the Quarterly Review, while his opinions upon the
others may be found scattered throughout his letters;—National education to be
assisted by Government grants. The diffusion of cheap literature of a wholesome and
harmless kind. The necessity of an extensive and well organised system of colonisation, and
especially of encouraging female emigration. The importance of a wholesome training for the
immense number of children in London and other large towns, who, without it, are abandoned
to vice and misery. The establishment of Protestant sisters of charity, and of a better
order of hospital nurses. The establishment
| 6 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 46. |
A man whose mind was full of projects of this kind ought, I think, to be safe from sentences of indiscriminate condemnation, and, indeed, when we remember how few of them had occupied the attention of politicians when he wrote of them, it must he allowed that he was one of the chief pioneers of most of the great and real improvements which have taken and are taking place in society in our own times; and though some may still think his fears of a revolution were exaggerated, yet who can say how far the tranquillity we enjoy has not been owing to the preventive and curative measures which he and others
* The changes he advocated in the game laws have long since taken place; but, alas, without the good effects anticipated from them. † Such as of later years has occurred in Ireland and Scotland. |
| Ætat. 46. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 7 |
The various literary employments upon which he was engaged in 1819-20 have been frequently referred to in his letters. The Life of Wesley was in the press. The Peninsular War he was busily employed upon; he had also in progress the Book of the Church, and the Colloquies with Sir T. More; and to the Quarterly Review he was, as we know, a constant contributor, not so much from choice as from necessity.
But in addition to all his other manifold employments, the Laureateship was an inconvenient tax upon his time, and a considerable one upon his ingenuity. The regular task-work was still required, and he was at the same time too desirous of rendering the Laurel more honourable than it had been, to be content with merely those common-place compositions; which no one could hold more cheaply than he did himself, often designating them as “simply good for nothing,” and declaring “that next to getting rid of the task which the Laureateship imposed upon him, of writing stated verses at stated times, the best thing he could do was to avoid publishing them except on his own choice and his own time.”
The death of the King, which occurred
in January, 1820, now seemed to call for some more particular effort on his part; and as
this event had been for some time expected he had been turning over in his mind in what way
he could best pay his official tribute, and at the same time produce something of real
merit. We have seen that from his youth he had been de-
| 8 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 46. |
One other subject may also be mentioned as occupying his thoughts at this time, though probably in a less degree than it would have occupied the thoughts of most persons. He has mentioned in his autobiography that his great uncle, John Canon Southey, had left certain estates of considerable value in trust for his great nephew, John Southey Somerville, afterwards Lord Somerville, and his issue, with the intent that if he, who was then a child, should die without issue, the estates should descend to the Southeys. Lord Somerville was lately dead without issue, and my father was under the impression that he had a legal claim to the property, and was at this time taking advice upon the subject. It turned out, however, that Canon Southey had not taken proper care that his intention should be carried into effect, for the opinions upon his claim were not sufficiently favourable to encourage him to take legal proceedings in the matter.
This disappointment he bore as quietly as he had done others of the same
kind, and while by no man
| Ætat. 46. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 9 |
“I have two things to tell you, both sufficiently remarkable. Lord Bathurst, supposing that I had a son growing up, called on Croker lately to offer me a writership for him. I never saw Lord B., nor have I any indirect acquaintance with him. The intended kindness therefore is the greater.
“A curious charge has been bequeathed me,—the papers of
a man who destroyed himself on the first day of this year, wholly, I believe,
from the misery occasioned by a state of utter unbelief. I never saw him but
once. Last year he wrote me two anonymous letters, soliciting me to accept this
charge. I
| 10 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 46. |
“The jury pronounced him insane, which, perhaps, they would not have done, had they seen the paper which he addressed to them. That cruel law should be repealed, and I wish you would take the credit of repealing it. It is in every point of view barbarous. A particular prayer for cases of this kind should be added to our Burial Service, to be used in place of those parts that express a sure and certain hope for the dead. God bless you!
Upon a careful examination of the papers here alluded to, my father found
that it would be quite impossible to make any use of them, as they contained the strongest
internal evidences of the perfect insanity of the writer. The reader will, probably,
| Ætat. 46. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 11 |
“Your letter, my dear Sir, affects me greatly. It represents a state of mind into which I also should have fallen, had it not been for that support which you are not disposed to think necessary for the soul of man.
“I, too, identified my own hopes with hopes for mankind, and at the price of any self-sacrifice would have promoted the good of my fellow-creatures. I too have been disappointed in being undeceived; but having learnt to temper hope with patience, and when I lift up my spirit to its Creator and Redeemer, to say, not with the lips alone, but with the heart also, ‘Thy will be done,’ I feel that whatever afflictions I have endured, have been dispensed to me in mercy, and am deeply and devoutly thankful for what I am, and what I hope to be when I shall burst my shell.
“O Sir! Religion is the one thing needful. With-
* My father’s first letter to —— has not been preserved. |
| 12 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 46. |
“That the natural world, by its perfect order, displays
evident marks of design, I think you would admit, for it is so palpable that it
can only be disputed from perverseness or affectation. Is it not reasonable to
suppose that the moral order of things should in like manner be coherent and
harmonious? It is so if there be a state of retribution after death. If that be
proved, everything becomes intelligible, just, beautiful, good. Would you not,
from the sense of fitness and of justice, wish that it should be so? And is
there not enough of wisdom and power apparent in creation to authorise us in
inferring, that
| Ætat. 46. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 13 |
“Pursue this feeling, and it will lead you to the cross of Christ.
“I never fear to avow my belief that warnings from the other world are sometimes communicated to us in this; and that, absurd as the stories of apparitions generally are, they are not always false; but that the spirits of the dead have sometimes been permitted to appear. I believe this, because I cannot refuse my assent to the evidence which exists of such things, and to the universal consent of all men who have not learnt to think otherwise. Perhaps you will not despise this as a mere superstition, when I say that Kant, the profoundest thinker of modern ages, came, by the severest reasoning, to the same conclusion.
“But if these things are, then there is a state after death; and if there be a state after death, it is reasonable to presume that such things should be.
“You will receive this as it is meant. It is hastily and earnestly written, in perfect sincerity, in the fulness of my heart. Would to God that it might find its way to yours. In case of your recovery, it would reconcile you to life, and open to you sources of happiness to which you are a stranger.
“But whether your lot be for life or death, dear Sir, God bless you!
| 14 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 46. |
“You propose a question* to me, which I can no more answer with any grounds for an opinion, than if you were to ask me whether a lottery ticket should be drawn blank or prize, or if a ship should make a prosperous voyage to the East Indies. If I recollect rightly, poor Scott, of Amwell, was disturbed in his last illness by some hard-hearted and sour-blooded bigots, who wanted him to repent of his poetry as of a sin. The Quakers are much altered since that time. I know one, a man deservedly respected by all who know him (Charles Lloyd the elder, of Birmingham), who has amused his old age by translating Horace and Homer. He is looked up to in the Society, and would not have printed these translations if he had thought it likely to give offence.
“Judging, however, from the spirit of the age, as affecting your Society, like every thing else, I should think they would be gratified by the appearance of a poet among them, who confines himself within the limits of their general principles. They have been reproached with being the most illiterate sect that has ever arisen in the Christian world, and they ought to be thankful to any of their members who should assist in vindicating them from that opprobrium. There is nothing in their principles which
* The question was, whether the Society of Friends were likely to be offended at his publishing a volume of poems. |
| Ætat. 46. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 15 |
“I shall be glad to receive your volume, and you have my best good wishes for its success. The means of promoting it are not within my power; for though I bear a part in the Quarterly Review (and endure a large portion of the grossest abuse and calumny for opinions which I do not hold, and articles which I have not written), I have long since found it necessary, for reasons which you may easily apprehend, to form a resolution of reviewing no poems whatever. My principles of criticism, indeed, are altogether opposite to those of the age. I would treat everything with indulgence, except what was mischievous; and most heartily do I disapprove of the prevailing fashion of criticism, the direct tendency of which is to call bad passions into full play.
“Heartily hoping that you may succeed to your utmost wishes in this meritorious undertaking,
|
* “One in the British Friend did impute this as a sin, twenty-five years after this was written.”—Selections from the Poems and Letters of Bernard Barton, p. 111. |
| 16 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 46. |
“. . . . . My knowledge is never so ready as yours. The less you trust your memory the worse it serves you; and for the last five-and-twenty years I have hardly trusted mine at all; the consequence has been, that I must go to my notes for everything, except the general impressions and conclusions that much reading leaves behind.
“Upon the deficiency of our Ecclesiastical Establishment and its causes, you will find an historical chapter in my Life of Wesley, agreeing entirely with your notes in all the points on which we have both touched. Since that chapter was written I have got at sundry books on the subject,—Kennet’s Case of Impropriations, Henry Wharton’s Defence of Pluralities, Staveley’s History of Churches—each very good and full of sound knowledge; Eachard’s Contempt of the Clergy and Stackhouse’s Miseries of the Inferior Clergy—books of a very different character, but of great notoriety in their day; and two recent publications by a Mr. Yates, which contain a great deal of information. I was led to them by the mention made of them in Vansittart’s speech upon the New Churches. . . . .
“I must borrow from some of the black letter men
Sir Thomas More’s works, which
are tolerably numerous; and when I am in London, I must ask you to turn me
loose for two or three mornings among the statutes at large, for I must examine
those
| Ætat. 46. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 17 |
“God bless you!
| 18 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 46. |
“When you see Gifford (and when you go near his door I wish you would make it a reason for calling), will you tell him that among the many applications to which, like himself, I am exposed on account of the Quarterly Review, there is one from Sir —— ——, concerning whose book I wrote to him some three or four months ago. I very much wish he would get Pasley to review that book. It would hardly require more than half a dozen pages; and I believe the book deserves to be brought forward, as being of great practical importance. If, as I apprehend, it shows that we are so much superior to the French in the most important branch of war in theory, as we have proved ourselves to be in the field, the work which demonstrates this ought to be brought prominently into notice, more especially as the notoriety which the Quarterly Review may give to Sir ——’s refutation of Carnot’s theories may tend to prevent our allies from committing errors, the consequence of which must be severely felt whenever France is able to resume her scheme of aggrandisement. . . . .
“Do you know that one of those London publishers who
are rogues by profession, is now publishing in sixpenny numbers a life of the King, by Robert Southy,
Esq., printed for the author. ‘Observe
| Ætat. 46. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 19 |
“The death of the King will delay my departure two or three weeks beyond the time which I had intended for it. For if I do not finish the poem, which I must of course write before I leave home, my funeral verses would not appear before the coronation. In my next letter, I shall probably horrorize you about these said verses, in which I have made some progress.
“I have about a fortnight’s work with Wesley, not more; and not so
much if this sort of holiday’s task had not come to interrupt me. I
versify very slowly, unless very much in the humour for it, and when the
passion of the part carries me forward. This can never be the case with task
verses. However, as I hope not to go beyond two or three hundred lines, I
imagine that, at any rate, a fourth part is done. I shall not be very long
about it. If I manage the
| 20 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 46. |
“All well, thank God, at present.
“God bless you!
“Your poem has not found its way to me. It is either delayed or mislaid at Longman’s. Oh that you would write in English! I can never think of your predilection for Latin verse but as a great loss to English literature.
“The times make less impression upon me than upon men
who live more in the political world. The present, perhaps, appears to you, at
a distance, worse than it is. The future will be what we may choose to make it.
There is an infernal spirit abroad, and crushed it must be. Crushed it will be,
beyond all doubt; but the question is, whether it will be cut short in its
course, or suffered to spend itself like a fever. In the latter case, we shall
go on through a bloodier revolution than that of France, to an iron military
government,—the only possible termination of Jacobinism. It is a misery to see
in what manner the press is employed to poison the minds of the people, and
eradicate every thing that is virtuous, everything that is honourable,
everything upon which the order, peace, and happiness of society are founded.
The recent laws have stopped the twopenny supply
| Ætat. 46. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 21 |
“Do you remember Elmsley at Oxford,—the fattest under-graduate in your time and mine? He is at Naples, superintending the unrolling the Herculaneum manuscripts, by Davy’s process, at the expense of the Prince Regent,—I should say, of George IV. The intention is, that Elmsley shall ascertain, as soon as a beginning is made of one of the rolls, whether it shall be proceeded with, or laid aside, in hope of finding something better, till the whole have been inspected.
“A fashion of poetry has been imported which has had a great run, and is in a fair way of being worn out. It is of Italian growth,—an adaptation of the manner of Pulci, Berni, and Ariosto in his sportive mood. Frere began it. What he produced was too good in itself and too inoffensive to become popular; for it attacked nothing and nobody; and it had the fault of his Italian models, that the transition from what is serious to what is burlesque was capricious. Lord Byron immediately followed; first with his Beppo, which implied the profligacy of the writer, and, lastly, with his Don Juan, which is a foul blot on the literature of his country, an act of high treason on English poetry. The manner has had a host of imitators. The use of Hudibrastic rhymes (the only thing in which it differs from the Italian) makes it very easy.
“My poems hang on hand. I want no monitor to tell me it
is time to leave off. I shall force myself
| 22 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 46. |
“God bless you!
“. . . . . You know what a rose-coloured politician I
was during the worst years of the war. My nature inclines me to hope and to
exertion; and in spite of the evil aspects on every side, and the indications
which are blackening wherever we look, I think that if we do not avert the
impending dangers we shall get through them victoriously, let them come thick
and threatening as they may. But it will not be without a heavy cost. The
murder of the Duc de Berri surprised me more
than a like tragedy would have done at home, where such crimes have
perseveringly been recommended in those infamous journals, most of which have
been suppressed by the late wholesome acts. The effect of such things (as it is
the end also of all revolutions), must be to strengthen the executive power. As
no man can abuse his fortune without injuring it, so no people can abuse their
liberty
| Ætat. 46. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 23 |
“Is it within the bounds of a reasonable hope that an improved state of public opinion, and an extended influence of religion, may prevent the degradation which, in the common course of things, would ensue, after one or two halcyon generations? How justly did the Romans congratulate themselves upon the security which they enjoyed under Augustus; but how sure was the tyranny, and corruption, and ruin which ensued? Our chance of escaping from the same process of decay depends upon the question, whether religion or infidelity are gaining ground: and if I am asked this question, I must comfort myself by the wise and good old saying; ‘Well masters, God’s above.’
“You have heard, no doubt, of the discovery of Cicero de Republica? This was brought to my mind at this moment by a thought whether we might not be verging towards a state of things, in which a general wreck of literature and destruction of libraries would make part of the plans of reform. The proposal of a new alphabet has been made by a German reformer, and approved by an English one, because one of its effects would be to render all existing books useless! It was said of old that there was nothing so foolish but some philosopher had said it. Alas there is nothing so mischievous or so atrocious, but that men are found in these days mad enough and malignant enough to recommend and to defend it.
| 24 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 46. |
“Your guess about the Parallel Roads* has this in its favour, that if Glen Roy mean the king’s glen, the word Roy would not have been used before there was an intercourse between the Scotch and the French; they were never such friends with our Normans as to have taken it from them. In point of time, therefore, this would suit well. On the other hand, in that age chroniclers delighted as much in a good show as in a good battle, and Froissart would hardly have failed to describe a hunting party upon so grand a scale as that for which these roads were made. It appears to be impossible that they should have been made for any other purpose; and when our friends at Corpach procure a list of the names of places, and some Gael is found learned enough to translate them, this main fact I have no doubt will be established. There is some possibility that by this means, also, we may come near the age; not by the language (for I believe the Gaelic is not like the Welsh, in which the date of a composition may be
* “I read in Froissart (chap, lxi.) that the king of Scotland (Robert II.) was at that time absent from Edinburgh, being in the Highlands on a hunting party. The Parallel Roads in Glen Roy might be freshly made at that time; the Scottish kings having had recent opportunity of enlarging their ideas as prisoners or auxiliaries in England and France; and the listed field of a tournament might give the hint for a grand apparatus,—a hunting spectacle. Game might be preserved in the neighbourhood for royal diversion.”—J. R. to R. S., Feb. 20. 1820. |
| Ætat. 46. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 25 |
“You are quite right in thinking funded property better than landed property for charitable institutions, as being rather more than less secure, safe from fraudulent management, and requiring no trouble. There remains an objection from the uncertainty of the value of money; but it appears to me impossible that money should ever fall in value as it has done since the Middle Ages, perhaps even such an advance in prices as has taken place within our own recollection will never again occur; I mean as affecting every thing. In the view which I take of the improvement of society, stability is one of the good things to be expected.
“I like your Beguinage scheme in all its parts. Endowments (analogous to college fellowships) would grow out of it in due course of time. And great part of the business of female education would be transferred to these institutions to the advantage of all parties.
“The Duc de Berri will do more good by his death than he would ever have done by his life. I had been saying that such a tragedy in France surprised me much more than it would have done in England. The will, I knew, was not wanting, and intelligence soon came that the purpose had been formed. Your Oppositionists will call this discovery* a most unfortunate business, and such I trust it will
* Of the Cato Street conspiracy. |
| 26 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 46. |
“God bless you!
The following was the “Beguinage scheme” alluded to in the foregoing letter:—
“A local habitation is all I wish for where a secular nunnery is
to be established; acres enough to preserve the integrity of aspect from encroachment
and to prevent intrusion. . . . . My notion of a female establishment is, that any
benefactor erecting a set of chambers shall thereby acquire a right (alienable by will,
gift, or sale, like other property) to place inmates there on certain conditions, such
as that security shall be given that each enjoy a competent income, not less than £——
while she resides there; that she shall be bound to the neces-
| Ætat. 46. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 27 |
| 28 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 46. |
“I do not know whether you are prepared to agree with me as to the necessity of a secured income to each female, but I have inquired enough in and about such female societies (such there are for clergymen’s widows at Bromley, at Winchester, at Froxfield, at Lichfield, and, I dare say, elsewhere) as to be fully convinced that respectability cannot be otherwise maintained. . . . . In short, there must be a classification of relief, and I treat of the upper classes, observing only that many would be exalted into that upper class were the means of so exalting them easy, and obvious to the wealthy. Few wills would be without bequests of the competent annuity to some humble friend; various societies would be at various rates,—I should say from 50l. to 100l. per annum, or some such minimum,—and, if a wealthy foundress resided herself, she would have larger facility for beneficence than display. The love of the community, so conspicuous among monks in former times, would found libraries, plantations, walks, cloisters, gaudy days, whether obit or birthday, medical attendance, a chaplain, perhaps. For government, the foundresses must legislate.”*
The reader will remember an interesting account of a Beguinage at Ghent in the last volume, and the recurrence to the subject at various intervals throughout my father’s life shows how much interest he felt in it.
|
* J. R. to R. S., Feb. 20. 1820. |
| Ætat. 46. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 29 |
How far this plan of Mr. Rickman’s, without considerable modification, might answer, seems doubtful, and something more of the nature of an asylum for persons of very limited means, or for those left altogether destitute, appears greatly wanted.
Institutions of this kind, however, so long as their object is limited to the benefit of their own inmates, have not in them a sufficient largeness of purpose and general utility to command the interest and admiration of mankind to any wide extent.
But when regarded in another light, as an influential machinery for the moral and religious cultivation of the people, they become highly important. My father has unfolded his own ideas upon this subject in the latter part of the Colloquies with Sir Thomas More, using frequently the same phrases, and making the same suggestions which occur in these letters, whether his own or his friend’s; and he there indicates certain principles which seem essential to the well-being of such communities. There must be a centre of union sufficient to overpower, or at least to keep in harmonious subjection, individual characters; this can only be supplied by religion and the habit of obedience. “Human beings,” he remarks, “cannot live happily in constrained community of habits without the aid of religious feeling, and without implicit obedience to a superior;” but he did not expect that these requirements would be easily met with in this age, and he attributes the little success of some institutions to the want of them.
It seems also an absolute essential that they should have their definite
work; an object which may fill
| 30 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 46. |
We have happily seen that in this respect, as in some others, the tide has
turned, and some Institutions have sprung up, whose existence is based upon these two
principles. While, however, I sincerely rejoice that such a beginning has been made, I may
be allowed to express a fear that as yet, with the enthusiasm of persons following a new
and exciting idea, they have adopted too much of the minutiæ and austerities of convent
discipline to be widely acceptable to the English mind, and consequently to be extensively
beneficial. For the rigid strictness of the rules (in some houses at least) is likely to
deter any one from entering them, who respects and values the cheerfulness and rational
liberty of domestic life, such as it appears in most religious families; and the quantity
and fatigue of the duties required, is such as can only be endured by persons in robust
health; and thus the very class who most need such a residence as an asylum, and who, under
a more moderate system, might be both contented and useful, are altogether excluded. It
would seem, indeed, to be desirable that the inmates of such Sisterhoods should aim
| Ætat. 46. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 31 |
In the following letter, my father alludes to his youngest brother Edward, who has not been mentioned in these volumes since his boyhood. The subject is a painful one, and I may be excused from entering into it further than to say that every effort had been made, both by his uncle, Mr. Hill, and his brothers, to place him in a respectable line of life, and induce him to continue in it. He possessed excellent abilities, and had received a good education; and if he would have chosen any profession, they would have prepared him for it. He was placed first in the navy, and afterwards in the army, but in vain; and he finally took to the wretched life of an actor in provincial theatres. My father here sufficiently indicates the course ultimately pursued towards him by his brothers, who, in fact, did everything it was possible to do for him. He died in 1845.
“Though I never examined an account in my life (holding
it a less evil to be cheated than to cast up long sums, and fret myself about
l. s. d.), yet I think
| 32 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 46. |
“I thank you for your solicitude concerning my readiness to give. But you do not know when I turn a deaf ear. The case of poor Page’s family is the only one in which I had not a cogent motive; there, perhaps, there was no better one than a regard to appearances—a tax to which I have paid less in the course of my life than most other persons. My unhappy brother Edward has at least the virtue of being very considerate in his demands upon me. They come seldom, and are always trifling. At present he is ill, perhaps seriously so. All that can be done for him is to take care that he may not want for necessaries while in health, nor for comforts (as far as they can be procured) when health fails him.
“In John Morgan’s case I acted from the double motive of good will towards him and his wife, and of setting others an example,—which has had its effect. There was an old acquaintance there; and for the sake of his mother, at whose table I have been a frequent guest, I would have done more for him than this, had it been in my power.
“People imagine that I am very rich, that I have great interest with Government, and that my patronage in literature is sufficient to make an author’s fortune, and to introduce a poet at once into full celebrity.
“Turner is about
to take an opinion concerning my claims, both in law and in equity, to the
Somersetshire Estates. Were I to recover them, I should
| Ætat. 46. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 33 |
“Last night I finished the Life of Wesley; but I have outrun the printer as well as the constable, and it may be four or five weeks before he comes up to me. Now I go dens et unguis to my Carmen, which, if I do not like when it is done, why I will even skip the task, and prepare for the coronation. Alas! the birthdays will now be kept; learn for me on what days, that I may be ready in time. I do not know why you are so anxious for rhyme. The rhythm of my Congratulatory Odes is well suited for lyrical composition; and the last poem which I sent you was neither amiss in execution, nor inappropriate in subject. God bless you!
“Before I see you, you will receive the Life of Wesley*, whereof only about two sheets remain to
* “There are at this day half a million of persons in the world (adult persons) calling themselves Methodists, and following the institutions of John Wesley; they are pretty equally divided between the British dominions and the United States of America; and they go on increasing year after year. They have also their missionaries in all parts of the world. The rise and progress of such a community is, therefore, neither an incurious nor an unimportant part of the history of the last century. I have brought it no farther than the death of the founder. You will find in it some odd things, some odd characters, some fine anecdotes, and many valuable facts, which the psychologist will know how to appreciate and apply. My humour (as |
| 34 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 46. |
it would have been called in the days of Ben Jonson) inclines me to hunt out such subjects; and whether the information be contained in goodly and stately folios of old times, like my noble Acta Sanctorum (which I shall like to show you whenever you will find your way again to your old chamber which looks to Borodale), or in modern pamphlets of whitey-brown paper; I am neither too indolent to search for it in the one, nor so fastidious as to despise it in the other. In proof of this unabated appetite, I have just begun an account of our old acquaintance the Sinner Saved, in the shape of a paper for the Q. R.”—To Richard Duppa, Esq., March 25. 1820. |
| Ætat. 46. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 35 |
“God bless you!
In April, May, and June my father was absent from home, during which time he visited his friend Mr. Wynn, in Wales, spent some wearisome weeks in society in and about London, and finally received the honorary degree of D.C.L. at the Oxford commemoration.
The following letters are selected, because they give some slight idea of that affectionate playfulness which, in a character like his, ought not to be wholly passed over in silence.
|
* Jeffrey was the name given to the invisible cause of certain strange noises which annoyed the Wesley family.—See Life of Wesley, vol. i. p. 445. |
| 36 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 46. |
“Having nothing else to do for a dismal hour or two, I sit down to write to you, in such rhymes as may ensue, be they many be they few, according to the cue which I happen to pursue. I was obliged to stay at Llangedwin till to-day; though I wished to come away, Wynn would make me delay my departure yesterday, in order that he and I might go to see a place whereof he once sent a drawing to me.
“And now I’ll tell you why it was proper that I should go thither to espy the place with mine own eye. ’Tis a church in a vale, whereby hangs a tale, how a hare being pressed by the dogs and much distressed, the hunters coming nigh and the dogs in full cry, looked about for some one to defend her, and saw just in time, as it now comes pat in rhyme, a saint of the feminine gender.
“The saint was buried there, and a figure carved with care, in the churchyard is shown, as being her own; but ’tis used for a whetstone (like the stone at our back door), till the pity is the more, (I should say the more’s the pity, if it suited with my ditty), it is whetted half away,—lack-a-day, lack-a-day!
“They show a mammoth’s rib (was there ever such a fib?) as belonging to the saint Melangel. It was no use to wrangle, and tell the simple people, that if this had been her bone, she must certainly have grown, to be three times as tall as the steeple.
| Ætat. 46. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 37 |
“Moreover there is shown a monumental stone, as being the tomb of Yorwerth Drwndwn (w, you must know, serves in Welsh for long o). In the portfolio there are drawings of their tombs, and of the church also. This Yorwerth was killed six hundred years ago. Nevertheless, as perhaps you may guess, he happened to be an acquaintance of mine, and therefore I always have had a design to pay him a visit whenever I could, and now the intention is at last made good. . . . .
“God bless you!
A very different record of the same scenes is preserved in my father’s poems. One of the guests at Llangedwin during his stay there, was Bishop Heber, and the meeting was remembered on both sides, for in Heber’s journal there is an allusion to Oliver Newman, which must have been read to him at this time; and ten years later my father embodied, in his lines On the Portrait of Bishop Heber, a graceful memorial of his friends, and the spots which he visited in their company.
|
“Ten years have held their course
Since last I look’d upon
That living countenance,
When on Llangedwin’s terraces we paced
Together, to and fro.
Partaking there its hospitality,
We with its honoured master spent,
Well-pleased, the social hours;
His friend and mine, . . my earliest friend, whom I
Have ever, thro’ all changes, found the same,
From boyhood to grey hairs.
In goodness, and in worth and warmth of heart.
|
| 38 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 46. |
|
Together then we traced
The grass-grown site, where armed feet once trod
The threshold of Glendower’s embattled
hall;
Together sought Melangel’s lonely
Church,
Saw the dark yews, majestic in decay,
Which in their flourishing strength
Cyveilioc might have seen;
Letter by letter traced the lines
On Yorwerth’s fabled tomb;
And curiously observed what vestiges,
Mouldering and mutilate,
Of Monacella’s legend there are left,
A tale humane, itself
Well nigh forgotten now.”*
|
“Bertha, Kate, and Isabel, you have been very good girls, and have written me very nice letters, with which I was much pleased. This is the last letter which I can write in return; and as I happen to have a quiet hour to myself, here at Streatham, on Monday noon, I will employ that hour in relating to you the whole history and manner of my being ell-ell-deed at Oxford by the Vice-Chancellor.
“You must know, then, that because I had written a great many good books, and more especially the Life of Wesley, it was made known to me by the Vice-Chancellor, through Mr. Heber, that the University of Oxford were desirous of showing me the only mark of honour in their power to bestow, which was that of making me an LL.D., that is to say, a doctor of laws.
“Now, you are to know that some persons are ell-
* In both the ten vol. and one vol. edit. of my father’s poems, this poem “On the Portrait of Bishop Heber” bears the wrong date of 1820. It was written in 1830. |
| Ætat. 46. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 39 |
“The ceremony of ell-ell-deeing is performed in a
large circular building called the theatre, of which I will show you a print
when I return, and this theatre is filled with people. The undergraduates (that
is the young men who are called Cathedrals at Keswick) entirely fill the
gallery. Under the gallery there are seats, which are filled with ladies in
full dress, separated from the gentlemen. Between these two divisions of the
ladies are seats for the heads of houses, and the doctors of law, physic, and
divinity. In the middle of these seats is the Vice-Chancellor, opposite the
entrance which is under the orchestra. On the right and left are two kind of
pulpits, from which the prize essays and poems are recited. The area, or middle
of the theatre, is filled with bachelors and masters of arts, and with as many
strangers as can
| 40 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 46. |
“When the theatre is full, the Vice-Chancellor, and the heads of houses, and the doctors enter: those persons who are to be ell-ell-deed remain without in the divinity schools, in their robes, till the convocation have signified their assent to the ell-ell-deeing, and then they are led into the theatre, one after another in a line, into the middle of the area, the people just making a lane for them. The professor of civil law, Dr. Phillimore, went before, and made a long speech in Latin, telling the Vice-Chancellor and the dignissimi doctores what excellent persons we were who were now to be ell-ell-deed. Then he took us one by one by the hand, and presented each in his turn, pronouncing his name aloud, saying who and what he was, and calling him many laudatory names ending in issimus. The audience then cheered loudly to show their approbation of the person; the Vice-Chancellor stood up, and repeating the first words in issime, ell-ell-deed him; the beadles lifted up the bar of separation, and the new-made doctor went up the steps and took his seat among the dignissimi doctores.
“Oh Bertha,
Kate, and Isabel, if you had seen me that day! I was
like other issimis, dressed in a great robe of the finest scarlet cloth, with
sleeves of rose-coloured silk, and I had in my hand a black velvet cap like a
beef-eater, for the use of which dress I paid one guinea for that day.
Dr. Philli-
| Ætat. 46. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 41 |
“Little girls, you know it might be proper for me, now, to wear a large wig, and to be called Doctor Southey, and to become very severe, and leave off being a comical papa. And if you should find that ell-ell-deeing has made this difference in me you will not be surprised. However, I shall not come down in a wig, neither shall I wear my robes at home.
“God bless you all!
“There is no better proof that two fellow-travellers
are upon a proper understanding with each other, than when they travel together
for a good length of time in silence, each thinking his own
| 42 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 46. |
“And now, my dear Neville, I heartily wish you all that serious, sacred, and
enduring happiness in marriage which you have proposed to yourself, and which,
as far as depends upon yourself, you have every human probability of finding,
and I make no doubt as far as depends upon your consort also. Such drawbacks as
are inseparable from our present imperfect state, and such griefs as this poor
flesh is heir to, you must sometimes expect, and will know how to bear. But the
highest temporal blessings
| Ætat. 46. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 43 |
“I had the comfort of finding all my family well, the children thoroughly recovered from the measles, though some of them somewhat thinner, and the mother a good deal so, from the anxiety and the fatigue which she had undergone during their illness. You hardly yet know how great a blessing it is for a family to have got through that disease; one of the passes perilous upon the pilgrimage of life. Cuthbert had not forgotten me; five minutes seemed to bring me to his recollection; he is just beginning to walk alone,—a fine, stout, good-humoured creature, with curling hair, and eyes full of intelligence. How difficult it is not to build one’s hopes upon a child like this.
“I am returned to a world of business; enough to
intimidate any one of less habitual industry, less resolution, or less
hopefulness of spirit. My time will be sadly interrupted by visitors who, with
more or less claims, find their way to me during the season from all parts.
However, little by little, I
| 44 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 46. |
“My visit to Oxford brought with it feelings of the most opposite kind. After the exhibition in the theatre, and the collation in Brazenose Hall given by the Vice-Chancellor, I went alone into Christ Church walks, where I had not been for six-and-twenty years. Of the friends with whom I used to walk there, many (and among them some of the dearest) were in their graves. I was then inexperienced, headstrong, and as full of errors as of youth and hope and ardour. Through the mercy of God, I have retained the whole better part of my nature, and as for the lapse of years, that can never be a mournful consideration to one who hopes to be ready for a better world, whenever his hour may come. God bless you!
“It is very seldom that a whole month elapses without some interchange of letters between you and me. And, for my part, on the present instance, I cannot plead any unusual press of business, or any remarkable humour of industry. But, then, I can plead a great deal of enjoyment. I have been staying in the house all day,—a great happiness after the hard service upon which my ten trotters were continually kept in London. I have been reading,—a great luxury for one who during eleven weeks had not half-an-hour for looking through a book. I have been playing with Cuthbert, giving him the Cries of London to the life, as the accompaniment to a series of prints thereof, and enacting lion, tiger, bull, bear, horse, ass, elephant, rhinoceros, the laughing hyena, owl, cuckoo, peacock, turkey, rook, raven, magpie, cock, duck, and goose, &c, greatly to his delight and somewhat to his edification, for never was there a more apt or more willing pupil. Whenever he comes near the study door, he sets up a shout, which seldom fails of producing an answer; in he comes, tottering along, with a smile upon his face, and pica pica in his mouth; and if the picture-book is not forthwith forthcoming, he knows its place upon the shelf, and uses most ambitious and persevering efforts to drag out a folio. And if this is not a proper excuse for idleness, Grosvenor, what is?
| 46 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 46. |
“But I have not been absolutely idle, only comparatively so. I have made ready about five sheets of the Peninsular War for the press (the main part, indeed, was transcription), and William Nicol will have it as soon as the chapter is finished. I have written an account of Derwent Water for Westall’s Views of the Lakes. I have begun the Book of the Church, written half a dialogue between myself and Sir Thomas More, composed seventy lines for Oliver Newman, opened a Book of Collections for the Moral and Literary History of England, and sent to Longman for materials for the Life of George Fox and the Origin and Progress of Quakerism, a work which will be quite as curious as the Wesley, and about half the length. Make allowances for letter writing (which consumes far too great a portion of my time), and for the interruptions of the season, and this account of the month will not be so bad, as to subject me to any very severe censure of my stewardship.
“The other day there came a curious letter from Shelley, written from Pisa. Some of his friends persisted in assuring him that I was the author of a criticism* concerning him in the Quarterly Review. From internal evidence, and from what he knew of me, he did not and would not believe it; nevertheless they persisted; and he writes that I may enable him to confirm his opinion. The letter then, still couched in very courteous terms, talks of the principles and slanderous practices of the pretended friends of order, as contrasted with those which he professes, hints at
* My father was not the writer of this article. |
| Ætat. 46. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 47 |
“God bless you, Grosvenor!
“In reply to your questions concerning the Life of George Fox, the plan of the work
resembles that of the Life of
Wesley as nearly as possible. Very little progress has been made in
the composition, but a good deal in collecting materials, and digesting the
order of their arrangement. The first chapter will contain a summary history of
the religious or irreligious dissensions in England, and their consequences,
from the rise of the Lollards, to the time when George Fox
went forth. This will be such an historical sketch as that view of our
ecclesiastical history in the life of Wesley, which
is the most elaborate portion of the work. The last chapter will probably
contain a view of the state of the society at this time, and the modification
and improvement which it has gradually, and almost insensibly re-
| 48 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 46. |
“Farewell, my dear Sir; and believe me,
It would seem that a rumour had got abroad at this time, that the society
of Friends were somewhat alarmed at the prospect of my father’s becoming the
biographer of their founder; for a few weeks later, Bernard
Barton writes to him, telling him that he had seen it stated in one of the
magazines that “Mr. Southey could not
procure the needful materials, owing to a reluctance on the part of the Quakers to
entrust them to him.” And he goes on to say:—“But although I have
stated that I see no objection to entrusting thee with any materials which thou mayest
consider at all essential to thy undertaking, I think I can see, and I doubt not thou
dost, why some little hesitation should exist in certain quarters. Thy
| Ætat. 46. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 49 |
In this there is some reason as well as some humour; the report, however, was without foundation; and it was not from want of the offer of sufficient materials that the Life of George Fox was never written. Other labours crowded closely one upon the other, and this was only one more to be added to the heap of unfulfilled intentions and half-digested plans which form the melancholy reliquiæ of my father’s literary life, leaving us, however, to wonder, not at what he left undone, but at what he did.
| 50 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 46. |
“Your letter arrived yesterday, by which post, you know (being Thursday), it could not be answered. By this night’s I shall write to Murray, saying that you will deliver the drawings to him, and informing him of the price. That they have in them that which is common to poetry and painting I do not doubt, and I only wish it were possible for you to engrave them yourself. The first edition of the book would then bear a high value hereafter. In describing that scene on the side of Walla Crag, I have introduced your name in a manner gratifying to my own feelings, and which I hope will not be otherwise to yours.
“I am glad to hear you are employed upon your views of Winandermere. My topographical knowledge in that quarter is but imperfect; but, when you want your letter-press, if you cannot persuade Wordsworth to write it (who would be in all respects the best person) I will do for you the best I can.
“Allow me to say one thing before I conclude. When you
were last at Keswick there was an uncomfortable feeling in your mind towards
Nash: I hope it has passed away.
There is not a kinder-hearted creature in the world than he is; and I know that
he has the truest regard for you, and the highest possible respect for your
genius. Any offence that he may have given was entirely unintentional. Forget
it, I entreat you: call upon him again as you were wont to do; it will rejoice
him, and you will not feel the worse for having overcome the feeling of
| Ætat. 46. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 51 |
“All here desire their kind remembrances. We cannot send them to Mrs. Westall, because you did not give us an opportunity of becoming known to her; but, I pray you, present our best wishes, and believe me,
The prints referred to in the commencement of the foregoing letter were for the Colloquies with Sir Thomas More. The concluding paragraph of it had a special interest in Mr. Westall’s eyes, as, with a rare willingness to receive such advice, he had immediately acted upon it, and renewed his friendly intercourse with Mr. Nash. And he reflected upon it with the more satisfaction as a few weeks only elapsed before Nash was suddenly cut off.
Nash was a mild, unassuming, and most amiable person, bearing meekly and patiently a severe bodily infirmity, which, in its consequences, caused his death. My father first became acquainted with him in Belgium in 1815: he spent several summers at Greta Hall, a guest dear both to young and old; and to his and to Mr. W. Westall’s pencil the walls of our home owed many of their most beloved ornaments.
Since the commencement of the publication of these volumes, Mr. Westall has also “departed to his rest;”
and I will take this opportunity of noticing
| 52 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 46. |
His death has taken away one more from the small surviving number of those who were familiar “household guests” at Greta Hall, and to whom every minute particular of the friend they so truly loved and honoured had its own especial interest.
“. . . . . I shall have a poem to send you in the
course of a few weeks, planned upon occasion of the King’s death (which
you may think no very promising subject), laid aside eight months ago, when
half written, as not suited for publication while the event was recent, and now
taken up again, and almost brought to a conclusion. The title is, ‘A Vision of Judgment.’
It is likely to attract some notice, because I have made—and, in my own
opinion, with success—the bold experiment of constructing a metre upon the
principle of the ancient hexameter. It will provoke some abuse for what is said
of the factious spirit by which the country has been disturbed during the last
fifty years; and it will have some interest for you, not merely because it
comes from me, but because you will find Henry’s name not improperly introduced in it. My
Laureateship has not been a sinecure: without reckoning the annual odes, which
| Ætat. 46. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 53 |
“The prevailing madness has reached Keswick*, as well as all other places; and the people here, who believe, half of them, that the King concealed his father’s death ten years for the sake of receiving his allowance, and that he poisoned the Princess Charlotte (of which, they say, there can be no doubt; for did not the doctor kill himself? and why should he have done that if it had not been for remorse of conscience?), believe, with the same monstrous credulity, that the Queen is a second Susannah. The Queenomania will probably die away ere long; but it will be succeeded by some new excitement; and so we shall go on as long as our Government suffers itself to be insulted and menaced with impunity, and as long as
* Some riots had been expected on the occasion of the Queen’s trial. My father writes at the time, “King Mob, contrary to his majesty’s custom, has borne his faculties meekly in this place, and my windows were not assailed on the night of the illumination. I was prepared to suffer like a Quaker; and my wife was much more ‘game’ than I expected. Perhaps we owed our security to the half dozen persons in town who also chose to light no candles. They had declared their intention of making a fight for it if they were attacked, and they happened to be persons of consideration and influence. So all went off peaceably. The tallow chandler told our servant that it was expected there would be great disturbances; this was a hint to me, but I was too much a Trojan to be taken in by the man of grease.”—To G. C. B., Nov. 17. 1820. |
| 54 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 46. |
“I have a book in progress upon the state of the country, its existing evils, and its prospects. It is in a series of dialogues, and I hope it will not be read without leading some persons both to think and to feel as they ought. In more than one instance I have had the satisfaction of being told that my papers in the Quarterly Review have confirmed some who were wavering in their opinions, and reclaimed others who were wrong. . . . .
“God bless you, my dear Neville!
“As for altering the movement of the six stanzas*, you may as well ask me for both my ears, or advise me to boil the next haunch of venison I may have, which, next to poaching a Simorg’s† egg, would, I conceive, be the most inexpiable of offences. I cast them purposely in that movement, and with forethought.
“Why should the rest of the world think meanly of me for offering a deserved compliment to Haydon?‡ or for what possible reason consider it as a piece of flattery to a man who might fancy it his interest to
* Of the ode for St. George’s Day, published with the Vision of Judgment. † See Thalaba, book xi., verse 10. ‡ This refers to an allusion to Haydon in the Vision of Judgment. |
| Ætat. 46. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 55 |
“I have to insert Sir P. Sidney among the elder worthies, and Hogarth among the later; perhaps Johnson also, if I can so do it as to satisfy myself with the expression, and not seem to give him a higher praise than he deserves. Offence I know will be taken that the name of Pitt does not appear there. The King would find him among the eminent men of his reign, but not among those whose rank will be confirmed by posterity. The Whigs, too, will observe that none of their idols are brought forward: neither Hampden, nor their Sidney, nor Russell. I think of the first as ill as Lord Clarendon did; and concerning Algernon Sidney, it is certain that he suffered wrongfully, but that does not make him a great man. If I had brought forward any man of that breed, it should have been old Oliver himself; and I had half a mind to do it.
“I have finished the explanatory part of the preface,
touching the metre—briefly, fully, clearly, and fairly. It has led me (which
you will think odd till
| 56 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 46. |
“It appears to me that whatever time you bestow upon the classics is little better than time lost. Classical attainments are not necessary for you, and even if you were ten years younger than you are, they would not be within your reach. This you yourself feel; you had better therefore make up your mind to be contented without them, and desist from a study which it is quite impossible for you to pursue with any advantage to yourself.
“My dear Neville, it is a common infirmity with us to over-value what we
do not happen to possess. In your education you have learnt much which is not
acquired in schools and colleges, but which is of great practical utility,—more
probably than you would now
| Ætat. 46. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 57 |
“The time which classical studies would take may be much more profitably employed upon history and books of travels. The better you are read in both, the more you will prize the peculiar blessings which this country enjoys in its constitution of Church and State, and more especially in the former branch. I could write largely upon this theme. The greater part of the evil in the world,—that is, all the evil in it which is remediable (and which I take to be at least nine-tenths of the whole)—arises either from the want of institutions, as among savages; from imperfect ones, as among barbarians; or from bad ones, as in point of government among the oriental nations; and in point of religion among them also, and in the intolerant Catholic countries. In your own language you will find all you need,—scriptural illustrations, and stores of knowledge of every kind.
“What you say concerning my correspondence, and the
latitude which you allow me is both kind and
| 58 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 46. |
“You will be grieved to hear that I have lost my poor friend Nash, whom you saw with us in the autumn. He left us at the beginning of November, and is now in his grave! This has been a severe shock to me. I had a most sincere regard for him, and very many pleasant recollections are now so changed by his death, that they will never recur without pain. He was so thoroughly amiable, so sensible of any little kindness that was shown him, so kind in all his thoughts, words, and deeds; and withal bore his cross so patiently and meekly, that every body who knew him respected him and loved him. Very few circumstances could have affected me more deeply than his loss.
“Remember me most kindly to your excellent mother, and to your sisters. You are happy in having had your parents spared to you so long. The moral influences of a good old age upon the hearts of youth and manhood cannot be appreciated too highly. We are all well at present, thank God.
“God bless you, my dear Neville!
“Yesterday evening I received ‘Roderic, Dernier Roi des Goths, Poëme tradui de l’Anglais de Robert Southey, Esq., Poëte Laureat, par M. le Chevalier * * *.‘ Printed at Versailles and published at Paris by Galignani. It was accompanied by a modest and handsome letter from the translator, M. Chevalier de Sagrie, and by another from Madame St. Anne Holmes, the lady to whom it is dedicated. This lady has formerly favoured me with some letters and with a tragedy of hers, printed at Angers. She is a very clever woman, and writes almost as beautiful a hand as Miss Ponsonby of Llangollen. She is rich, and has lived in high life, and writes a great deal about Sheridan, as having been very intimate with him in his latter years. Me, Mr. Bedford, unworthy as I am, this lady has chosen for her poëte favori, and by her persuasions the Chevalier has translated Roderick into French. This is not all: there is a part of the business which is so truly booksellerish in general, and French in particular, that it would be a sin to withhold it from you, and you shall have it in the very words of my correspondent St. Anne.
“‘There is one part of the business I cannot
pass over in silence: it has shocked me much, and calls for an apology; which
is,—The life of Robert Southey, Esq.,
P.L. It never could have entered my mind to be guilty of, or even to sanction,
such an imperti-
| 60 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 46. |
“Grosvenor, whoever writes my life when the subject has an end as well as a beginning, and does not insert this biographical anecdote in it, may certainly expect that I will pull his ears in a true dream, and call him a jackass.
“The Notice sur M.
Southey, which has been thus compounded, has scarcely one single
point accurately stated, as you may suppose, and not a few which are
ridiculously false. N’importe,
as M. Le Bel says, I have laughed heartily at the whole
translation, and bear the translation with a magnanimity which would excite the
astonishment and envy of Wordsworth if
he were here to witness it. I have even gone beyond the Quaker principle of
bearing injuries meekly.
| Ætat. 46. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 61 |
“God bless you!
“What a grand bespattering of abuse I shall have
when the Vision appears!
Your walk at the Proclamation was but a type of it,—only that I am booted
and coated, and of more convenient stature for the service. Pelt away my
boys, pelt away! if you were not busy at that work you would be about
something more mischievous. Abusing me is like flogging a whipping-post.
Harry says I have had so much of
it that he really thinks I begin to like it. This is
| 62 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 46. |
“Yesterday I received a letter from my uncle with the news of Miss Tyler’s death, an event which you will probably have learnt before this reaches you. My uncle is thus relieved from a considerable charge, and from the apprehension which he must have felt of her surviving him. She was in the eighty-second year of her age. She will be interred (to-morrow, I suppose,) in the burial place of the Hills, where her mother and two of the Tylers are laid, and my father with five of my brothers and sisters.
“Her death was, even for herself, to be desired as
well as expected. My affection for her had been long and justly cancelled. I
feel no grief, therefore, but such an event of necessity presses for a while
like a weight upon the mind. Had it not been for the whim which took her to
Lisbon in the year of my birth, you and I should never have known each other:
my uncle would never have seen Portugal, and in how different a course would
his life and mine in consequence have run! I have known many strange characters
in my time, but never so extraordinary a one as hers, which, of course, I know
in-
| Ætat. 46. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 63 |
“Yesterday’s post brought me also an intimation from my musical colleague, Mr. Shield, that ‘our most gracious and royal master intends to command the performance of an Ode at St. James’ on the day fixed for the celebration of his birth-day.’ Of course, therefore, my immediate business is to get into harness and work in the mill. Two or three precious days will be spent in producing what will be good for nothing; for as for making any thing good of a birth-day ode, I might as well attempt to manufacture silk purses from sows’ ears. Like Warton, I shall give the poem an historical character; but I shall not do this as well as Warton, who has done it very well. He was a happy, easy-minded, idle man, to whom literature in its turn was as much an amusement as rat-hunting, and who never aimed at anything above such odes.
“March 20.—I now send you the
fourth letter of the promised series, dated at the beginning nearly four months
before it was brought to an end. Were I to proceed always at this rate with it,
I should die of old age before I got breeched in the narrative; but with all my
undertakings I proceed faster in proportion as I advance in them. Just now I am
in the humour for going on; and you will hear from me again sooner than you
expect, for I shall begin the next letter as soon as this packet is dispatched.
It is a long while since I have heard from you, and I am somewhat anxious to
hear how your affair goes
| 64 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 46. |
“God bless you, my dear friend!
“. . . . . I have received invitations to dine with
the Literary Fund . . . . . and with the Artists’ Benevolent Institution.
These compliments were never before paid me. Cobbett also has paid me a compliment equally well-deserved and
of undoubted sincerity. He marks me by name as one of those persons who, when
the Radicals shall have effected a reformation, are, as one of the first
measures of the new government, to be executed. As a curious contrast to this,
the committee of journeymen who propose to adopt
| Ætat. 46. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 65 |
“God bless you!
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