“About the middle of January Karl must begin his residence at Oxford. I think of giving him charge of Kate, to London, from whence she will proceed to Tarring.

“Bertha and I must winter where we are. The house cannot be left without a mistress.

“We shall find salutary occupations enough till Cuthbert returns about the end of March, for a month’s recreation. That brings me to the month of May. By that time my extraordinaries will be provided for by the Admirals (whatever becomes of

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Cowper) or by the Q. R., for which I have two papers in hand (Sir T. Browne, and Lord Howe). Then, too, Miss Fricker will come from the Isle of Man to keep Mrs. Lovel company; and, in fact, look after the house during the summer months, thus placing Bertha and myself at liberty.

“In May then (I do not look so far forward without misgivings),—but if all go on well, by God’s blessing in May,—I hope to leave home with Bertha, and our invaluable Betty, whose services to us for five-and-twenty years, through weal and woe, have been beyond all price, who loves my children as dearly as if they were her own, and loved their poor mother with that sort of attachment which is now so rarely found in that relation, and served her with the most affectionate and dutiful fidelity to the last. The house might safely be left in her charge, but she needs recruiting as much as we do. So I shall go first with Bertha and her into Norfolk, and pass a week or ten days with Neville White, discharging thus a visit which was miserably prevented three years ago. Then we go to London, making little tarriance there, and that chiefly for Betty’s sake, on whom the sight of London will not be thrown away. By that time Kate will have got through both her stay at Tarring, and her visit to Miss Fenwick; and depositing Bertha at Tarring, I think of taking Kate with me to the West. One friend there I have lost since my last journey; it must have been about this very day twelvemonths that I shook hands with him, little thinking that it was for the last time. But there are still some persons there who will rejoice to see us. Old as my

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good aunt is, she may very probably be living; there is Elizabeth Charter there, and there is Lightfoot, with either of whom we should feel at home; on our way back there would be Miss Bowles; and very possibly Mrs. Brown may be in Devonshire.

“This event could not have been regarded otherwise than as a deliverance at any time, since there ceased to be a hope of mental restoration; and for several weeks it was devoutly to be desired. Yet it has left a sense of bereavement which I had not expected to feel, lost as she had been to me for the last three years, and worse than lost. During more than two-thirds of my life, she had been the chief object of my thoughts, and I of hers. No man ever had a truer helpmate I no children a more careful mother. No family was ever more wisely ordered, no house-

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keeping ever conducted with greater prudence, or greater comfort. Every thing was left to her management, and managed so quietly and so well, that except in times of sickness and sorrow, I had literally no cares.

“Meantime you may be assured that I shall not be wanting in self-management, as far as that can avail; that I shall think as little as I can of the past,

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and pursue as far as possible my wonted course of life.*

“Remember me most kindly to Miss Page. God bless you, my dear Grosvenor!

“I have received Spring Rice’s circular about the pensions, and take for granted that it comes as a mere circular, and therefore requires no answer.

“Moore and I being coupled upon this occasion, it is not likely that our pensions will be objected to, on either side of the House, upon the ground that literature, like any other profession, brings with it its own emoluments. But if that argument should be used against an enlargement of the copyright, which is not unlikely, it will be fitting that some one should state how the case stands in my instance. That followed as a profession, with no common diligence, and no ordinary success, it has enabled me to live respectably (which without the aid of my first pension it would not have done), and that all the provision I have been able to make for my family consists in a life-insurance, of which about three-fourths are covered by the salary of the Laureateship. Were I to die before Talfourd’s Bill passes, the greater part of my poems, and no little of my prose, would be seized immediately by some rascally booksellers, as property which the law allowed them

breast. After that he never moved for several hours; but passed imperceptibly to a state, I hope and trust, of happiness. Excuse me for this, but I always dwell upon the recollection of that act with delight, and though it be of the tenderest character, it is unmingled with pain. . . . . Ever yours, my dear Southey, G. C. Bedford”

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to scramble for. It is true that, as the law now stands, I secure a new term of copyright by the corrected edition now in course of publication. But these fellows would publish from the former copies, and thereby take in all those purchasers who know nothing about the difference between one edition and another.

“It is well that Windham is not living, and that there is no one in either House on whom his mantle has fallen. For he would surely have taken the opposite side to Talfourd, and argued upon the folly of altering an established law, for the sake of benefiting one or two individuals in the course of a century. He would ask what the copyrights are which would at this time be most beneficial to the family of the author: the Cookery Book would stand first: within my recollection, the most valuable would have been Blair’s Lectures, the said Blair’s Sermons, Taplin’s Farriery, Burn’s Justice, and Lindley Murray’s English Grammar. . . . .

“Thank you for the Examiners; they shall be duly returned. I would never desire better praise, and must not complain because there is more of it than is good. In the piece which they praise as resembling Cowper, there is nothing Cowperish. And on the other band, in the substitution of the general crimes of the Terrorists in France, for the instances of Brissot and Madame Roland, there is nothing but what is in perfect accord with the pervading sentiment of the poem.

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Madame Roland’s praise is left where it was appropriate, in the second volume. As for Brissot, I knew him only by newspapers, when his deaths and that of the great body of the Girondists with him, kept me (as I well remember) a whole night sleepless. But I know him now by two volumes of his Memoirs, which though made up, are from family materials; and I know him by nine volumes of his own works, and thereby know that he was a poor creature. And I know by Garat’s book, that the difference between the Brissotines and the Jacobines was that, playing for heads, the Brissotines lost the game.

“. . . . . It cannot often have happened that any one should have a lost wife brought to his mind in the way that I am continually reminded of my poor Edith. Before any of my children were old enough to make extracts for me, it was one of her pleasures to assist me in that way. Many hundred notes in her writing (after so many have been made use of) are arranged among the materials to which every day of my life I have occasion to refer. And thus she will continue to be my helpmate as long as I live and retain my senses. But all these notes bring with them the vivid recollection of the when and the where,

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and the why they were made; and whether the sight of her hand-writing will ever be regarded without emotion, is more than I can promise myself.

“I was not aware that it was so long since you had heard from me; of me you could only have heard from H. T., with whom I have a pretty constant communication, owing to the transmission of proofs. These come thick; there has been little tinkering in the third volume but the sixth, on which I am at work, requires a good deal, in repairing some old wefts and strays, and preparing prolegomena. Moreover, I am reviewing Barrow’s Life of Lord Howe; so you see I am not idle.

“In other respects, I can give no good report of myself. There is every possible reason to be thankful for my poor Edith’s release, and God knows I am truly thankful for it. But my spirits, which bore up through three trying years, and continued to do so while there was immediate necessity for exertion, show as yet no tendency to recover that elasticity which they lost when the necessity ceased. Time will set all to rights. As the days lengthen, I shall be able to rise earlier, which will be a great benefit, the worst hours being those in which I lie awake, and

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they are many. The best are those when I am employed, and you know I am not given to idleness; but it behoves me to manage myself in this respect. Except in the main point of sleep, the bodily functions go on well. I walk duly and dutifully. But I am as much disposed to be silent in my own family now, as I ever was in company for which I felt little or no liking; and if it were not plainly a matter of duty to resist this propensity, I should never hear the sound of my own voice. . . . .

“Nothing more has been heard of Baldwin and Cradock’s affairs. But I must tell you what it will give you pleasure to hear. As soon as Lightfoot learnt that the sum which I had (as I thought) provided for carrying Cuthbert through the University, was supposed to be in danger of being lost, he offered to relieve me from all anxiety upon that score. Knowing the sincerity of that offer, I am just as much obliged to him as if there were any necessity for accepting it. But Dr. Bell’s legacy is available for that purpose. And as for my Cowperage, if it be recovered, as I think it will, so much the better; if it be lost, it will never enter into the thoughts that keep me wakeful at night, or in the slightest degree trouble me by day. . . . .

“To-day (30th) the sun shines, and it is some satisfaction to see that there still is a sun, for he has been so long among the non-apparentibus, that if I jumped to my conclusions as eagerly as some of our

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modern philosophers, I might have pronounced him to be not in existence.

“Your brother ought to reflect that though it is many a poor fellow’s duty to expose his life upon deck, and to lose it there, it is no man’s duty to die at the desk. And as I once heard a medical student say, when he expressed his satisfaction at having escaped being taken upon a resurrectionary party, ‘there is no glory in it.’ The first duty of any man, upon whose life the happiness or the well-being of others is in great degree dependent, is to take care of it God bless you! Our love to Miss Page.

“I recollect hearing of Miss Edgeworth* at Dr.

* Dr. Mackenzie had mentioned to Miss Edgeworth that my father was employed in working up materials for his own life, and had communicated the substance of her reply, which was as follows:— “I thank you for telling me that Southey is engaged in literary biography. His life of Nelson is one of the finest pieces of biography I know. I have seen its effects on many young minds. I had the

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Holland’s, but have no recollection of seeing her there; but I very well remember seeing her more than once at Clifton in 1800, at which time her father said to me, ‘Take my word for it. Sir, your genius is for comedy.’ He formed this opinion, I believe, from some of the Nondescripts, and one or two Ballads which had just then appeared in the Annual Anthology. This, I think, will be worth mentioning in the Preface to the Ballads. When you write to Miss Edgeworth, present my thanks for her obliging message, and say that I am pleased at being remembered by her.

“It is mortifying to think how few situations there are in this country for men of letters,—fewer I believe than in any other part of civilised Europe,—and what there are, leave the occupant very little leisure to profit by the stores of learning with which he is surrounded. The Editorship of the ———, or of any Literary Journal, would be a more agreeable office than that of a public librarian, in this respect that your own mind would have more scope. And private librarians there are very few. Lord Spencer, I suppose, must have one as a matter of necessity. The only instance within my knowledge in which a man of letters was invited to such an appointment, not because the library was extensive enough to need

honour of meeting Mr. Southey some years since, at our mutual friend’s, Dr. Holland’s, in London. But such is the nature of that sort of town intercourse, that I had not opportunity of hearing much of his conversation, and he none of mine; therefore I can hardly presume that he remembers me. But I would wish to convey to him, through you, the true expression of my respect for his character, and admiration of his talents, and of the use he has made of them.”

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his attendance, but because it was thought desirable for him, is that of Jeremiah Wiffen, and no doubt he owed it to his being a native of Woburn. The Duke of Bedford might otherwise never have heard of him, nor cared for him if he had.

“Cuthbert comes home the first week in April, for about a month’s vacation. Can you give yourself a holiday, and pass with us as much of that month as you can spare?—I cannot now climb the mountains with you,—not for want of strength, still less of inclination, but because of an infirmity (I know not how or when occasioned) but recently discovered,

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which condemns me to caution at least, for the rest of my life. But I shall be heartily glad to see you, and to make your visit as pleasant as I can. You were the last guest whom my dear Edith received with pleasure.

“Most persons, I believe, are displeased with any alterations that they find in a favourite poem; the change, whether for the better or the worse, baulks them as it were, and it is always unpleasant to be baulked. In tinkering one’s old verses there is a great chance of making two flaws where you are mending one. However, to my great joy, I have now done with tinkering; the last pieces which required correction on the score of language are in that volume of Ballads (beginning with The Maid of the Inn), which come next in order of publication. I know not yet how the adventure is likely to turn out. The number struck off at first was 1500, which the publishers say will just about cover the expenses, leaving the profit to arise from any farther use of the stereotype and the engravings. Something may be expected from the occasional sale of separate portions, for which merely a new title-page will be required; in that way the long poems may tempt purchasers by their cheapness. But apart from all other considerations I am very thankful that I was persuaded, against my inclination and in some degree also against my judgment, to undertake such a revision of my poetical works. The sort of testamentary feeling with which it was undertaken may prove to have been an ominous one: certain it is, that if the task had been deferred but a few months, I should never have had heart to per-

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form it, though it was a duty which I owe to myself and to the interests of my family.

“It is right that you should clearly understand what you have to reckon on for your ways and means. Two hundred a year will be a liberal allowance, probably above the average at Queen’s, which has not the disadvantage of being an expensive college. Whether I live or die, this is provided for you. If I live and do well, my current occupations will supply it. In any other event, there is Dr. Bell’s Legacy in the French Funds, even if the Cowperage should not be forthcoming.

“It is an uncomfortable thing to be straitened in your situation; but for most undergraduates it is far more injurious to have too much. If you can save from your income I shall be glad; and I have confidence enough in you to believe that you would have much more satisfaction in saving from it, than you could derive from any needless expenditure. I do not mean that you should receive less from me, if you find that you can do with less; but that you should lay by the surplus for your own use. Next to moral and religious habits, habits of frugality are

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the most important; they belong, indeed, to our duties. In this virtue your dear mother never was surpassed. Had it not been for her admirable management, this house could not have been kept up, nor this family brought up as they were. God never blessed any man with a truer helpmate than she was to me in this and in every other respect, till she ceased to be herself.

“I dwell upon this, not as supposing you need any exhortation. upon the subject, for I have the most perfect confidence in you; no father ever had less apprehension for a son in sending him to the University. But frugality is a virtue which will contribute continually and most essentially to your comfort; without it it is impossible that you should do well, and you know not how much nor how soon it may be needed. It is far from my intention, if I should live till you take your degree, to hurry you into the world* and bid you shift for yourself as soon as you can. On the contrary, there is nothing on which I could look forward with so much hope, as to directing your studies after you have finished your collegiate course, and training you to build upon my foundations. That object is one which it would be worth wishing to live for. But when you take your degree, I, if I should then be living, shall be hard upon three score and ten. My whole income dies with me. In its stead there would be (at this time) about 8000l. immediately, from the Insurance, and this is all that there will be (except 2 or 300l. for current expenses) till my papers and copyrights can be made available. At first, therefore, great frugality

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will be required, though eventually there may be a fair provision for all. I make no estimate of my library, because if it please God that you should make use of the books in pursuing my course, they would be of more value to you than any sum that could be raised by dispersing them.

“God bless you, my dear Cuthbert!

“Long ago I ought to have written to you, but to you and my other friends, I have as little excuse to offer as an insolvent debtor can make to his creditors. Of late, indeed, I have waited not so much for a more convenient season as for better spirits and for better health. I have been very much out of order in many ways—old infirmities reappeared and brought others in their train, and I could both see and feel such changes in myself, as induced a not unreasonable apprehension that my constitution was breaking up. I have had recourse,

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under my brother’s direction, to tonics and opiates; they have quieted the most distressing symptoms, and abated others, and I hope that milder weather, when it comes, will rid me of what I suppose to be rheumatic affection in the right hip. So much for my maladies. No one can have enjoyed better health than I have been favoured with during what has now not been a short life; nor has any one been blessed with a greater portion of happiness—happiness not to be surpassed in this world in its kind and degree, and continued through a long course of years. I never can be too thankful to the Giver of all good.

“Remember me most kindly to your fireside; and believe me always, my dear Neville,

“. . . . . Kate is at Mr. Rickman’s now. Bertha was very busily employed during my absence in painting and papering; making alterations which are not the less melancholy because it was necessary that they should be made. She has made

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a good choice in her cousin Herbert; and happy man is his dole, I may say with equal truth. They may have long to wait before he gets a living; but meantime there is hope, without which life is but a living death. He loves literature; and his situation as second librarian at the Bodleian is favourable for literary pursuits. My papers may be entrusted to his care, if I should die before Cuthbert is old enough to superintend their publication.

“Cuthbert’s vacation is only for a month. He must be at chapel on Sunday the 29th. I shall proceed the more earnestly with my work that I may have the shorter time to pass in solitude and silence. What I have to do is to get through a volume of the Admirals, in which little progress has been made, and a reviewal of Sir Thomas Browne’s works. My Poems require no farther tinkering; I have only to correct the proofs of the remaining three volumes, and to write the prefaces to them. Arranged and dated as the Poems now are, they communicate to those who have known me well much of my history and character; and a great deal has been reserved which there would have been no propriety in telling the public while I am in the land of the living. There is nothing, thank God, which I could wish to be concealed after my death; but the less that a living author says of himself (except in verse) the better. God bless you, dear Miss Charter!

‘I thank God I am well in health, having easily got rid of a cold: and now that all the proofs in your packet have been got through, and directions given to the printer concerning the eighth volume, I shall make up my despatches, set my dogs by the fire, and emerge from my solitude; not to look for society which is not to be found, nor to be wished for, out of a very small circle which every year contracts, but to take a dutiful walk. God bless you!

“I am very glad that Kate is to join Miss Fenwick; but I must warn both Kate and Dora against converting dormitories into loquitories, and talking each other to death before they get to the end of their journey. God bless you!

“I was very much pleased with Bishop Jebb’s first opinion of your Bampton Lectures, and not less pleased with the greater part of his more elaborate critique. I did not agree with him in any of his objections, nor has a fresh perusal of that critique, after reading your Preface, altered or even modified my first impression in the slightest degree. It appears to me that you were right in noticing his remarks as fully as you have done, and that it could not have been done in a better spirit nor in a more conclusive manner.

“The publication of Froude’s Remains is likely to do more harm than —— is capable of doing. ‘The Oxford School’ has acted most unwisely in giving its sanction to such a deplorable example of mistaken zeal. Of the two extremes—the too little and the too much—the too little is that which is likely to produce the worst consequence to the individual, but the too much is more hurtful to the community; for it spreads, and rages too, like a contagion. . . . .

“I hear, though I have not seen, that another volume of The Doctor is announced. You and I, therefore, may shortly expect it, if the masked author keeps his good custom of sending it to us. Some letters, published in the Sheffield Mercury, have been

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collected into two small volumes, entitled ‘The Tour of the Don.’ They contain a chapter which is headed ‘Doncaster and the Doctor,’ The writer reminds the Doncasterians of the visit, ‘not a clandestine one,’ of the worthy Laureate to their good town, some ten years agone, accompanied, as some may recollect, by his lovely daughter, ‘the dark-ey’d Bertha;’ and this he mentions as one of the facts which ‘appear indubitably to identify the author of The Doctor with the author of Thalaba.’ The conclusion would not have followed, even if the premises had been true. But the truth upon which he has built a fallacious argument is, that about ten years ago I passed a night at Sheffield on the way to London. My daughter Edith was one of our traveling party; and certainly there was nothing clandestine in the visit; for I wrote notes to Montgomery and to Ebenezer Elliott, to come to me at the inn—the only time I ever saw either of those remarkable men. James Everett, a Methodist preacher, and also a remarkable man, heard from one of them where I was, and volunteered a visit. So it was soon known that I was in Sheffield. It is not often that a mistake of this kind can so plainly be explained. ‘Well,’ Latimer used to say, ‘there is nothing hid, but it shall be opened.’

“Thus far our journey has been in all respects favourable. You saw us proceeding with weather which was only too fine, inasmuch as it soon became hot and dusty, such weather bringing with it a plague of flies, who insisted upon being inside passengers, and whenever I was inclined to doze, and indeed could not keep awake, some one of the Egyptian enemies presently awakened me by alighting upon the most prominent feature of my face. We had a short and pleasant passage the next morning, and remained one day at Calais for the purpose of engaging carriages for the journey: Kenyon having recom-

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mended that we should travel post, as the only means by which we could command our own time, choose our own route, stop where we would, and remain as long as seemed good to us at any place. This I had found the most advisable mode when travelling with poor Nash and Senhouse in 1817.

“I am now writing at Blois, on Friday, Sept. 28. Our faces were turned homeward when we left Nantes on Sunday last. Sept 23. We had then accomplished the two chief objects of our journey; that is, we had been to Mount St Michael’s and to Carnac, the only two days concerning which there could be any solicitude concerning the state of the weather. In both instances we were most fortunate. We came to the mount during the neap tides, and in a clear day, escaping thus all dangers and inconveniences that, at ordinary tides, the state of the weather might have occasioned, and fogs at any time. Cuthbert and I had seen our own St Michael’s Mount in 1836. The French is the more remarkable, because of its position, which is always a waste either of water or of sand. The mount itself is not much higher, if at all, I think, than the Cornish Mount, but the superstructure of building is much greater, including a small fishing town, a large prison, a garrison, houses for the governor and other officers, and, on the summit, a church. Our own mount, on the contrary, is far the more beautiful object, and except a few mean houses at the landing places, there is nothing to excite any uncomfortable reflections. The rock itself reminded me of Cintra in this respect, that it consisted in great part of rocks piled on rocks, and on the summit the

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governor’s house and the church very much resembled in their situation the Penha Convent. The mount stands also in a small bay, and is itself a beautiful object, in a part of the country which is itself regarded as the most genial part of the West of England.

“To-day we have seen the Castle of Amboise, which Louis Philippe began to repair when he was Duke of Orleans; but which, though it is a beautiful place, commanding fine views, and in itself a comfortable palace, there being nothing too large to be inconsistent with comfort, he has never set foot in himself. I can account for this only by supposing that as the very beautiful chapel which they are repairing contains the intended mausoleum for himself and his royal family, that consideration may dispose him to regard it with a melancholy feeling, which he is not willing to induce.

“To-morrow we shall see what is most worth see-

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ing at Blois, and proceed after breakfast to Orleans, where we shall remain on Sunday. I should tell you that I have seen Joan of Arc’s monument at Rouen, and the Castle of Chinon, and the apartment in the ruins there in which she had her first interview with the king. So when I shall have seen Orleans I shall have sufficient knowledge of the localities to correct any mistakes into which I may, indeed must, have fallen.

“The other places of most interest which we have seen are Havre, by which port I propose returning, Honfleur, Caen, Bayeux, Granville, St. Malo, Nantes, Angers, Saumur, Tours. Normandy and Bretagne we have seen satisfactorily, and were as much delighted with Normandy as we were surprised by the miserable condition and more miserable appearance of our Breton cousins: they seem not to partake in the slightest degree of that prosperity which is every where else apparent in France. Louis Philippe is both Pontifex and Viafex maximus, if there be such a word. The roads are undergoing, at the expense of government, a most thorough repair, greatly to our annoyance in travelling over them in the course of remaking. I know not how many suspension bridges we have seen, finished or in progress, and every large place bears evident marks of improvement upon a great scale.

“ I hope to be at Paris on the 4th or 5th of October. There our party separates: Kenyon and Captain Jones proceed to the Low Countries; Robinson remains awhile at Paris; Cuthbert, I, and Mr. Senhouse make our way by one steamer down the Seine

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to Havre, and by another from Havre to Southampton. From thence Cuthbert proceeds to London and Oxford, Senhouse to Cumberland, and I to Lymington, where I shall remain a few weeks with Miss Bowles, and get through some work, where I shall be free from all interruption.

“Nothing could be more fortunate than my expedition was in every thing. The weather was as fine as it could be. During six weeks there was not one wet day; what rain fell was generally by night, and never more than sufficed for laying the dust and cooling the air. We got to Camac. Chantrey had de-

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sired me to look for some small red stones*, which Buckland, or some of his disciples, had been much puzzled about, because they are not pebbles of the soil, and have all evidently been rubbed down to different angles. Just such stones so rubbed are used by Chantrey’s own people in polishing the finer parts of their statuary: and he fancied this was proof that the people who erected the stones at Carnac must have used them for some similar purpose. I came to the conclusion that the Celts, which are so hard and so highly polished, were brought to that high polish by these instruments.

“I never saw so many dwarfs any where as in

* We found a number of these stones, all in one place, as if they had been poured out in a heap, nearly overgrown with grass and weeds. I brought some home, and took them to Sir. F. Chantrey, who recognised them as of the same description as those he had seen before.—Ed.

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Brittany,—more, indeed, when travelling through that province than in the whole course of my life.

“There is one work which Mr. Telford would have regarded with great interest if he ever happened to see it. The Levée, as it is called, which protects a large tract of country from the inundations of the Loire. This work is of such antiquity that it is not known when it was commenced, but it seems first to have been taken up as a public work by our Henry II. Perhaps there is no other embankment which protects so great an extent of country.

“I am finishing here the reviewal of Telford’s book, which I hope to complete in about a week’s time, taking care not to make it too long, and therefore passing rapidly over his latter works, and winding up in the way of an eulogium, which no man ever was more worthy of.

“My movements last year did not extend beyond Normandy and Bretagne, and when I turned my face towards England, it was in a steam packet from Havre to Southampton, by good fortune just before that stormy weather set in, which, with few intervals

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and those but short, has continued ever since. Normandy pleased me as much as I had expected, and my expectations were pitched high. We were six in company, and no journey could have been more prosperous in all respects. The weather never prevented us from seeing any thing that we wished, and we met with no mishap of any kind.

“Cuthbert and I parted when we left the steam packet. He made the best of his way to Oxford; I remained some weeks in Hampshire, and on returning to Keswick found my youngest daughter suffering under a serious attack of the influenza*; an insidious disease, from which, though we were assured that she was well recovered, she has not yet regained strength. You may possibly have heard from the newspapers that I have resolved upon a second marriage. I need not say that such a marriage must be either the wisest or the weakest action of a man’s life. But I may say that in the important points of age, long and intimate acquaintance, and conformity of opinions, principles, and likings, no persons could be better suited to each other. The newspapers, indeed, have stated that Miss Bowles is thirty years younger than me, which, if it were true, would prove me to be something worse than an old fool.

“You will be glad to hear that I am likely to recover something from Baldwin and Cradock. The trustees of their affairs had the modesty to expect that I should receive a dividend of one shilling in the pound, to be followed by a second and final dividend

* Upon this a sharp attack of pleurisy had supervened, and we were for some little time in alarm as to the result.—Ed.

382

LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE

Ætat. 64.

of the same amount. But upon finding that I was prepared to file a bill in Chancery against them, they have proposed to pay me eight hundred pounds,—a composition which I am advised to accept, and shall think myself fortunate when it is fairly paid.

* “A poplar, mentioned in the proem to the Tale of Paraguay, was torn up by the roots. It had become for some years a mournful memorial, and though I should never have had heart to fell it, I am not sorry that it has been thus removed. But do not suppose that I ever give willing admission to thoughts of unprofitable sadness.”—To H. Taylor, Esq., Jan. 8. 1839.

Ætat. 64.

OF ROBERT SOUTHEY.

383

“I heard of Landor during my last transit through London, and saw one of the very best portraits of him by a young artist that I ever remember to have seen. The picture, too, was as good as the likeness. The artist did not succeed so well with Kenyon, whose head upon the canvas might very well have passed for the Duke of York’s.

“Present my kind remembrances to Mr. and Mrs. Blencowe, &c.

The portrait of Savonarola is safely lodged at Keswick; I should have thanked you for it sooner, if I had known whither to direct to you. I have seldom seen a finer picture or a finer face; the countenance seems to bespeak credit for one whose character may perhaps be still considered doubtful.

“Mr. C. Bowles Fripp wrote to me some time last year, asking me to supply an epitaph for the proposed monument to Chatterton. I said to him, in reply, that I was too much engaged to undertake it; that, as far as related to Chatterton, I had done my duty more than thirty years ago; that of all men, men of genius were those who stood least in need of monuments to perpetuate their memory. Moreover, as to an epitaph, I never would attempt to compose any thing of the kind, unless I imagined that I could do it satisfactorily to myself, which in this case appeared to me impossible. How, indeed, could the circumstances of Chatterton’s history be comprised in a monumental inscription? It is to the credit of Bristol that my fellow-townsmen should show how different a spirit prevails among them now from that which was to be found there fifty years ago; but how this might best be effected I know not.

“The portrait of Chatterton, which Mr. Dix discovered, identifies itself if ever portrait did. It brought his sister, Mrs. Newton, strongly to my

Ætat. 64.

OF ROBERT SOUTHEY.

385

recollection. No family likeness could be more distinctly marked, considering the disparity of years.

“My daughter Bertha’s marriage to her cousin, Herbert Hill, is especially fortunate in this respect, that for a few years it will remove her no farther from Keswick than Rydal. Very different has been her elder sister’s lot; for being, to all likelihood, fixed upon the coast of Sussex (and the very worst part of it), she has been lost to us ever since. I have now only one daughter left, and my son divides the year between college and home. Oxford has done him no harm; indeed, I never apprehended any. Reduced in number as my family has been within the last few years, my spirits would hardly recover their habitual and healthful cheerfulness, if I had not prevailed upon Miss Bowles to share my lot for the remainder of our lives. There is just such a disparity of age as is fitting; we have been well acquainted with each other more than twenty years, and a more perfect conformity of disposition could not exist; so that, in resolving upon what must be either the weakest or the wisest act of a sexagenarian’s life, I am well assured that, according to human foresight, I have judged well and acted wisely, both for myself and my remaining daughter. God bless you!