: "I went into the Exhibition merely to see your picture, which perfectly provoked me. Hazlitt's does look as if you were on your trial, and certainly had stolen the horse; but then you did it cleverly it had been a deep, well-laid scheme, and it was no fault of yours that you had been detected. But this portrait by Northcote looks like a grinning idiot; and the worst is, that it is just like enough to pass for a good likeness with those who only know your features imperfectly. Dance's drawing has that merit at least, that nobody would ever suspect you of having been the original. Poole's business will last yet some weeks. As the Abstract is printed, I can give you the very important result: one in eight throughout Great Britain receives permanent parish pay;* what is still more extraordinary and far more consolatory, one in nine is engaged in some benefit society-a prodigious proportion, if you remember that, in this computation, few women enter, and no children. very useful to him, and which will be replaced on your shelves before your return, and used, not abused,* during your absence. I also sent him the Indian Bible, because I found him at the Indian grammar, for he is led into etymological researches. That is a right worthy and good man; and, what rarely happens, I like his wife as well as I do him. Sir, all the literary journals of England will not bring you more news than this poor sheet of Miss Crosthwaite's letter paper. I have proposed to Longman to publish a collection of the scarcer and better old poets, beginning with Pierce Ploughman, and to print a few only at a high price, that they may sell as rarities. This he will determine upon in the autumn. If it be done, my name must stand to the prospectus, and Lamb shall take the job and the emolument, for whom, in fact, I invented it, being a fit thing to be done, and he the fit man to do it. "The Annual Review succeeds beyond expec"I dined with Sotheby, and met there Henley, tation: a second edition of the first volume is a man every way to my taste. Sotheby was called for. Certain articles respecting the Methvery civil, and as his civility has not that smooth- odists and Malthus are said to have contributed ness so common among the vagabonds of fashion, much to its reputation. By-the-by, that fellow I took it in good part. He is what I should call has had the impudence to marry, after writing a clever man. Other lions were Price, the pic-upon the miseries of population. In the third turesque man, and Davies Giddy, whose face volume I shall fall upon the Society for the Supought to be perpetuated in marble for the honor pression of Vice. of mathematics. Such a forehead I never saw. I also met Dr. at dinner, who, after a long silence, broke out into a discourse upon the properties of the conjunction Quam. Except his quamical knowledge, which is as profound as you will imagine, he knows nothing but bibliography, or the science of title-pages, impresses, and dates. It was a relief to leave him, and find his brother, the captain, at Rickman's, smoking after supper, and letting out puffs at the one corner of his mouth and puns at the other. The captain hath a son-begotten, according to Lamb, upon a mermaid; and thus far is certain, that he is the queerest fish out of water. A paralytic affection in childhood has kept one side of his face stationary, while the other has continued to grow, and the two sides form the most ridiculous whole you can imagine; the boy, however, is a sharp lad, the inside not having suffered. "William Owen lent me three parts of the Mabinogion, most delightfully translated into so Welsh an idiom and syntax that such a translation is as instructive (except for etymology) as an original. I was, and am, still utterly at a loss to devise by what possible means fictions so perfectly like the Arabian Tales in character, and yet so indisputably of Cimbric growth, should have grown up in Wales. Instead of throwing light upon the origin of romance, as had been surmised, they offer a new problem, of almost impossible solution. Bard Williams communicated to me some fine arcana of bardic mythology, quite new to me and to the world, which you will find in Madoc. I have ventured to lend Turner your German Romances, which will be *This seems almost incredible. "Thus far had I proceeded yesterday, designing to send off the full sheet by that night's post, when Wordsworth arrived, and occasioned one day's delay. I have left him talking to Moses, and mounted to my own room to finish. What news, you will wish to ask, of Keswick? The house remains in statu quo, except that the little parlor is painted, and papered with cartridge paper. Workmen to plaster this room could not be procured when Jackson sent for them, and so unplastered it is likely to remain another winter. A great improvement has been made by thinning the trees before the parlor window. Just enough of the lake can be seen through such a framework, and such a fretted canopy of foliage as to produce a most delightful scene, and utterly unlike any other view of the same subject. The lakers begin to make their appearance, though none have, as yet, reached us; but Sharpe has announced his approach in a letter to W. We are in hourly expectation of Harry; and in the course of the year I expect Duppa to be my guest, and probably Elmsley. "God bless you! R. S." To Licut. Southey, H.M. S. Galatea. "June 27, 1804, Keswick. "'Tis a heartless thing, dear Tom, to write from this distance, and at this uncertainty, the more so when I recollect how many letters of mine were sent to the West Indies when you were last there, which never reached you. Two packets, say the papers, have been taken; and This was a gentle hint to Mr. Coleridge, who valued books none the less for being somewhat ragged and dirty, and did not take the same scrupulous care as my father to prevent their becoming so. well as, in point of time, retard. There is much of mine in the second volume,* and of my best; some of which you will discover, and some perhaps not. A sixth of the whole is mine-pretty hard work. I get on bravely with my History, and have above three quarto volumes done -quartos as they ought to be, of about 500 honest pages each. It does me good to see what a noble pile my boards make. if so, two of my epistles are now deeper down | most like my own favorite pursuits, which it than your sounding-lines have ever fathomed— | certainly must, in a certain degree, assist, as unless, indeed, some shark has swallowed and digested bags and bullets. We are uneasy at receiving no letter since that which announced your arrival at Barbadoes. I conceived you were at the Surinam expedition, and waited for the Gazette to-day with some unavoidable apprehensions. It has arrived, and I can find no trace of the Galatea, which, though so far satisfactory as that it proves you have not been killed by the Dutchman, leaves me, on the other hand, in doubt what has become of you and your ship. * * "About the changes in the Admiralty, I must tell you a good thing of W. T. in the Isis: he said it was grubbing up English oak, and planting Scotch fir in its place, for the use of the navy. An excellent good thing! If, however, I am not pleased that Lord Melville should be in, I am heartily glad that his predecessor is out, for no man ever proved himself so utterly unfit for the post. Our home politics are becoming very interesting, and must ultimately lead to the strongest administration ever seen in England. Pitt has played a foolish game in coming in alone it has exasperated the prince, who is the rising sun to look to, and is playing for the regency. "My dog Dapper is as fond of me as ever Cupid was: this is a well-bred hound of my landlord's, who never fails to leap upon my back when I put my nose out of doors, and who, never having ventured beyond his own field till I lately tempted him, is the most prodigious coward you ever beheld. He almost knocked Edith down in running away from a pig; but I like him, for he is a worthy dog, and frightens the sauntering lakers as much as the pig frightened him. I "The Scotch reviewers are grown remarkably civil to me, partly because Elmsley was, and partly because Walter Scott is, connected with them. My Amadis and the Chatterton have been noticed very respectfully there. told you in my last that Amadis sold well-as much in one year as Thalaba in three! But 1 feel, and my booksellers feel, that I am getting on in the world, and the publication of Madoc will set me still higher. "The lakers and the fine weather have made their appearance together. As yet we have only seen Sharpe, whose name I know not if you will remember he is an intimate of Tuffin, or Muffin, whose name you can not forget, and, like him, How goes on the Spanish? keep to it by an excellent talker-knowing every body, re- all means, for it is not an impossible nor an immembering every thing, and having strong tal- probable thing that you and I may one day meet ents besides. Davy is somewhere on the road. in Portugal, and, if so, take a journey together. He is recovering from the ill effects of fashiona- You will then find it useful, for it turns readily ble society, which had warped him. Rickman into Portuguese. My uncle and I keep up a told me his mind was in a healthier tone than pretty regular intercourse. I am trying to set usual, and I was truly rejoiced to find it so. his affairs here in order. A cargo of books, valWordsworth came over to see me on my return, ue about eleven pounds, which were lost for and John Thelwall, the lecturer on elocution, twelve months, have been recovered, and I am dined with us on his travels. But the greatest feeding upon them. God bless you, Tom! Lose event of Greta Hall is, that we have had a jack | no opportunity of writing. Edith's love. of two-and-twenty pounds, which we bought at threepence a pound. It was caught in the lake with a hook and line. We dressed it in pieces, like salmon, and it proved, without exception, one of the finest fish I had ever tasted; so, if ever you catch such a one, be sure you boil it instead of roasting it in the usual way. I am in excellent good health, and have got rid of my sore eyes-for how long God knows. The discase, it seems, came from Egypt, and is in some mysterious manner contagious, so that we have naturalized another curse. "Madoc is in the printer's hands: Ballantyne, of Edinburgh, who printed the Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border-if you remember the book. Next week I expect the first proof. Do not be frightened to hear after this that I have not done a stroke further in correcting and filling up the MSS. since my return. Reviewing is coming round again: I have a parcel upon the road, and groan in spirit at the prospect; not but of all trades it is the least irksome, and the CHAPTER XI. "R. S." FAMILY DETAILS-POLITICS-HE WISHES TO EDIT HARDSHIP-STORY Of the Annual Review. OF PELAYO-THE BUTLER-MADOC CRITICISED is better than being a soldier or a sailor; better than calculating profits and loss on a counter; MARKS LORD SOMERVILLE-SUGGESTION TO better, in short, than any thing but independ "Your three letters have arrived all together this evening, and have relieved me from very considerable anxiety. Mine, I find, are consigned to the Atlantic without bottles; and three books of Madoc, which Edith copied in them, gone to edify the sharks-gentlemen who will digest them far more easily than the critics. However, there must be yet some other letters on the way, and I trust you will have learned before this can reach you that I have two Ediths in the family-the Edithling (who was born on the last of April) continuing to do well, only that I am myself somewhat alarmed at that premature activity of eye and spirits, and those sudden startings, which were in her poor sister the symptoms of a dreadful and deadly disHowever, I am on my guard. ease. * * * * I did not mean to trust my affections again on so frail a foundation; and yet the young one takes me from my desk, and makes me talk nonsense as fluently as you perhaps can imagine. "Both Edith and I are well; indeed, I have weathered a rude winter and a ruder spring bravely. Harry is here, and has been here about three weeks, and will remain till the end of October. He is a very excellent companion, and tempts me out into the air and the water when I should else be sitting at home. We have made our way well in the world, Tom, thus far, and, by God's help, we shall yet get on better. Make your fortune, and Joe may yet live to share its comforts, as he stands upon his majesty's books in my name, though degraded by the appellation of mongrel. Madoc is in a Scotch press: Ballantyne's, who printed the Minstrelsy of the Scottish Borders-a book which you may remember I bought at Bristol. "You ask of Amadis: it has been well reviewed, both in the Annual and Edinburgh, by Walter Scott, who in both has been very civil to me. Davy has been This is our hisAs for news, the "July is, indeed, a lovely month at the lakes, and so the lakers seem to think, for they swarm here. We have been much interrupted by visitors-among others, young Roscoe-and more are yet to come. These are not the only interruptions we have been, or rather are, manufacturing black currant jam for my uncle, and black currant wine for ourselves-Harry and I chief workmen-pounding them in a wooden bowl with a great stone, as the acid acts upon a metal mortar. We have completed a great work in bridging the River Greta at the bottom of the orchard, by piling heaps of stones so as to step from one to another—many a hard hour's sport, half-knee deep in the water. here-stark mad for angling. tory-yours has been busier. packet which conveys this will convey later intelligence than it is in my power to communicate. Sir Francis may, and probably will, lose his election, but it is evident he has not lost his popularity. Pitt will go blundering on till every body, by miserable experience, think him what I always did. * * Whensoever the great change of ministry, to which we all look on with hope, takes place, I shall have friends in power able to serve me, and shall, in fact, without scruple, apply to Fox through one or two good channels: this may be very remote, and yet may be very near. When Madoc is published, I mean to send Fox a copy, with such a note as may be proper for me to address to such a man. * * * * * "God bless you, Tom! It grows late, and I have two proofs to correct for to-night's post. Once more, God bless you! R. S." To Lieutenant Southey, H.M.S. Galatea. "DEAR TOM, Of all my later publications, this has been "My intention is, God willing, to remain here the most successful, more than 500 of the 1000 | another year, and in the autumn of 1805 to go having sold within the year, so that there is a once more to Lisbon, and there remain one, two, fair chance of the £50 dependent upon the sale or three years, till my History be well and effectof the whole. Thalaba has been very admirably ually completed. Meantime, these are my emreviewed in the Critical by William Taylor; but ployments: to finish the correcting and printing it does not sell, and will not for some years reach of Madoc; to get through my annual work of a second edition. Reviewing is coming round reviewing; and bring my History as far onward again! one parcel arrived! another on the road! as possible. In the press I have, 1. Metrical a third ready to start! I grudge the time thus Tales and other Poems, being merely a corrected to be sold sorely; but patience! it is, after all, republication of my best pieces from the Antholbetter than pleading in a stinking court of law,ogy. 2. Specimens of the later English Poets, or being called up at midnight to a patient; it i. e., of all who have died from 1685 to 1800 this is meant as a supplement to George Ellis's Specimens of the Early Poets-a book which you may remember at Bristol: it will fill two vols. in crown octavo, the size of Ritson's Engleish Romanceès, if you recollect them. 3. Madoc, in quarto, whereof twenty-two sheets are printed; one more finishes the first part. Harry has been here since the beginning of July, and will yet remain about six weeks longer. We mountaineerify together, and bathe together, and go on the lake together, and have contrived to pass a delightful summer. I am learning Dutch, and wish you were here to profit by the lessons at the breakfast-table, and to mynheerify with me, as you like the language. My reason for attaining the language is, that as the Dutch conquered, or rather destroyed, the Portuguese empire in Asia, the history of the downfall of that empire is, of course, more fully related by Dutch than by Portuguese historians. "You ask for politics. I can tell you little. The idea of invasion still continues the same humbug and bugbear as when it was first bruited abroad, to gull the people on both sides of the water. Bonaparte dares not attempt it—would to God he did! Defeat would be certain, and his ruin inevitable: as it is, he must lose reputation by threatening what he can not execute; and I believe that the Bourbons will finally be restored. At home, politics look excellently well; the coalition of Fox and the Grenvilles has been equally honorable to all parties, and produced the best possible effects in rooting out the last remains of that political violence which many years so divided the country. The death of the king, or another fit of madness, which is very probable; or his abdication, which most persons think would be very proper; or the declining health of Pitt, or the actual strength of the opposition, are things of which every one is very likely to bring the coalition into power, and in that case neither you nor I should want friends. So live in hope, as you have good cause to do. Steer clear of the sharks and the land-crabs, and be sure that we shall both of us one day be as well off as we can wish. shall sip my tea, and talk with the old folks some hour or so, and then steal home to write Madoc, drink my solitary glass of punch, and get to bed at a good Christian-like hour, as my father, and no doubt his father, did before me. Oh, Tom, that you were but here! for, in truth, we lead as pleasant a life as heart of man could wish. I have not for years taken such constant exercise as this summer. Some friend or acquaintance or other is perpetually making his appearance, and out then I go to lackey them on the lake or over the mountains. I shall get a character for politeness! "I have so far altered my original plan of the History as to resolve upon not introducing the life of St. Francisco, and the chapters therewith connected, but to reserve them for a separate history of Monachism, which will make a very interesting and amusing work: a good honest quarto may comprise it. My whole historical labors will then consist of three separate works: 1. Hist. of Portugal-the European part, 3 vols. 2. Hist. of the Portuguese Empire in Asia, 2 or 3 vols. 3. Hist. of Brazil. 4. Hist. of the Jesuits in Japan. 5. Literary History of Spain and Portugal, 2 vols. 6. History of Monachism. In all, ten, eleven, or twelve quarto volumes; and you can not easily imagine with what pleasure I look at all the labor before me. God give me life, health, eyesight, and as much leisure as even now I have, and done it shall be. God bless you! "R. S." I should like to edit the works of Sir Philip Sidney, who is, in my judgment, one of the greatest men of all our countrymen. I would prefix a Life, an Essay on the Arcadia, his greatest work, and another on his Meters. It would make three octavo volumes: to the one there should be his portrait prefixed; to the second a view of Penshurst, his birth-place and residence; to the third, the print of his death, from Mortimer's well"The H's are visiting Colonel Peachy, known etching. Perhaps I overrate the extent whose wife was also of Bishop Lydiard-a Miss of the work; for, if I recollect right, Burton's Charter both she and her sister knew you well Anatomy, which is such another folio, was repubby name. We are getting upon excellently good lished in two octavos. His name is so illustriterms; for they are very pleasant and truly wom- ous, that an edition of 500 would certainly sell: anly women, which is the best praise that can the printer might begin in spring. I could write be bestowed upon a woman. Will you not laugh the Essays here. In the autumn I shall most to hear that I have actually been employed all likely be in London, and would then complete the morning in making arrangements for a sub- the Life, and the book might be published by scription ball at Keswick? I very I! your Christmas of 1805. If you approve the scheme, brother, R. S. To what vile purposes may we it may be well to announce it, as we may very come! It was started by Harry and Miss Char- probably be forestalled, for this is the age of edter at the theater (for we have a strolling com-itors. I design my name to appear, for it would pany at an ale-house here), and he, and I, and be a pleasure and a pride to have my name conGeneral Peche have settled it; and all Cumber- nected with that of a man whom I so highly revland will now envy the gayeties of Keswick. Mrs. General insisted upon my opening the ball with her. I advised her, as she was for performing impossibilities, to begin with turning the wind before she could hope to turn me; so I erence. Mr. Longman ber. I have not always find me. promised me a visit in Septemfound him so punctual as he will Believe me, yours truly, "ROBERT SOUTHEY." * * To G. C. Bedford, Esq. * * "Keswick, Dec. 1, 1804. 66 DEAR GROSVENOR, "Sir Roger l'Estrange is said, in Cibber's Lives, to have written a great number of poetical works, which are highly praised in an extract from Winstanley. Ubi sunt? God knows, among all the titles to his works, I do not see one which looks as if it belonged to a poem; perhaps Hill or Heber may help you out; but the sure store-house in all desperate cases will be the Museum. He has the credit of having written the famous song, Cease, rude Boreas,' when in prison: this, however, is only a tradition, and wants evidence sufficient for our purpose. There, sir, is a pussagorical answer to your pussechism. * If you are in the habit of calling on Vincent, you may do me a service by inquiring whether a MS. of Giraldus Cambrensis, designated by Cave, in his Historia Litteraria, as the Codex Westmonast, be in the Dean and Chapter Library; for this MS. contains a map of Wales as subsisting in his time, and that being the time in which Madoc lived, such a map would form a very fit and very singular addition to the book; and if it be there I would wish you to make a formal application on my part for permission to have it copied and engraved. These bodies corporate are never very accommodating; but Vincent is bound to be civil, on such an occasion, if he can, lest his refusal should seem to proceed from personal dislike toward one whom he must be conscious that he has used unhandsomely, and to the utmost of his power attempted to injure. God knows I forgive him-ex imo corde. I am too well satisfied with my own lot, with my present pursuits, and the new and certain hopes which they present, not to feel thankful to all those who have in any way contributed to make me what I am. If he and I had been upon friendly terms, it might have interested him, who has touched upon Portuguese history himself, to hear of my progress, and my knowledge might possibly have been of some assistance to him. I have no kindly feel ings toward him. He made a merit of never having struck me, whereas that merit was mine for never having given him occasion so to do. It is my nature to be sufficiently susceptible of kindness, and I remember none from him. Here is a long rigmarole about nothing: the remembrance of old times always makes me garrulous, and the failing is common to most men. "God bless you * * To Lieut. Southey, Barbadoes. "DEAR TOM, "I have made some use of your letters in the third Annual Review. M'Kinnan has published a Tour through the British West Indies-a decent book, but dull. In reviewing it, I eked out his account with yours, and contrasted his words upon the slave trade with a passage from your letters. In doing this, I could not help thinking what materials for a book you might bring home N if you would take the trouble; as thus: describe * "Hamilton is broke, whereby I shall lose from £20 to £30, which he owes me for critical work, and which I shall never get; rather hard upon one whose brains and eyesight have quite enough to do by choice, and are never overpaid for what they do by necessity. For meaner matter, my little girl is not pretty, but she is a sweet child, so excellently good-tempered-as joyous as a skylark in a fine morning, and so quick of eye, of action, and of intellect, that I have a sad feeling about me of the little chance there is of rearing her; so don't think too much about her. At Make a "Whether this war with Spain will involve one with Portugal is what we are all speculating about at present. I think it very likely that Bonaparte will oblige the Portuguese to turn the English out-a great evil to me in particular; though, should my uncle be driven to England, my settling will the sooner take place. present I am as unsettled as ever, at a distance from my books, perpetually in want of them, wishing and wanting to be permanently fixed, and still prevented by the old cause. capital prize, Tom, and lend me a couple of hundreds, and you shall see what a noble appearance my books will make. N.B.-I have a good many that wait for your worship to letter them. This Spanish war may throw something in your way; but I don't like the war, and think it is unjust and ungenerous to quarrel with an oppressed people because they have not strength to resist the French. You know I greatly esteem the Spaniards. As for France, I am willing to pay half my last guinea to support a contest for national honor against him; but it began foolishly, and well will it be if we do not end it even more foolishly than we began. "God bless you! R. S." My father, as the reader is well aware, had long been desirous of again visiting Spain and Portugal, chiefly for the sake of obtaining still further materials for the two great historical works he was engaged upon-the History of Portugal and the History of Brazil. It seems that Mr. Bedford, through some of his friends, had at this time an opportunity of furthering these views, and had inquired of my father what |