2164. Robert Southey to Walter Savage Landor, 26 October 1812 ⁠* 

Oct 26. 1812. Keswick.

Will this find you in the vale of Ewias, or have you taken wing for Bath, which in spite of thirty years labour toward spoiling it, still remains the pleasantest city in the kingdom? I remember it when it ended at the crescent, & there was not a house on Bath-wick side of the river. The longest walk in which I was ever indulged was to a cottage – the cottage we called it, in a little orchard, a sweet sequesterd spot at that time, – my ne plus ultra [1]  then, beyond which all was Terra incognita. [2]  No doubt it is now overgrown with streets, on ei But the only alteration which I cannot forgive is the abominable one of converting the South Parade into one side of a square, & thus destroying the finest thing of its kind, – perhaps the only thing in the world. I have often walked upon that terrace by moonlight, after the play, my head full of the heroics which I had been imbibing, – & perhaps I am at this day the better for those moonlight walks.

I shall soon have two more books [3]  to send you – when I have fitted in two passages which must be interpolated in the earlier part of the poem. The way is opening before me & now the farther I get, the more rapidly I shall proceed, for the sake of getting to the conclusion, – which will be full of fine things. The Spaniards will never forgive me for making their Virgin Mary at Covadonga [4]  into Adosinda, & performing the miracle by human means.

Will Buonaparte leave his army as he did in Egypt, or stay with them & keep his Christmas at Moscow? [5]  A Lenten sort of Xmas it will prove. The Russians, like the Turks, are in a very unsubduable sort of state; – their beards, & their idolatry are in their favour, – & it is of prodigious consequence that they do’nt understand parlez-vou-ing, & it will take a Frenchman, poppinjays as they all are, a long while before th he can gabble in Russian – Huzza! fight on my merry xx <men> all, must be our tune, & as long as we can keep out the White-livered Foxites [6]  at home, the cause of Europe will never be to be despaired of. Should they get the ascendancy it would then indeed be time to turn Turk in despair

RS.