3524. Robert Southey to Walter Savage Landor, 14 August 1820⁠* 

Ere this I trust you will have received Wordsworths Peter Bell, his Waggoner, & his sonnets on the river Duddon &c, – the last volume of the Hist. of Brazil & the Life of Wesley. [1]  They were detained some time for the chance that your brother Robert might have occasion to send any thing in the same package.

After xx having been nearly three months from home, you may suppose with what pleasure I returned to my own family, my own fire side, & my own pursuits. During my absence to gratify others rather than myself I went to Oxford to receive an honorary degree [2]  – except that I passed it thro it twice in stage coaches, once after the inhabitants were gone to bed, & once before they had got up, I had not been there since I left it in 1794, with the intention of bidding farewell not to the University alone, but to England & to Europe, & trying an Utopian scheme in the back-settlements of the United States. [3]  After the business of the Theatre [4]  was over I went into Christ Church Walk, & there chewed the cud of remembrance. Except Phillimore the Professor of Law, I did not meet with one contemporary, of whom I have had even the slightest knowledge. In the evening, or rather at night, I dined in Balliol Hall with the Master [5]  & Fellows, all being so much my juniors that the Master himself did not enter the College till some years after I had left it. There was no person to recognize me but the porter, a poor fellow who in my time had served as hair-dresser, & supplied the College with fruit. His wife had been my laundress, – & the poor infirm old woman sate up till midnight, that she might see me when I was let out. [6] 

Ill as you think of the rabble, & of the Whigs, who have long since proved that it is possible to be at the same time odious & contemptible, – you cannot but marvel at the effect which the modern Messalina [7]  has produced in London. Ballad singers go about the streets proclaiming the Queens title to the throne, & in doggrel rhyme declaring that she shall speedily be seated there, & reign by the peoples free election. There is every probability of a more tremendous explosion than that which Lord George Gordon [8]  brought about in our childhood, & no reliance can be placed upon the soldiers. For they are not only xx duped by the devilish newspapers to believe that the Queen is an innocent & injured woman, but they are infected by the moral pestilence of the age, since the armies [9]  in Spain & Naples have chosen to interfere in state affairs. [10]  Before this letter can reach you the crisis will in all likelihood have come on. It will be a trial between the Government supported by the civil power alone, & the mob, with the traitorous Whigs & the press & their troops on their side, – the troops being worse than doubtful. Of course care is taken to send away such regiments as have given the plainest indication of their determination “to see the Queen thro it” [11]  as they express themselves. [12]  My comfort is that as things must be worse before they can be better, the sooner the abscess bursts, the more strength there will be in the constitution to throw xx off & struggle thro the disease. The only chance of getting safely thro the affair is that the evidence against the woman may convince the honest persons who now believes her to be innocent; but as the villainous part of her partizans outnumber the others ten times told, this is but a poor hope.

Being blessed with good spirits & chearful opinions, I have a habit of looking on with a resolute hope, however unfavourable all may be the aspects. One of my occupations at this time is a series of Dialogues, upon a plan which was suggested by Boethius. [13]  The motto will explain their object, – it is three words which I found somewhere quoted from S^t Bernard, – Respice, aspice, prospice. [14]  I am going to press quam celerrime [15]  with the History of the Peninsular war. [16]  In poetry I have done little, but must take up those poems which have been so long in hand, in good earnest ere long & go thro with them. The difficulty of Spensers stanza has I think very much impeded my progress in the Tale of Paraguay, [17]  – tho with what I have done is done I am very much pleased my self.

My little boy is now a year & half old, as healthy, as intelligent & as good-natured as one could wish.

You will scarcely know London when you return to it, – that is if there be any such city left a few years hence, which is rather doubtful as our Catalines [18]  have more than once intended to set it on fire in sundry places. What with pulling down narrow streets & lanes, & building wide streets, circles & heaven knows what, they are making it a very fine place; & when the inhabitants are taught to consume their smoke in the fire, instead of letting it go up the chimney, we shall again have as clean (tho not as clear) an atmosphere as our neighbours on the continent, – which was the case before pit-coal came into use.

Direct the books [19]  to the care of Mess^rs Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme & Brown – London. & they will find their way to me. The duty is not as no object except for voluminous works in folio.

God bless you

RS.

14 Aug. 1820.