1745. Robert Southey to Humphrey Senhouse, 10 February 1810 ⁠* 

Dear Senhouse

Your Note has been consigned to Mrs Coleridge as Receiver General for her husband in this District. The obscurity of the Friend appears to me to arise from a want of arrangement rather than from any other cause. [1]  Coleridge loves talking, – it is his disease, he has literally a diabetes of the tongue. He multiplies words in conversation for the mere pleasure of articulating them, & if he begins at Dan rambles on till he gets to Beersheba. [2]  This rambling manner has now extended itself to his style of writing. Let him start what subject he will he loses sight of it, & like a young dog which has not yet been broke in, runs after every thing. Instead of going straight as an arrow to the mark, he turns & winds & doubles, nosing his way, & changing the scent for whatever comes in his track. Just as it was with Burke, [3]  he is continually evolving the causes of things & involving their consequences, so that like one in a maze you neither see how you got in, nor how you are to get out. This it was which made Burke so inefficient a writer & speaker with all his mighty mind & surpassing eloquence. He never persuaded any body. Many were the persons who sheltered themselves under his name, – but it was only when they wanted an excuse for abandoning their former party. Till Burke became an Anti-Jacobine no person ever pretended to be converted to any of his opinions.

I have said something of Robertson in a note to the Brazilian History pointing out two remarkable instances of his faithlessness. [4]  I have a very bad opinion of that Scotchman. When he was once asked to communicate an Essay to some Edinburgh Society (I forget what) his answer was that he never wrote anything for which he did not get copy-right. [5]  I believe that precisely upon the same system he never read anything which would not pay him for reading it, in the gross pound shilling & pence meaning of the phrase. Of the list of books which he has prefixed to that vile history of America one half have no reference to the work itself. [6]  And with respect to the prime documents for the subjects on which he wrote, I have proved that he either did not read them thro, or that he supprest some of their most important facts. I have read most of the books which he ought to have read, all that he did read, & a great many more, & I find him as deficient in all parts of his American history as Bernal Diaz [7]  proves him to be in the affairs of Mexico.

The conquest of Mexico appears to me the most splendid event that ever was atchieved, & Cortes [8]  the greatest of all military adventurers. Did you ever see his portrait as engraved by Vertue [9]  from Titian? [10]  It is prefixed to a translation of Solis’s turgid history, & is I think the very finest countenance I ever remember to have seen. [11]  It is the countenance of a man made to govern the world, & not less beautiful than it is majestic & commanding. – American history is very little known in England, & is indeed only to be learnt from the original authors. To think as Robertson did of including all America in one work was preposterous. The different parts have not the slightest connection with each other. Mexico is less connected with Brazil, & Peru with New England, than this country is with Russia. Hayti with the other Spanish Islands, Mexico, Peru, the Nuevo Reyno [12]  & Brazil all require seperate works of considerable extent, – & then the French & English colonies still remain. Neither my life or leisure will admit of my doing more in American history, than that part which relates to the Portugueze. The first volume [13]  will appear, I trust, early in the ensuing month, a most faithful, & sufficiently laborious work. It brings it own reward in the pleasure which it has given me.

The Edinburgh Annual Register is about half-printed. [14]  – The Columbiad [15]  in its present state has not reached me – It was to have been sent here for the Quarterly, & I know not why it[MS torn] arrived. Originally it was called the Vision of Columbus, & in that form [MS torn] have it. [16]  Barlow had not corrupted his taste by the study of Darwin [17]  xx when he began his career as a poet, & the poem in its first state, tho tedious because written in couplets & upon a wretched plan, yet bore marks of a vigorous mind. In the days of Jacobinism he published a book which fell under the law here in England, – it was one of the best written that appeared. [18]  Some years ago he was employed in a diplomatic capacity to settle some disputes between the United States & Algiers, [19]  & the main arguments by which he succeeded in persuading the Dey to a treaty were these, that America was not to be considered as a Christian Government, all religions being equally tolerated there & none established, – & that there were was a natural connection between the half moon of Algiers, & the thirteen stars of the United States. Th I heard this from Smith the American Envoy at Lisbon. [20] 

Our youngest got rather severely burnt two or three weeks ago by an explosion from the fire. These explosions are so frequent in the coal which we get here, & sometimes so violent, that it would not surprize me to hear of some serious accident from them. Excepting this, we have all been tolerably well this winter. My non-descript poem [21]  is just in the press, & I have begun another in a soberer strain upon Pelayo. [22] 

Edith & her sisters [23]  beg to be remembered to M^rs Senhouse. We meditate a journey to Durham in April, & have some expectation of seeing my sea-faring brother before that time.

Yrs truly

Robert Southey

Keswick. Feb^y 10. 1810.