ET. 45.] CHANGE OF RESIDENCE-OCCASIONAL POEMS. 413

has been disposed of to a publisher. I am very sorry, I assure you, that the appearance of The Spectre-boat' in your collection, is prevented by this circumstance. T. C."

A visit to his favourite Sydenham, the settlement in his new house, and a report from Dr. Finch, are thus briefly but strikingly noticed:

10, SEYMOUR STREET WEST, December 5, 1822.

".. I am not without an interest in my fortunes, that I might communicate; but why trouble you with never-sleeping cares? One of the pleasantest things I can tell you, is, that I passed an evening, and part of a day, at Sydenham, last week. . . . I went into the garden, and walked round it alone: I thought your shades were about me; I saw your images in my mind's eye; and I assure you that, without affectation, or in the slightest degree enforcing my enthusiasm, I had a most placid and delicious reverie. The bench on the lawn, the trees, the greenhouse, the garden-seat, seemed to me all holy and haunted ground. I shall never have such associations with any other piece of ground! . .

"As to my private affairs, I am yet uncertain how it is to be the Journal and 500l. a year, I have a decided partiality to retain, but fear it will be wrung from my pride rather than my inclination. I have written one or two little pieces, which I will show you, if they do not appear in the Magazine. You are quite right about the last part of the Song of the Greeks';* indeed, about poetry, I

* 66 Again to the battle, Achaians!

Our hearts bid the tyrants defiance;

Our land, the first garden of Liberty's tree,—

It has been, and shall yet be, the land of the free!"

POEMS, page 179.

cannot say when I have thought you wrong. . . I find myself altogether more pleased and happy in my new house than I could expect it is a beautiful creation; and I have a peep from the windows of my study into Hyde Park... I have had a letter from Dr. Finch, giving a most ambiguous and vague account of Thomas' case. He does not, perhaps, think so himself; but I cannot help fearing that he is slumbering over it. His method I believe, on the whole, to be best; it has the angelic quality of mercy; and I take him and Mrs. F. to be among the best of human beings... I am, however, resigned to patience on this subject; but I must own to you that there is a want of special observation in the report. T. C."

"10, SEYMOUR STREET WEST, December 26, 1822.

"I scarcely expected to have been so busy this month with the Journal: it is a sort of voluntary trouble I have undertaken. The promised appearance of Las Casas' Account of his Residence at St. Helena, and of Napoleon's Military Memoirs, dictated by himself, created a great sensation in London. . . I determined to make the notice of the book myself. I was hard pressed by reams of other reading, which I had to get through, and had only one entire day to get up a sheet on the occasion. It is very illwritten: I had to read through four volumes, and feel the effect of the operation at this moment on my eye-sight; but the amusement has interested my mind beyond description. I own to you that they have so 'carried my imagination off its feet,' that I feel as if I had been fighting the campaigns of Italy, disposing the Council of Five Hundred, living in the cabin of the Northumberland, or on the rocks of St. Helena, for the last half of my life! In the mental impressions which the book has left, I find nothing that changes my abstract opinions, or moral feelings.

ET. 45.] REPORT FROM DR. FINCH-LAS CASAS' WORK. 415

I regard him, on some points, with precisely my former feelings of disapprobation: but I find facts irresistibly different from what they were given out to be. I have no doubt remaining that the poisoning at Jaffa is all a fiction. One of the stories I used to believe against Buonaparte, was his bearing an envious grudge to Moreau. It is curious, that, after the lapse of almost the fourth part of a century, I should meet with convincing proofs—or, at least, strong grounds of belief-that this surmise was also a fable. I remember, when I was in Bavaria in 1800, two countrymen of my own talked a whole evening with Count Klenau and other Austrian officers, discussing the conduct of Moreau. Sir J. Ingleby and Father Maurus translated to me what the Austrian officers said of Moreau's conduct during that Campaign on the Rhine: they described the blunders of it, and the probable result. I thought to myself, They are inveterate in their prejudices against Moreau; I do not believe their opinion; and the result will show that Moreau is right.' He gave them the battle of Hohenlinden, and I thought my own opinion confirmed. But on looking at Buonaparte's notices of this campaign, the very movements and the place are described; and this opinion of Klenau and his brother officers is confirmed. This is a singular coincidence."

"I continue to be much delighted with my house. Mrs. Campbell, however, has been alarmed at hearing a mala fama about our neighbours; but the morals of London, I fear, are so corrupted, that there are more streets infested with neighbours of this description than free from them. On the whole, we must remain, I believe; for I shall never meet with a house so much to my mind in all respects." ... "I have got up a double library; one in my parlour, which looks very handsome, with books that cost me half-a-crown apiece for half-binding; and the whole

wall of my own study is covered with the unbound books. The air is so pure and good, that I feel a sensible change in my health by removing even twenty minutes' walk from a more populous vicinity. In this dry weather, I experience the bracing effects of the situation, and can now sleep, though a vile barking cur endeavours to curtail my slumbers. I think I have been at no period of my life-all sad circumstances considered-more elastic in mind and body than now.

"In the course of the incoming spring, I expect to be very industrious; but as to the success of one's efforts, who can be positive? Certainly I cannot. You will see that the *** thinks me qualified to translate German war-songs! Confound them, I say. Set me to the rhapsodies of German poetry? A friend more zealous than discreet, and hitherto unknown to me, came to show me a letter which he meant to send, abusing them for proposing such a task, and saying that it would be better for the Germans to translate my poetry!! I told him not to publish his letter, lest it should be suspected of being a puff, encouraged by myself; but I was angry nevertheless with my praises. I have received your kind note, with -'s poetry-alas, poetry!-tears on tombstones could not deplore it enough!

T. C."*

*

"10, SEYMOUR STREET WEST, February 1, 1823.

"I have reproached myself with not writing sooner. The truth is, I am not writing poetry, but projecting it; and that keeps me more idle and abstracted than you can conceive. I pass hours thinking about what I am

* In the various correspondence that follows, the poem of "Theodric ”—a subject to which his thoughts had been often directed since his visit to the Rhine-is frequently alluded to.

ET. 45.] FAMILY CONNECTIONS-REVERSES-A POET. 417

to compose.

The actual time employed in composition, is but a fraction of the time lost in setting about it.

"To-day I have been at a touching scene-and it must be so to touch me, through the blunting medium of so many disagreeable associations. M.'s sister, the beautiful, simple, and unfortunate widow, has recovered from her illusions, but is dying. She has always been a meek and kind family connection to me, and expressed her pleasure at seeing me; though I verily believe she cannot live many days, and can scarcely speak. I may be wrong, and trust I am; yet if she could retain the possession of her mind, it were a pity that so innocent and pretty a creature should die! She looked like patience and simplicity itself under afflicting blisters, and the anticipation, as she said, of her struggle not being likely to last long.".. " Mrs. W.'s formerly rich husband, too, has lost sixty thousand pounds in the Spanish Loan. His carriage is given up; his house is changed. I am truly sorry for him; he is a very honest man. The mention of the Spanish Loan obliges me to think of the late melancholy news, and of the state of public affairs. I dare say that the audacity of the French Ultras has offended you, as it has myself. I can scarcely imagine you wishing well to the Army of Faith and the monkey General of the Bourbons."

"I have made acquaintance with B-y C-1 within these few days. He is a modest, or rather, sober-minded young man-delicate in health, rather serious and discursive than lively; and, on the whole, very rational and interesting. He allowed me to be quite free with him on his predilection for the Wordsworth school, and the hasty, sketchy way of writing dramas; and seemed unaffectedly humble in confessing the imperfections of his own style,