171. Robert Southey to Horace Walpole Bedford, 29[/30] August [1796]*

Tuesday Aug 29th. Bristol.

I have been several times on the point of writing to you & as often delayed by the daily expectation of a letter. your last never reachd me. I have received but one from you, except what arrived to day & in that you evidently allude to another which must have been lost on the road.

Take care of despondence Horace. you are younger than I am — & yet I have not yet set out on my way of life — I am to live by the law — & know not even the ABC of it. of the nature of the application which you say has xxxxxxxx <failed> I know nothing. is not the law open to you? or the more rational & more respectable study of physic?

some subjects you say harrass you to distraction. if — as I suspect — they are upon some metaphysical questions — think nothing about them. I have followed the bubble myself till it burst — & take my word for it it is nothing but emptiness. time has produced some changes in me Horace since last we met. I have learnt heartily to despise the reptile race that pollute the world.

you love Rousseau. read his letter to that rascal Voltaire. perhaps the most eloquent & the most excellent of all his works. it is in answer to a Poem which Voltaire had written upon the earthquake at Lisbon¹ — speaking of religion he says — my mind cannot <endure> the painful state of suspense — & xxxx if the arguments on one side balance those on the other — I fling the weight of Hope into the scale of Reason.

My letters are advancing. I treat the Beast with as little respect as he deserves, & give my own opinion totally careless how far it may coincide with any one else.

I have now read the Monk — & admire the delicacy of Lewis² in criticising the Bible. there is genius in the book — but no good can possibly be produced by it. I would not have men distrust themselves. xx he who slides timidly will fall — & this is a slippery world.

apropos I must give you a couplet in the best alliterative stile

There — trace where tranquil oer his track of trail Slow slides the sleek & slimey-slipping snail. ³

Lewiss poetry is contemptible — except the Water King — & Alonzo & Imogine⁴ — of which the story is bad — & the most striking part very inferior to what appears to me its original the Franciscan monk at the marriage of Lorenzo in the Ghost-Seer of Frederick Schiller.⁵ an author compared to whom the sublimity of Eschylus⁶ & Shakesperexx is little have you read Fiesco? Stodhard⁷ of Christ Church is one of the translators. you may hear something of him from Collins — if you still retain his acquaintance: with friendship I believe him totally unacquainted.

I envy you your Hastings expedition. that country is well known to me. I love the sea when on shore — but no motive shall ever take me a longer voyage than to Calais again. x somebody (a painter I believe — Tresham?) has [MS torn] a poem called the Sea Sick Minstrel⁸ lately. tis a villainous subject. Oh Horace — conceive Heart Liver & Lights & Tripes & Trullibubs with the Fauxbourg St Intestinal Canal — in a state of insurrection — then the tocsin of the windpipe — then the discharge — such a scene of retchedness! — there is no occasion of the W.

I must give you the Effusion of a morning [MS torn] before [MS torn] breakfast. the Personification & image is I think new

How did ye murmur then my Trullibubs! On that ill-omend dayWhen forth — all-breakfastless — I went my way.xxxxx Mother of MulligrubsHunger — with all the melody of gripesPlaying the flaccid bagpipe of my tripes!

I made a good pun the other day on a boy who had stolen some cakes — for I said he was παις κακος⁹

“With what a weight does Expectation load the wings of Time”!¹⁰ says somebody — but at what a pace says <does> the bald old rascal run on when the spur of business goads! I have a great desire to write my tragedy & to finish Madoc. both of which I could do with great ease in a twelvemonth — I have heard people laugh at “give us this day our daily bread”¹¹ as a foolish petition — if those persons were at the trouble of getting it they would think otherwise.

Sunday is to be a day of rest from my law studies. & as I frequent no place of worship I shall then have leisure for writing.

Let me hear from you soon: you promisd some remarks on Joan of Arc. let them be critical ones. we shall meet soon — & then if you have time & inclination to execute half my plans — take the mantle of Elijah¹² — I have a thousand things to say <to> you when we meet —

farewell

yrs most truly. RS.