3603. Robert Southey to Peter Elmsley, 11 January 1821⁠* 

Keswick. 11. Jan^y. 1821

My dear Elmsley

I have ordered to your address in Pall Mall, the third volume of Brazil, the life of Wesley, [1]  & the republication of certain Odes in a form to bind up with my other Poems. [2]  Of each I have something to say. The latter are ex officio [3]  productions, in a species of composition for which I have little talent & no inclination. Of the rhymed Ode [4]  the best that can be said is, that it is not bad as a whole, & has a few good parts. The three others [5]  are in a freer strain, better conceived, & sometimes better expressed. The postscript to the notes is an excerpt from a letter to Brougham, begun in consequence of one of the most wanton, gross & unprovoked insults that ever was offered by one man to another. [6]  I should not have published this extract if it had contained anything personally acrimonious towards him, because he has, thro Lambton, [7]  positively denied to my brother that he ever gave the offence, & if a man ought to be satisfied with the amende honorable, much more ought to be so when the amende dishonorable is made by his antagonist, – the words which he denies having uttered, having been reported in the newspapers, & heard by many thousand witnesses, of whom some half-dozen repeated them to me. – I print the extract for the love of Gog, to whom I owe more than this, & in whose debt it is not my intention to die. The rest of the fragment you shall see in the summer, – it is written forcibly, & would have made a good companion to my tender epistle to M^r William Smith. [8] 

Secondly concerning the Brazil. Do not bind your set, till I send you some corrections & additions for the first volume, which is now reprinting. [9] 

The Dean of Worcester [10]  (with whom I have no acquaintance) has lately sent me the copy of a fragment of a letter, which he says was one of those taken from Wesleys bureau by his wife, when she finally left him. [11]  He vouches for its authenticity, & refers me for proofs to a quarter where I am now making farther enquiry. [12]  The letter is from one of his female correspondents, – a Miss Briggs, [13]  remonstrating with him upon the improper liberties which he had taken with her, – it is in a strain of the warmest affection, & the most unbounded reverence; & yet at the same time shows that she was a virtuous woman, & was alarmed at his conduct. He must then have been about sixty five years of age. The internal evidence of the letter is in favour of its authenticity. If authentic, it would prove that Wesley had fallen into a temptation incident to the sort of Confessor-like situation in which he had placed himself, – & trusting probably to his age, had indulged it as far as he wished. The fact, if fact it be, would not affect the opinion which should be formed concerning all the former part of his life, nor concerning the general tenour of his conduct. But it would show, like many cases in Catholick history, how easily spiritual & carnal affections may be blended, – which needs no additional proof. On the whole I shall be sorry to find it genuine, because the publication of such a fact will certainly do more harm than good, – & yet having written the life of Wesley, I do not see how I can, consistently with that perfect fairness in which the task has been performed, conceal such it, after it has come to my knowledge. [14] 

You will find me a good deal altered, – for I feel the effect of Time in more ways than one, – physically in an infirmity which will probably (& God knows how soon) incapacitate me for walking, if it does not do more; [15]  – xx morally, in nothing so much, as in certain anxious thoughts, to which in younger days I was a stranger, concerning my ways & means, as I grow older, & a decay of power is to be apprehended, or any of those accidents which flesh is heir to. It is only now that I have first a prospect of accumulating any property during my life, & that slowly. Ten years would probably make me master of as many thousand pounds, – but who can calculate upon ten years! certainly not I. These thoughts however do not recur very frequently, neither do they leave any deep impression, – but I know that ten years ago I was a stranger to them, & that they belong to the decline of life. Decline of mental power I am not sensible of in any other way, than that I continue now to be a poet rather by profession than by choice.

In the course of a few weeks I shall send you a thin quarto which will provoke a good deal of hostility, & some difference of opinion. [16]  It is an experiment in English hexameters. The rhythm to my ear is good, & well suited to the subject on which it is employed, – a subject which will draw on as much enmity as the measure. But you know I am used to abuse of all kinds & from all quarters. – I count upon seeing you in July

God bless you –

Yrs very truly

Robert Southey.