409. To Robert Southey Address: Mrs Danvers | Kingsdown Parade | Bristol Single Sheet (for Mr Southey) MS. Lord Latymer. Pub. E. L. G. i. 179. Postmark: 15 August 1801. Stamped: Rushyford. Bishop's Middleham, Wednesday, August 11. [12] My dear Southey I am glad that Longman played the Jew with you. Do not, whatever you do, do not send Madoc hastily out of your hands. -- ____________________ 1 'Alluding to my recent marriage with D. Cayley -- July 14 -- 1801.' [MS. note by Wrangham.] -750- I have much (and as I believe some things of importance) to talk over with you respecting that poem. I cannot but believe that it will stand unrivalled in it's own kind -- and that a very noble kind. I am anxious about that poem. -- Do not write for Stuart Hamilton is bad enough. 'Sdeath! is there nothing you can translate, to wit, anonymously? ---- I much wish, it were possible to bring your Mother with you. Change -- & chearfulness -- and Rest they are the Physicians. I met two Lines in an old German Latin Book which pleased me -- Si tibi deficiant Medici, Medici tibi fiant Haec tria, Mens hilaris, Requies, Moderata Diaeta. 1 What you say of Davy, impressed me, melancholied me. After I had written what I wrote to you concerning him, & had sent on my letter, a reproof rose up in my heart -- & I said to myself O when wilt thou be cured of the idle trick of letting thy Wishes make Romances out of men's characters? I had one very affecting letter from Davy, soon after his arrival in London -- & in this he complained in a deep tone of the ill effect which perpetual analysis had on his mind. I for my part never did think his sphere of utility extended by his removal to London; and I think those most likely to be permanently useful who most cherish their best feelings. Know thy own self & reverence the Muse! 2 What a thing, what a living thing, is not Shakespere & in point of real utility I look on Sir Isaac Newton as a very puny agent compared with Milton -- and I have taken some pains with the comparison, & disputed with transient conviction for hours together in favor of the former. -- However, you are right as an oracle when you add -- we are all well in our way. -- I have seen no new books except Godwin's which I met with by accident -- & think of it precisely as you do. I was so much delighted with all the rest of the Pamphlet that I could have myself pulled his nose for that loathsome & damnable passage. Dr Fenwick at Durham dissuaded me from bathing in the open Sea -- he thought it would be fatal to me. I came out all at once on the Beach, and had Faith in the Ocean. I bathed regularly, frolicked in the Billows, and it did me a proper deal of good. When I received your letter this morning, I was packing up to go Keswickward -- I returned from Scarborough last night -- but now I shall ____________________ 1 See De Conservanda Bona Valetudine. Opusculum Scholae Salernitanae . . . Cum Arnoldi Novicomensis . . . brevissimis ac utilissimis ac Enarrationibus: Accuratius iam & emendatius edita per Ioannem Curionem, & Iacobum Crellium, Frankfurt, 1551, cap. i. Coleridge cites this Latin distich a number of times in his letters. 2 Cf. James Beattie, The Minstrel, i. 59. -751- stay a week at Dinsdale & bathe twice a day in the sulphur baths there. They work wonders. God bless you. I long to behold you. Love to Edith. -- On my first emersion I composed a few lines which will please you as a symptom of convalescence -- for alas! it is a long [time] since I have cropt a flowering weed on the sweet Hill of Poesy 1 -- 1 God be with thee, gladsome Ocean! How gladly greet I thee once more - Ships and Waves and endless Motion And Life rejoicing on thy Shore. 2 Gravely said the sage Physician, To bathe me on thy shores were Death; But my Soul fulfill'd her Mission, And lo! I breathe untroubled Breath. 3 Fashion's pining Sons and Daughters That love the city's gilded Sty, Trembling they approach thy Waters And what cares Nature, if they die? 4 Me a thousand Loves and Pleasures A thousand Recollections bland, Thoughts sublime and stately Measures Revisit on thy sounding Strand -- 5 Dreams, the soul herself forsaking, Grief-like Transports, boyish Mirth, Silent Adorations, making A blessed Shadow of this Earth! 6 O ye Hopes, that stir within me, Health comes with you from above: God is with me, God is in me, I cannot die, if Life be Love! ____________________ 1 Poems, i. 359. -752-