HIS SECRETARYSHIP. — EDITION OF CHATTERTON'S WORKS. - THOUGHTS OF RESIDING AT RICHMOND, — AT KESWICK.— WELL-KNOWN PERSONS MET IN LONDON. NEGOTIATES FOR A HOUSE IN WALES. CHRONICLE OF THE CID. REVIEW NEGOTIATION FOR HOUSE BROKEN OFF. WANT OF MORE BOOKS. ALARM OF WAR. EDINBURGH REVIEW. HAYLEYS LIFE OF COWPER.RECOLLECTIONS OF BRIXTON. -EARLY DIFFICULTIES. -AMADIS OF GAUL. -THE ATLANTIC A GOOD LETTER CARRIER.- HOME POLITICS. SCOTTISH BORDER BALLADS. CUMBERLAND'S PLAYS. PLAN FOR A BIBLIOTHECA BRITAN-1802, 1803. NICA. So passed the close of the year. The commencement of a new one was saddened by his mother's last illness. She had joined them in London, and a few weeks only elapsed before very alarming symptoms appeared; the best advice availed not, she sank rapidly, and was released on the 5th of January, 1802, being in the fiftieth year of her age. My father was deeply affected at her death; for though in childhood he had experienced but little of her care and attention, having been so early, as it were, adopted by his aunt, he had had the happiness of adding much to her comfort and support during her later years. "In her whole illness," he writes to his brother Henry, "she displayed a calmness, a suppression of complaint, a tenderness towards those around her, quite accordant with her whole life. It is a heavy loss. I did not know how severe the blow was till it came."* The following letter communicates the tidings of her death to his friend Mr. Wynn; and, though presenting a painful picture, is yet one of those which let in so much light upon the character of the writer, that the reader will not wish it to have been withheld. To C. W. W. Wynn, Esq. "My dear Wynn, 56 Saturday, Jan. 9. 1802. "You will not be surprised to learn that I have lost my mother. Early on Tuesday morning there came on that difficulty of breathing which betokened death: till then all had been easy; for the most part she had slept, and, when waking, underwent no pain but that wretched sense of utter weakness; but then there was the struggle and sound in the throat, and the deadly appearance of the eyes, that had lost all their tranquillity. She asked for laudanum; I dropt some, but with so unsteady a hand, that I knew not how much; she saw the colour of the water, and cried, with a stronger voice than I had heard during her illness,That's nothing, Robert! thirty drops -six and thirty!' "It relieved her. She would not suffer me to * Jan. 6. 1802. remain by her bedside; that fearful kindness towards 'Go down, She knew, and me had, throughout, distinguished her. my dear; I shall sleep presently!' I knew, what that sleep would be. However, I bless God the last minutes were as easy as death can be; she breathed without effort, breath after breath weaker, till all was over. I was not then in the room; but, going up to bring down Edith, I could not but look at her to see if she was indeed gone; was against my wish and will, but I did look. it "We had been suffering for twelve hours, and the moment of her release was welcome: like one whose limb has just been amputated, he feels the immediate ceasing of acute suffering; the pain of the wound soon begins, and the sense of the loss continues through life. I calmed and curbed myself, and forced myself to employment; but, at night, there was no sound of feet in her bedroom, to which I had been used to listen, and in the morning it was not my first business to see her. I had used to carry her her food, for I could persuade her better than any one else to the effort of swallowing it. "Thank God, it is all over! Elmsley called on me and offered me money if I needed it; it was a kindness that I shall remember. Corry had paid me a second quarter, however. "I have now lost all the friends of my infancy and childhood. The whole recollections of my first ten years are connected with the dead. There lives no one who can share them with me. It is losing so much of one's existence. I have not been yielding to, or rather indulging, grief; that would have been folly. I have read, written, talked; Bedford has been often with me, and kindly. "When I saw her after death, Wynn, the whole appearance was so much that of utter death, that the first feeling was as if there could have been no world for the dead; the feeling was very strong, and it required thought and reasoning to recover my former certainty, that as surely we must live hereafter, as all here is not the creation of folly or of chance. God bless you! Yours affectionately, ROBERT SOUTHEY." The next few months passed by without the occurrence of any circumstance worthy of record; his official "duties," which appear to have been more nominal than real, being only varied by a short visit to Mr. William Taylor at Norwich. His spirits had not recovered the shock they received from his mother's death; and it was plain that, however easy and profitable was the appointment he held, it was not sufficiently suited to him to induce him long to retain it, although it afforded him a large share of time for his literary pursuits. Of the present course of these the following letter will give sufficient information: To Grosvenor C. Bedford, Esq. "Dear Grosvenor, "London, March 30. 1802. "I had wondered at your silence, which Corry's servant made longer than it else had been, bringing me your letter only yesterday. The Southey Gazette is happily barren of intelligence, unless you will hear with interest that I yesterday bought the Scriptores Rerum Hispanicarum, after a long search that the day before, my boots came home from the cobler's that the gold leaf which Carlisle stuft into my tooth is all come out and that I have torn my best pantaloons. So life is passing on, and the growth of my History satisfies me that it is not passing altogether unprofitably. One acquaintance drops in to-day, another to-morrow; the friends whom I have here look in often, and I have rather too much society than too little. Yet, I am not quite the comfortable man I should wish to be; the lamentable rambling to which I am doomed, for God knows how long, prevents my striking root any where, and we are the better as well as the happier for local attachment. Now do I look round, and can fix upon no spot which I like better than another, except for its mere natural advantages. 'Tis a res damnabilis, Bedford, to have no family ties that one cares about. And so much for the Azure Fiends, whom I shall now take the liberty of turning out of the room. I am busy |