Chapter XVII: Letter 140: To Davy

Grasmere, Kendal, Wednesday, December, 1808.

My dear Davy,

* * * My health and spirits are improved beyond my boldest hopes. A very painful effort of moral courage has been remunerated by tranquillity--by ease from the sting of self-disapprobation. I have done more for the last ten weeks than I had done for three years before. Among other things, I wrote what the few persons who saw it thought a spirited and close reasoned letter to Mr. Jeffery, respecting the introductory paragraph of the _Edinburgh_[16] review of your paper; but I was earnestly dissuaded from sending it, as from an act of undeserved respect--as from too great a condescension even on my part; and secondly (and which was of more weight with me), as an act involving you more or less, whatever I might say, and likely to be attributed to your instigation, direct or indirect, as it is not unknown that I have been on terms of intimacy with you. Yet I own I should be sorry to have it lost, as I think it is the most eloquent and manly composition I ever produced. If you think it worth the postage, it shall be transcribed, and I will send you the original. The passage in question was the grossest and most disgusting _kick-up_ of envy that has deformed even the _E. R._ Had the author had the truth before his eyes, and purposely written in diametrical opposition, he could not have succeeded better. It is high time that the spear of Ithuriel should touch the toad at the ear of the public.

I would willingly inform you of my chance of success in obtaining a sufficient number of subscribers, so as to justify me prudentially in commencing the work (_The Friend_), but I do not at present possess grounds even for a sane conjecture. It will depend in a great measure on the zeal of my friends, on which I confess, not without remorse, I have more often cast water than oil. Here a conceit about the Greek fire might come in, but the simile is somewhat _tritical_.

Wordsworth has nearly finished a series of masterly essays on our late and present relations to Portugal and Spain. Southey is sending to the press his _History of Brazil_, and at the same time (the indefatigable!) composing a defence of religious missions to the East, etc. Excepting the introduction (which, however, I have heard highly praised, but myself think it shallow, flippant, and ipse dixitish), I have read few books with such deep interest as the _Chronicle of the Cid_. The whole scene in the Cortes is superior to any equal part of any epic poem, save the _Paradise Lost--me saltem judice_. The deep glowing, yet ever self-controlled passion of the Cid--his austere dignity, so finely harmonizing with his pride of loyal humility--the address to his swords, and the burst of contemptuous rage in his final charge and address to the Infantes of Carrion, and his immediate recall of his mind--are beyond all ordinary praises. It delights me to be able to speak thus of a work of Southey's! I am so often forced to quarrel with his want of judgment and his unthinkingness--which, Heaven knows, I never do without pain, and the vexation of a disappointed wish. But I am encroaching on time more valuable than my own, and I, too, have enough to do. May God grant you health and the continuance of your intellectual vigour!

S. T. COLERIDGE.