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[Illustration: Portrait of Robert Southey, Esq. Poet Laurate.]
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"Portugal, Cintra, July, 1800.
My dear Cottle,
I write at a five minutes' notice. The unforeseen and unlucky departure
of my only friend gives me occasion for this letter, and opportunity to
send it. It is Miss Barker Congreve. She is a woman of uncommon talents,
with whom we have been wandering over these magnificent mountains, till
she made the greatest enjoyment of the place. I feel a heavier depression
of spirits at losing her than I have known since Tom left me at Liskard.
We are at Cintra: I am well and active, in better health than I have long
known, and till to-day, in uninterrupted gaiety at heart. I am finishing
the eleventh book of 'Thalaba' and shall certainly have written the last
before this reaches you. My Bristol friends have neglected me. Danvers
has not written, and Edith is without a line from either of her sisters.
My desk is full of materials for the literary history which will require
only the labour of arrangement and translation, on my return. I shall
have the knowledge for the great work; and my miscellaneous notes will
certainly swell into a volume of much odd and curious matter. Pray write
to me. You know not how I hunger and thirst for Bristol news. I long to
be among you. If I could bring this climate to Bristol, it would make me
a new being: but I am in utter solitude of all rational society; in a
state of mental famine, save that I feed on rocks and woods, and the
richest banquet nature can possibly offer to her worshippers. God bless
you.
Abuse Danvers for me. Remember me to Davy, and all friendly inquirers.
Yours affectionately,
Robert Southey.
P. S.--.... The zeal of the Methodists and their itinerant preachers, has
reprieved for half a century the system; but you must be aware, that
sooner or later, the Church of England will absorb all those sects that
differ only in discipline. The comfortable latitude that takes in the
Calvinist and the Arminian, must triumph. The Catholic system will
perhaps, last the longest; and bids fair to continue as a political
establishment, when all its professors shall laugh at its absurdity.
Destroy its monastic orders, and marry the priests, and the rest is a
pretty puppet-show, with the idols, and the incense, and the polytheism,
and the pomp of paganism. God bless you.