_October 17._--At the time the above was written the fleet was getting
under way, and was to rendezvous at Syracuse, where it was to be joined
by the troops from Egypt, who were already at Messina. Colonel Campbell
had no idea of the destination of the expedition. An order has since
gone out for its recall to Sicily.
“ELIZABETH” TRANSPORT, MEDITERRANEAN SEA,
240 miles from Gibraltar. Foul wind, fresh.
_November 29, 1807._ 30 days at sea.
MY DEAREST LOUISA--I know nothing more efficacious in my present
misery than writing to you, by which for the moment I may lose the
consciousness of it. Do not be alarmed; they are only the miseries
of this restless element and stinking prison to which I allude.
On leaving Sicily some one persuaded me that our undoubted
destination was Palermo. When that was passed, we all thought
Lisbon the mark. Now we learn by the _Minstrel_ (which spoke the
_Queen_ about ten days ago) that the Prince Regent of Portugal has
declared against us; and I am inclined to think that this event may
make the object of this army a secret to Sir John Moore himself;
but Brazil is the general speculation. For my part I think our
return more likely, as it appears of increasing importance to rivet
Sicily as our perpetual colony--a measure which I am persuaded
would be unattended with difficulty in the execution, and, as far
as I can judge, filled with advantage in the end.
But leave we this to the wise, while we content ourselves with
ourselves.
I find complaints about not writing so unavailing that I am quite
puzzled how to act. I will have no letter that can be written
in a day; I will have a journal! a compilation! Why do I see
others--Colonel Campbell, for instance--receive packet upon packet
copiously filled? Do you think that because he is a great man his
friends write to him about State affairs, which are better treated
in the papers--or Philosophy, or History perhaps? No, no; they
write to him those heaps of gossip which are interesting only to
him, but which of course delight him a thousand times more than
any other subjects. Those incidents, dear Lou, which you think too
trivial to send two thousand miles, never considering that domestic
anecdotes so many thousand miles as they travel are so many
thousand times more valuable to a man of affections than if sent to
him a trifling distance, which you would not scruple to do.
It surprises me the more that you, my dearest lass, are silent, who
write with such apparent facility and impress your expressions with
the graces of your nature--the true secret to make correspondence
delightful--when that which I have long loved in yourself breathes
through your letters and gives them the air of your conversation.
I therefore recommend that you would keep a regular journal, enough
to make me an immense letter once a month; and don’t be particular
about a subject, so as you talk about what is actually going on
amongst you. If “Molly Morley be brave to what she war,” it is
very interesting to hear so, and if you still keep your taste for
barley sugar! which I doubt not! But Brookes’ exploits must always
be productive, with his badgers and things, and I thank you again
for those anecdotes. I wrote the lad a letter some time ago. How I
long to see him! Nobody makes me laugh half so much as he does, and
I love a hearty laugh.
But my home letters feel always so skinny between the finger and
thumb that I am always sure there cannot be much in them, and every
line I read I grudge, for fear of coming to the end. When once I
do get home what a zest will my absence give to every blessing;
for whereever I go or whatever I see, I may say with the feeling
Goldsmith--
My heart, untravelled, fondly turns to thee,
Still wanders o’er the peaceful scenes I love,
And drags a lengthening chain at each remove.
I long incessantly to return to the bosom of that family to which
may be applied the words of a less celebrated poet--
Nor last, tho’ noticed last by me,
Appears that happy family,
No pen can do strict justice by,
And mine should be the last to try--
Wher’ever going--there approved
And only known to be beloved.
COUCH, canto ii.
This letter will probably be concluded from Gibraltar, where I may
have a better idea of my destination. At present I am tired out
with this tedious passage and tossing about from one side of the
cabin to the other. The soup in my lap! and my fist in the pudding.
Oh dear! Oh dear! But now, please Neptune, we may have a fair wind,
and may run into Gibraltar in two or three days. The only amusement
on board ship is light reading and making verses. It is quite
impossible to bore.
Since I came on board I have read with a good deal of attention
for the first time Dryden’s Virgil and Pope’s Homer, from which in
themselves I did not derive half so much pleasure as the conviction
of Milton’s decided superiority to both.
A man reading a translation cannot of course judge of the language
or numbers of the original, but these I believe are not of the
first consequence, and Pope is generally esteemed a greater master
of both than Milton (though I am myself quite of a contrary
opinion); but it is in the thoughts that Milton so astonishingly
surpasses, I think, both Homer and Virgil; for surely nobody who
reads _Paradise Lost_, and the _Iliad_ by Pope, can doubt how
cumbersome rhyme is to an epic poem, or how much it relaxes the
energy of the verse, or how much grander a translation of Homer
Milton could have furnished than that for which we are so greatly
obliged to Pope. I prefer the _Odyssey_ to the _Iliad_, and the
_Georgics_ to the _Æneid_, for the latter is something like a
servile imitation of the Greek.
By the way, if you have never read Boswell’s _Life of Johnson_,
let me recommend you to a most delicious entertainment. Although
the biographer portrays himself an inconceivable goose, I never
met with anything so interesting as his book, nor so wonderful as
the conversation and universal wisdom of Johnson, whom he will
never believe to be a coward, though it were proved in fifty
thousand courts--and this indissoluble attachment is with me called
rectitude of heart.
* * * * *
GIBRALTAR, _December 4, 1807_.
After a most unpleasant passage of thirty-six days, we arrived here
on the 1st inst. We have received no intelligence of any sort. Sir
John Moore has sailed alone to the westward, and it is supposed
that his object is to concert what may be best, by what he may find
to have happened at Lisbon. All thoughts of South America seem to
have subsided; and if in the end we do return, our advance and
enterprise do not seem to be yet quashed, from the orders which the
General gives us.
I have been much gratified by a letter from the mother of my
friend,[14] promising that the epitaph I sent should be placed
on his tomb, and professing to have derived much comfort from my
sympathy, and from the affectionate tribute paid to her son’s
memory. It has in a manner set my heart at rest on this melancholy
subject, for there is a great mental satisfaction, if no solid
sense, in the consideration that I have performed the last sad duty
to his ashes, by establishing a little register of his virtues and
our friendship, which otherwise would have sunk with me and those
who loved him into oblivion, the idea of which is horrible.
_5th December._--The mail closes to-morrow and I have no time
to alter or peruse anything--so take it as it is--it’s just a
talk.--Yours,