what never has been, none? At the same time this Squire, so hardy, is indignant at the idea of being ill or laid up: so one must inquire of him by some roundabout means. . . .
We had a large party here last night: Horace Smith came: like his brother James, but better looking: and said to be very agreeable. Do you [know] that he gives a dreadful account of Mrs. Southey: that meek and Christian poetess: he says, she’s a devil in temper. He told my mother so: had you heard of this? I don’t believe it yet: one ought not so soon, ought one?
Goodbye.
To W. B. Donne.
Monday.
My dear Donne,
Thompson tells me you are writing a Roman History. But you have not been asked to Lecture at the Ipswich Mechanics’ Institution, as I have—‘any subject except controversial Divinity, and party Politics.’ In the meantime I have begun Livy: I have read one book, and can’t help looking at the four thick octavos that remain—
Oh beate Sesti,
Vitæ summa brevis spem nos vetat inchoare longam. [97]
But it is very stately reading. As to old Niebuhr, it is mean to attack old legends that can’t defend
themselves. And what does it signify in the least if they are true or not? Whoever actively believed that Romulus was suckled by a wolf? But I have found in Horace a proper motto for those lumbering Germans: