'Summer is not the season for this country. Coleridge says, and says well, that then it is like a theatre at noon. There are no goings on under a clear sky.... The very snow, which you would perhaps think must monotonize the mountains, gives new varieties; it brings out their recesses and designates all their inequalities, it impresses a better feeling of their height, and it reflects such tints of saffron, or fawn, or rose-colour to the evening sun. O Maria Santissima! Mount Horeb with the glory upon its summit might have been more glorious, but not more beautiful than Skiddaw in his pelisse of ermine. I will not quarrel with frost, though the fellow has the impudence to take me by the nose. The lakeside has such ten thousand charms; a fleece of snow or of the hoar-frost lies on the fallen trees or large stones; the grass-points, that just peer above the water, are powdered with diamonds; the ice on the margin with chains of crystal, and such veins and wavy lines of beauty as mock all art; and, to crown all, Coleridge and I have found out that stones thrown upon the lake, when frozen, made a noise like singing birds, and when you whirl on it a large flake of ice, away the shivers slide, chirping and warbling like a flight of finches.'—A letter of Robert Southey's.
WINE STREET, BRISTOL.
The Birthplace of Robert Southey.
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IIX
GEORGE THE FOURTH'S LAUREATE
ROBERT SOUTHEY
'I could say much of Mr. Southey, at this time; of his constitutional cheerfulness, of the polish of his manners, of his dignity, and at the same time of his unassuming deportment, as well as of the general respect which his talent, conduct, and conversation excited.'—Joseph Cottle, Southey's first publisher.