[228] “The Beguines I had looked upon as a religious establishment, and the only good one of its kind. When my brother was a prisoner at Brest, the sick and wounded were attended by nurses, and these women had made themselves greatly beloved and respected.” Southey to Rickman, January 9, 1800. Life and Correspondence, ii. 46. It is well known that Southey advocated the establishment of Protestant orders of Sisters of Mercy.
[229] In a letter from Southey to Coleridge, dated February 15, 1800 (unpublished), he proposes the establishment of a Magazine with signed articles. But a “History of the Levelling Principle,” which Coleridge had suggested as a joint work, he would only publish anonymously.
[230] See Letter from Southey to Coleridge, December 27, 1799. Life and Correspondence, ii. 35.
[231] “Concerning the French, I wish Bonaparte had staid in Egypt and that Robespierre had guilloteened Sieyès. These cursed complex governments are good for nothing, and will ever be in the hands of intriguers: the Jacobins were the men, and one house of representatives, lodging the executive in committees, the plain and common system of government. The cause of republicanism is over, and it is now only a struggle for dominion. There wants a Lycurgus after Robespierre, a man loved for his virtue, and bold and inflexible, who should have levelled the property of France, and then would the Republic have been immortal—and the world must have been revolutionized by example.” From an unpublished letter from Southey to Coleridge, dated December 23, 1799.
[232] “Alas, poor human nature! Or rather, indeed, alas, poor Gallic nature! For Γραῖοι ἀεὶ μαῖδες the French are always children, and it is an infirmity of benevolence to wish, or dread, aught concerning them.” S. T. C., Morning Post, December 31, 1797; Essays on His Own Times, i. 184.
[233] See Poetical Works, Appendix K, pp. 544, 545. Editor’s Note, pp. 646-649.
“The winter Moon upon the sand
A silvery Carpet made,
And mark’d the sailor reach the land—
And mark’d his Murderer wash his hand
Where the green billows played!”
Annual Anthology, 1800: “The Haunted Beach,” sixth stanza, p. 256.
[235] These letters, under the title of “Monopolists” and “Farmers,” appeared in the Morning Post, October 3-9, 1800. Coleridge wrote the first of the series, and the introduction to No. III. of “Farmers,” “In what manner they are affected by the War” Essays on His Own Times, ii. 413-450; Thomas Poole and his Friends, ii. 15, 16.