"Would that 'Roderick' were in your hands for reviewing; I should desire no fairer nor more competent critic. But it is of little consequence what friends or enemies may do for it now; it will find its due place in time, which is slow but sure in its decisions. From the nature of my studies, I may almost be said to live in the past; it is to the future that I look for my reward, and it would be difficult to make any person who is not thoroughly intimate with me, understand how completely indifferent I am to the praise or censure of the present generation, farther than as it may affect my means of subsistence, which, thank God, it can no longer essentially do. There was a time when I was materially injured by unjust criticism; but even then I despised it, from a confidence in myself, and a natural buoyancy of spirit. It cannot injure me now, but I cannot hold it in more thorough contempt.
"Come and visit me when the warm weather returns. You can go nowhere that you will be more sincerely welcomed. And may God bless you.
"Robert Southey."
In waging war with the Lake school of poetry, the Edinburgh Review had dealt harshly with Southey. His poems of "Madoc" and "The Curse of Kehama" had been rigorously censured, and very shortly before the appearance of "Roderick," his "Triumphal Ode" for 1814, which was published separately, had been assailed with a continuance of the same unmitigated severity. The Shepherd, who knew, notwithstanding the Laureate's professions of indifference to criticism, that his nature was sensitive, and who feared that the Review would treat "Roderick" as it had done Southey's previous productions, ventured to recommend him to evince a less avowed hostility to Jeffrey, in the hope of subduing the bitterness of his censure. The letter of Southey, in answer to this counsel, will prove interesting, in connexion with the literary history of the period. The Bard of Keswick had hardly advanced to that happy condition which he fancied he had reached, of being "indulgent toward others," at least under the influence of strong provocation:—
"Keswick, 24th Dec. 1814.
"Dear Hogg,—I am truly obliged to you for the solicitude which you express concerning the treatment 'Roderick' may experience in the Edinburgh Review, and truly gratified by it, notwithstanding my perfect indifference as to the object in question. But you little know me, if you imagine that any thoughts of fear or favour would make me abstain from speaking publicly of Jeffrey as I think, and as he deserves. I despise his commendation, and I defy his malice. He crush the 'Excursion!!!'[33] Tell him that he might as easily crush Skiddaw. For myself, popularity is not the mark I shoot at; if it were, I should not write such poems as 'Roderick;' and Jeffrey can no more stand in my way to fame, than Tom Thumb could stand in my way in the street.
"He knows that he has dealt unfairly and maliciously by me; he knows that the world knows it, that his very friends know it, and that if he attacks 'Roderick' as he did 'Madoc' and 'Kehama,' it will be universally imputed to personal ill-will. On the other hand, he cannot commend this poem without the most flagrant inconsistency. This would be confessing that he has wronged me in the former instances; for no man will pretend to say that 'Madoc' does not bear marks of the same hand as 'Roderick;' it has the same character of language, thought, and feeling; it is of the same ore and mint; and if the one poem be bad, the other cannot possibly be otherwise. The irritation of the nettling (as you term it), which he has already received "Nettling is a gentle term for what he has to undergo. In due season he shall be scorpioned and rattlesnaked. When I take him in hand it shall be to dissect him alive, and make a preparation of him to be exhibited in terrorem, an example to all future pretenders to criticism. He has a forehead of native brass, and I will write upon it with aqua-fortis. I will serve him up to the public like a turkey's gizzard, sliced, scored, peppered, salted, cayanned, grilled, and bedevilled. I will bring him to justice; he shall be executed in prose, and gibbeted in verse....[34] .... "'Roderick' has made good speed in the world, and ere long I shall send you the poem in a more commodious shape,[35] for Ballantyne is at this time reprinting it. I finished my official ode a few days ago. It is without rhyme, and as unlike other official odes in matter as in form; for its object is to recommend, as the two great objects of policy, general education and extensive colonization. At present, I am chiefly occupied upon 'The History of Brazil,' which is in the press—a work of great labour. "The ladies here all desire to be kindly remembered to you. I have ordered 'The Pilgrims of the Sun,' and we look for it with expectation, which, I am sure, will not be disappointed. God bless you.—Yours very truly,