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.
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