129. Of Southey’s Death.

The papers will have informed you, before you receive this, of poor dear Southey’s decease.  He died yesterday morning about nine o’clock.  Some little time since, he was seized with typhus fever, but he passed away without any outward signs of pain, as gently as possible.  We are, of course, not without sadness upon the occasion, notwithstanding there has been, for years, cause why all who knew and loved him should wish for his deliverance.[189]

130. Tropical Scenery:  Grace Darling:  Southey, &c.

LETTER TO LIEUTENANT-GENERAL SIR WM. GOMM.[190]

[187] Memoirs, ii. 385.

[188] Extract of letter to John Peace, Esq., Dec. 12, 1842:  ibid. ii. 390-1.

[189] Extract of letter to Nephew, March 22, 1843:  ibid. ii. 391.

[190] The venerable and illustrious soldier has only very recently died.  Within ten days of his death he wrote the present Editor tenderly and reverentially of Wordsworth.  G.

Rydal Mount, March 24. 1843.

MY DEAR SIR WILLIAM,

Nothing should have prevented my answering your kind letter from the Cape, long ago, but the want of matter that seemed worth sending so far, unless I confined myself to what you must he well assured of, my sincere esteem and regard for yourself and Lady Gomm, and the expression of good wishes for your health and happiness.  I am still in the same difficulty, but cannot defer writing longer, lest I should appear to myself unworthy of your friendship or respect.

You describe the beauties of Rio Janeiro in glowing colours, and your animated picture was rendered still more agreeable to me by the sight, which I had enjoyed a little before, of a panorama of the same scene, executed by a friend of mine, who in his youth studied at the Academy with a view to practise painting as a profession.  He was a very promising young artist, but having a brother a Brazilian merchant, he changed his purpose and went to Rio, where he resided many years, and made a little fortune, which enabled him to purchase and build in Cumberland, where I saw his splendid portrait of that magnificent region.  What an intricacy of waters, and what boldness and fantastic variety in the mountains!  I suppose, taking the region as a whole, it is scarcely anywhere surpassed.

If the different quarters of the globe should ever become subject to one empire, Rio ought to be the metropolis, it is so favoured in every respect, and so admirably placed for intercourse with all the countries of the earth.  Your approach to the Cape was under awful circumstances, and, with three great wrecks strewn along the coast of the bay, Lady Gomm’s spirit and fortitude, as described by you, are worthy of all admiration, and I am sure she will sympathise with the verses I send, to commemorate a noble exploit of one of her sex.  The inhumanity with which