I GRAHAME to ROBERT SOUTHEY, KESWICK. 3¼pp. 4to.

Edinburgh Der 15

My dear Sir,

Severe illness, business accumulated by inability to overtake it at the
proper time, absence from home and latterly a long continued cold with a hectic
pulse have hitherto prevented me from answering your kind & interesting letter.
I have had besides a terrible depression of spirits caused no doubt by bodily
weakness. I was at one time so sunk as to be unable to do any thing that I was
not compelled to do. Writing verses (that idle trade) was the only occupation
for wch I retained some relish. I am now in tolerable health tho still rather
shadowy.

I know nothing of Boyers' present plans not having heard from him for
several months. I suspect he is whimsical & unsteady, all eagerness at one time
& coldness at another. I think he has some sense and therefore take it for
granted that he will wish to avail himself of what you have written. - I know
Thomas Clarkson tho I have not the honour of his intimacy. He always seemed to
me to abstract himself too much from common things. His favourite pursuit
whatever it was (when it was the abolition his devotion to it was most praise-
worthy) engrossed all his words thoughts & almost his books. When I saw him
last he was completely absorbed or rather estranged in his portraiture
of Quakerism. He is well worthy however of your meditated or rather I should say
half intended strain. In my attempt to add my mite of praise to the principal
abolitionists I think I have failed. I was ... & lethargic when I wrote it. Th
The names are hurried over and I fear the shotness of my encomiums is not
compensated by their pit h.

I return you many thanks for Madoc. The interest & delight I felt in reading
it buoyed up my sinking spirits for a whole week. I was a little disconcerted
however on discovering a line which charges me with plagiarism. I cannot hit
upon the passage nor do I remember the words but I recollect you paint the
vlulture as perched on a floating corpse. In the Birds of Scotland I have the
same idea applied to the cormorant and the Birds of Scotland were published
after Madoc. Now altho I think it probable that I had read Madoc before
I had written the line to which I allude I do solemnly assure you that I had
not the slightest conscious recollection of your vluture. There is another
book(ascribed to you) that amused me more than Madoc - The Travels of
a Spaniard in England. It is lively witty and picturesque, aye & full of
sound sense. What a description of Keswick lake. I have heard of pictures
surpassing the original but they must have been portraits. Certain however it is
that the sweet lake is more beautiful in the picture which I saw than it was in
the aspect which I had of it. It was a not a favourable one to be sure. How
my heart thrilled with accord to every word in the latter about Naval and in
the preceding one about military punishments. On this last subject I have
myself been busy. I trust the letters on manufactures (on which subject too
I have been engaged) will open the eyes of thousands. I now utterly abhor
both commerce & manufacture as they are generally carried on in this