Encloses letter from Southey. PE has asked what he should think about the attack on Copenhagen (part of Napoleon's coalition). CW is against, and thinks the British should rather bolster the Portuguese by placing a squadron in the Tagus and thus deter a French invasion (Portugal is closer to Ireland). The Protestant majority to propose measures of concession to the Catholics - otherwise, according to the Primate, Ireland cannot be saved. Asks PE if he knows the identity of 'Peter Plymley' (letters ridiculing the opposition of country clergy to catholic emancipation - by Sydney Smith). Thanks PE for his account of Bedford (v.406) - 'he must be worked upon by feeling, for he has not solidity enough to weigh an argument.'
Cannot now accompany PE to Scotland, apparently because his unit of militia is going on duty early - hope that Napoleon will be so terrified by this that normal touring may be resumed within a year.
(To PE in Florence.) PE has apparently been having difficulties in getting cooperation in Naples - William (Richard) Hamilton, Sir William a Court and Lord Spencer have tried to improve this. Gossip about the recent elections. Sudden death in Oxford of wife's younger brother. The convictions of Francis Burdett and Henry Hunt (re Peterloo massacre). As laureate Southey has been writing a carmen funebre in English hexameters - he is pleased with it, but 'fortunately has some hesitation about publishing it.' Success of Scott's Ivanhoe - comments on its defects, but five different dramatisations appeared simultaneously on the London stage within six weeks of its publication. Monastery, however, which has just been published, is much inferior. Wife has just avoided a threatened miscarriage (? - has frequently miscarried before). Subscription for William Page's widow and family (OW and HM - died 20th September, 1819), though confined to OWW, has raised
His wife is a fortnight overdue - has been drawing a vignette of Michael Scott's grave from the Lay of the Last Minstrel, and CW asks PE's opinion of a Latin epitaph he has composed for his wife to inscribe on the tombstone. Is learning Welsh.
Arranging for books to be bound and delivered. Discussion of a Greek epigram to be inscribed on one (recording the gift of the book to a nephew, from three brothers) - Hallam has objected to one word, but CW finds the objection hypercritical and 'too Etonian.'
Perhaps 1812 - reference to Southey's article on Bell and Lancaster being amplified into a duodecimo volume (article in Quarterly Review of October 1811 republished as a pamphlet in 1812). Some\ obscure political manoeuvrings, involving the 3rd Baron Holland and the 3rd Baron Foley
