Robert Southey to Horace Walpole Bedford, 29-30 August 1796: '[Matthew] Lewis's poetry is contemptible — except the Water King — & Alonzo & Imogine — of which the story is bad — & the most striking part very inferior to what appears to me its original the Franciscan monk at the marriage of Lorenzo in the Ghost-Seer of Frederick Schiller. an author compared to whom the sublimity of Eschylus & Shakespere is little have you read Fiesco? Stodhard of Christ Church is one of the translators. you may hear something of him from Collins — if you still retain his acquaintance: with friendship I believe him totally unacquainted.'