The Collected Letters of Robert Southey. Part 1: 1791-1797 A Romantic Circles Electronic Edition Southey, Robert, 1774-1843 Lynda Pratt Romantic Circles General Editor, Neil Fraistat General Editor, Steven E. Jones General Editor, Carl Stahmer Technical Editor Laura Mandell 2009-03-15 rce144 letterEEd.26.144 Romantic Circles, http://www.rc.umd.edu, University of Maryland College Park, MD March 15, 2009

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MS untraced; text is taken from Joseph Cottle, Early Recollections of the late Samuel Taylor Coleridge.. Previously published: Joseph Cottle, Early Recollections of the late Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 2 vols (London, 1837), II, pp. 3–6 [in part]. Republished, Joseph Cottle, Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey (London, 1847), pp. 191–93 [in part].Dating note: The dating of this letter is based on Joseph Cottle’s, however it is possible that it was begun at a slightly earlier time and continued on Tuesday 15 December.

These letters were edited with the assistance of Carol Bolton, Tim Fulford and Ian Packer

For permission to publish the text of MSS in their possession, the editor wishes to thank the Beinecke Rare Books and Manuscript Library, Yale University; Berg Collection of English and American Literature, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations; the Bodleian Library Oxford University; the British Library; Boston Public Library; the Syndics of Cambridge University Library; the Syndics of the Fitzwilliam Museum Cambridge; Haverford College, Connecticut; the Historical Society of Pennsylvania; the Hornby Library, Liverpool Libraries and Information Services; the Houghton Library, Harvard University; the John Rylands Library, Manchester; the Kenneth Spencer Research Library, University of Kansas; Luton Museum (Bedfordshire County Council); Massachusetts Historical Society; McGill University Library; the National Library of Scotland; the Newberry Library, Chicago; the New York Public Library (Pforzheimer Collections); the Pierpont Morgan Library, New York; the Public Record Offices of Bedford, Suffolk (Bury St Edmunds) and Northumberland, the Master and Fellows of Trinity College, Cambridge; the Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle upon Tyne; the Trustees of the William Salt Library, Stafford, the Wisbech and Fenland Museum; the University of Virginia Library.

A research grant from the British Academy made much of the archival work possible, as did support from the English Department of Nottingham Trent University.

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144. Robert Southey to Joseph Cottle [fragment], [possibly begun before 15 December 1795] MS: MS untraced; text is taken from Joseph Cottle, Early Recollections of the late Samuel Taylor Coleridge.Previously published: Joseph Cottle, Early Recollections of the late Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 2 vols (London, 1837), II, pp. 3–6 [in part]. Republished, Joseph Cottle, Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey (London, 1847), pp. 191–93 [in part].Dating note: The dating of this letter is based on Joseph Cottle’s, however it is possible that it was begun at a slightly earlier time and continued on Tuesday 15 December.
Corunna,
Dec. 15th, 1795.

Indeed my dear friend, it is strange that you are reading a letter from me at this time, and not an account of our Shipwreck. We left Falmouth on Tuesday mid-day; the wind was fair till the next night, so fair that we were within twelve hours’ sail of Corunna; it then turned round, blew a tempest, and continued so till the middle of Saturday. Our dead lights were up fifty hours, and I was in momentary expectation of death. You know what a situation this is. I forgot my sickness, and though I thought much of the next world, thought more of those at Bristol, who would daily expect letters; daily be disappointed, and at last learn from the newspapers, that the Lauzarotte had never been heard of.

Of all things it is most difficult to understand the optimism of this difference of language; the very beasts of the country do not understand English. Say ‘poor fellow’ to a dog, and he will probably bite you; the cat will come if you call her ‘Meeth-tha,’ but ‘puss’ is an outlandish phrase she has not been accustomed to; last night I went to supper to the fleas, and an excellent supper they made; and the cats serenaded me with their execrable Spanish: to lie all night in Bowling-Green Lane, Cottle adds a footnote indicating that this was a name given by Southey to a wet, rocky path they had travelled along during an ill-fated expedition to Tintern Abbey in 1795. See Early Recollections, 2 vols (London, 1837), I, p. 46. would be to enjoy the luxury of soft and smooth lying.

At sight of land a general shaving took place; no subject could be better for Bunbury,William Henry Bunbury (1750–1811; DNB), artist and caricaturist. Southey had been at school with his son Charles John Bunbury (1772–1798). than a Packet cabin taken at such a moment. For me, I am as yet whiskered, for I would not venture to shave on board, and have had no razor on shore till this evening. Custom-house officers are more troublesome here than in England, I have however got every thing at last; you may form some idea of the weather we endured; thirty fowls over our head were drowned; the ducks got loose, and ran with a party of half naked Dutchmen into our cabin; ’twas a precious place, eight men lying on a shelf much like a coffin. Mr. Wahrendoff,Unidentified. a Swede, was the whole time with the bason close under his nose.

The bookseller’s shop was a great comfort; the Consul here has paid me particular attentions, and I am to pass to-morrow morning with him, when he will give me some directions concerning Spanish literature. He knows the chief literary men in England, and did know BrissotJacques Pierre Brissot (1754–1793), a leading Girondist, who was executed in October 1793. and Petion.Jérôme Pétion de Villeneuve (1756–1794), writer, politician and Girondist, who committed suicide in 1794. Of the dramatic poet whom Coates’sPossibly a reference to the actor Robert Coates (1772–1848; DNB). friend ZimbernattPossibly a mistranscription by Joseph Cottle of ‘Gimbernatt’. If so, it probably refers either to the Spanish geologist Carlos de Gimbernat (1768–1834), or (though less likely) to his father, the physician Antonio de Gimbernat (1734–1816). mentioned as rivalling Shakespeare, I hear nothing; that young Spaniard seems to exaggerate or rather to represent things like a warm hearted young man, who believes what he wishes. The father-in-law of TallienFrancisco Cabarrús, Conde de Cabarrús (1752–1810), a banker. His daughter was married to the French politician Jean-Lambert Tallien (1767–1820), a Jacobin who had been instrumental in overthrowing Robespierre in 1794 and was prominent in the Convention (1794–1795). is a banker, what you call a clever fellow; another word (says the most sensible man here) for a cheat; the court and the clergy mutually support each other, and their combined despotism is indeed dreadful, yet much is doing; Jardine is very active; he has forwarded the establishment of schools in the Asturias with his Spanish friends. Good night, they are going to supper. Oh, their foul oils and wines!

Tuesday morning. I have heard of hearts as hard as rocks, and stones, and adamants, but if ever I write upon a hard heart, my simile shall be as inflexible, as a bed in a Spanish Posada; we had beef steaks for supper last night, and a sad libel upon beef steaks they were. I wish you could see our room; a bed in an open recess, one just moved from the other corner. RaynsfordMr Raynsford (first name and dates unknown), a companion of Southey’s during some of his time in Spain and Portugal in 1795–1796. packing his trunk; Maber shaving himself; tables and chairs; looking glass hung even too high for a Patagonian, the four evangelists, &c. &c. the floor beyond all filth, most filthy.

I have been detained two hours since I began to write, at the custom house. Mr. Cottle, if there be a custom house to pass through, to the infernal regions, all beyond must be, comparatively, tolerable. * * * * * * *

Adieu, Robert Southey.