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 rce2 letterEEd.26.2 Romantic Circles, http://www.rc.umd.edu, University of Maryland College Park, MD March 15, 2009

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Huntington Library, HM 44796 . Previously published: Roland Baughman, ‘Southey the Schoolboy’, Huntington Library Quarterly, 7 (1944), 254–256.

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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2. Robert Southey to Charles Collins, 10 [–11] December 1791 Address: Mr C Collins/ Maize Hill/ Greenwich/ near/ London Stamped: BATH Endorsement: Answerd MS: Huntington Library, HM 44796 Previously published: Roland Baughman, ‘Southey the Schoolboy’, Huntington Library Quarterly, 7 (1944), 254–256.
Bath.
Saturday. December 10 – 1791. Dear Collins

The first hours of my arrival are devoted to you & you will excuse the inaccuries which fall from the pen of one tormented with a horrible head ache. Wynn will be in town Monday next see him as my substitute at Bedfords & settle whatever you think proper in my name but insist upon avowing the paper from Westminster as otherwise it must descend to oblivion & the chandlers shop. by dating it thence it will burst into notice very probably acquire correspondents & insure a good local sale. old Westminsters at Oxford & Cambridge will be glad to see some sparks of genius from their old habitation. should it fail it cannot well be worse than the Trifler The Trifler: A New Periodical Miscellany by Timothy Touchstone of St Peter’s College, Westminster (1788) was a short-lived magazine published by pupils at Westminster School. should it succeed it will retrieve the reputation of the school & establish our own. Allow me to say I do not much doubt of success. naturally sanguine in my expectations I think I may be so now with justice. Bedford Wynn & Strachey are either of them equal to any of the authors of the Trifler & if I thought my verses only equal to those in that paper I would burn every line. remember what Rough said the other day & allow my vanity not half so bad as if I affected modesty.

In my journey down a train of ideas crowded into my mind about the holyday task & I fancy I shall succeed – first invoke Winter describe his seat amongst the Andes – Iceland – the Glaciers. Lapland. Siberia, the exiles there. then paint the climate of India & the insufferable heat. happy climate of England. the pleasures of a wintry season. Christmas. the games of chess & backgammon by the fire. theatres. assemblies – dancing. & conclude with considering Winter in a moral light. I forgot to arrange Ovid Publius Ovidius Naso (43 BC–AD 17) was exiled from Rome to Tomis on the Black Sea. in exile properly. take the few lines of the beginning.

Sovereign of the shivering hall Thee o Winter thee I call Come then from thy frozen seat Come from thy secret sad retreat Come with all thy train along Come inspire the festive throng. High where the sullen Andes rear their heads There holds the hoary sire his silent reign Where aye the snow a silver mantle spreads When the hot dog star scorches all the plain. A complete version of the poem is in the Houghton Library, MS Eng 265.2.

some images from Job may be introduced here & I think I can extend it to an hundred or 150 lines without flagging.

Sunday Morning.

I shall to day send a paragraph to the Argus A radical London daily newspaper that ran between 1789–1792. It is not possible to confirm that Southey did place a paragraph in the Argus, as the issues from December 1791 have not survived. stating that a new periodical publication is to be expected shortly from Westminster – it will naturally excite the curiosity of the people & they will wait with some impatience for it. as you will see young Wynn tell him my direction that he may write & give me his. a letter directed to me at No 9 Duke Street Bath will come safe. and now as I have nothing else to say take a story I read yesterday as a true one which strikes me as an instance of more refined barbarity than any in the annals of cruelty – a prisoner in the dreary cells of the Bastile had familiarized a spider the only tenant except himself of the miserable spot. to a man secluded thus from the light of day & every living creature this reptile was a kind of mournful companion. the Keeper at length took notice of it & told the Governor – the Governor commanded him to tread upon it. Mary Wollstonecraft (1759–1797; DNB), Original Stories from Real Life (London, 1791), pp. 27–28. I have read instances of barbarity which have made my blood run cold but never did I meet with so wanton so refind a one before. I know not whether this may strike you as forcibly as it does me. an animal which time has rendered dear to one becomes as an old friend & we feel the same reluctance to part from it. I rememb[MS torn] owl died I could have cried now what must this poor wretch have felt [MS torn] companion he was ever like to have crushd to atoms by the wanton tre[MS torn] inhumanity? I certainly will introduce the story in some ode one of[MS torn]

In all probability you are tired with wading thro this epistle & as I[MS torn]

except that I shall be very glad to hear from you very often[MS torn]

yours sincerely Robert Southey.