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 rce211 letterEEd.26.211 Romantic Circles, http://www.rc.umd.edu, University of Maryland College Park, MD March 15, 2009

Material from the Romantic Circles Website may not be downloaded, reproduced or disseminated in any manner without authorization unless it is for purposes of criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, and/or classroom use as provided by the Copyright Act of 1976, as amended.

Unless otherwise noted, all Pages and Resources mounted on Romantic Circles are copyrighted by the author/editor and may be shared only in accordance with the Fair Use provisions of U.S. copyright law. Except as expressly permitted by this statement, redistribution or republication in any medium requires express prior written consent from the author/editors and advance notification of Romantic Circles. Any requests for authorization should be forwarded to Romantic Circles:>

Romantic Circles c/o Professor Neil Fraistat Department of English University of Maryland College Park, MD 20742 fraistat@umd.edu

By their use of these texts and images, users agree to the following conditions: These texts and images may not be used for any commercial purpose without prior written permission from Romantic Circles. These texts and images may not be re-distributed in any forms other than their current ones.

Users are not permitted to download these texts and images in order to mount them on their own servers. It is not in our interest or that of our users to have uncontrolled subsets of our holdings available elsewhere on the Internet. We make corrections and additions to our edited resources on a continual basis, and we want the most current text to be the only one generally available to all Internet users. Institutions can, of course, make a link to the copies at Romantic Circles, subject to our conditions of use.

Bristol Reference Library, B20871. Previously published: Kenneth Curry (ed.), New Letters of Robert Southey, 2 vols (London and New York, 1965), I, pp. 123–124.

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.

All quotation marks and apostrophes have been changed: " for “," for ”, ' for ‘, and ' for ’.

Any dashes occurring in line breaks have been removed.

Because of web browser variability, all hyphens have been typed on the U.S. keyboard.

Dashes have been rendered as a variable number of hyphens to give a more exact rendering of their length.

Southey's spelling has not been regularized.

Writing in other hands appearing on these manuscripts has been indicated as such, the content recorded in brackets.

& has been used for the ampersand sign.

£ has been used for £, the pound sign

All other characters, those with accents, non-breaking spaces, etc., have been encoded in HTML entity decimals.

 NINES categories for Genre and Material Form at http://www.performantsoftware.com/nines_wiki/index.php/Submitting_RDF#.3Cnines:genre.3E on 2009-02-26 Architecture Artifacts Bibliography Collection Criticism Letters Drama Life Writing Politics Folklore Ephemera Fiction History Leisure Manuscript Reference Works Humor Education Music nonfiction Paratext Perodical Philosphy Photograph Citation Family Life Poetry Religion Review Visual Art Translation Travel Book History Law Southey Letters: Biographies Southey Letters: Places Laura Mandell XSLT Transforming Averill Buchanan corrections from proofing Laura Mandell XSLT Transforming Averill Buchanan TEI Encoding
211. Robert Southey to John Prior Estlin, 9 April 1797 Address: For/ The Reverend J P Estlin/ St Michaels Hill/ BristolStamped: BRIDGE St/ WestminsterPostmark: DAP/ 10/ 97MS: Bristol Reference Library, B20871Previously published: Kenneth Curry (ed.), New Letters of Robert Southey, 2 vols (London and New York, 1965), I, pp. 123–124. Sunday April 9th— 1797.
{ Prospect Place. Newington Butts
{ No 20.
Dear Sir

I take the earliest opportunity of thanking you for your work,John Prior Estlin, The Nature and Causes of Atheism, Pointed out in a Discourse, Delivered at the Chapel in Lewin’s-Mead, Bristol. To Which are Added, Remarks on a Work, Entitled Origine de Tous Les Cultes, ou Religion Universelle. Par Dupuis, Citoyen François (1797). which was delivered to me yesterday at Johnson’s.Joseph Johnson (1738–1809; DNB), publisher and bookseller. His shop was at 72 St Paul’s Churchyard, London. I have read it with much pleasure & much attention. it is a subject often present to my mind, for I see xxxx of <many> Atheists & Sceptics, & as I never decline controversy, seldom seexx them without an argument. your discourse does not touch upon what appears to me the principal cause of Atheism, the existence of physical & moral evil, & the difficulty of reconciling its existence with that of a God powerful & benevolent. The system of Optimism, to which I assent & which I therefore profess, is not without difficulties, great & many. but every other system appears to me to have more & greater, & therefore I assent to this; to have used the word believe would have been perhaps expressing myself too strongly. Many of my friends & acquaintance believe these difficulties insuperable; I find them atheists or sceptics not because they are vain & conceited, not because the texture of their minds is coarse, but because there is evil in the world. the contemplation of the misery of others, or the endurance of their own, without giving an unnatural asperity to their characters induces them to doubt or to disbelieve the existence of that Being, who if he exists must be benevolent & powerful, & whose power could execute what his benevolence must prompt. this I believe to be the principal cause of Atheism. To answer these arguments so as effectually to overthrow them is beyond my power, such is the tyranny of the present over the future; & when I would direct the attention from individuals to the whole, I am told that an individual is every thing to himself. my mind is not adapted for methodical reasoning, & like Rousseau the answer to a question always recurs to me too late.

The eternal series is the common basis of Atheism. I always attempt to prove the necessity of an intelligent first cause, & deduce his attributes from his existence. this fort I find impregnable. the arguments from the evil in the world then become weaker when the present is merged in futurity. but the existence of a future state depends upon the benevolence of God & those arguments attack that basis.

Your work will not in all probability be read by those who are decidedly Atheistical. they are in general self-satisfied, & no man likes to have his settled opinions shaken. but it will fall into the hands of many whose scepticism inclines that way, & there I think & hope it will be useful. I will not wish you to examine the arguments upon the origin of evil in a second edition, because the subject deserves a seperate discussion, & I should gladly see another work from Mr Estlin.

Your observations upon DupuisCharles Frances Dupuis (1742–1809), French mathematician, astronomer, revolutionary and author of Origine de Tous Les Cultes, ou Religion Universelle (1795). may do great good by showing the astonishing credulity of an Atheist. have you not perhaps praised Watsons bookRichard Watson, Bishop of Llandaff (1737–1816; DNB), An Apology for Christianity in a Series of Letters Addressed to Edward Gibbon Esq., Author of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1776). Watson was also the author of an Apology for the Bible, in a Series of Letters, Addressed to Tom Paine (1796). too highly? the ablest man of my acquaintance rose from its perusal with the full conviction that Watson was himself a disbeliever.

The Christian world will probably ere long be divided into two classes — the Roman Catholics, & the Socinians or Low Arians — those who allow every thing — or nothing to authority. I have heard from one who lives much with the more able Catholics that they despise the reformed sects heartily — but are very much afraid of the Socinians. this is a curious fact.

You will I hope excuse the liberty I have taken. gratified & instructed by both your publications, forgive me if I suggest a subject that deserves a third.

our remembrances to Mrs Estlin.

Robert Southey.