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<title type="main">The Collected Letters of Robert Southey. Part 1: 1791-1797 </title>
<title type="subordinate">A Romantic Circles Electronic Edition</title>
<author>
<name>Southey, Robert, 1774-1843</name>
</author>
<editor>Lynda Pratt</editor>
<sponsor>Romantic Circles</sponsor>
<respStmt>
<resp>General Editor, </resp>
<name>Neil Fraistat</name>
</respStmt>
<respStmt>
<resp>General Editor, </resp>
<name>Steven E. Jones</name>
</respStmt>
<respStmt>
<resp>General Editor, </resp>
<name>Carl Stahmer</name>
</respStmt>
<respStmt>
<resp>Technical Editor</resp>
<name>Laura Mandell</name>
</respStmt>
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<edition>
<date>2009-03-15</date>
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<idno type="nines">rce22</idno>
<idno type="edition">letterEEd.26.22</idno>
<publisher>Romantic Circles, http://www.rc.umd.edu, University of Maryland</publisher>
<pubPlace>College Park, MD</pubPlace>
<date when="2009-02-20">March 15, 2009</date>
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<addrLine>c/o Professor Neil Fraistat</addrLine>
<addrLine>Department of English</addrLine>
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<p>Huntington Library, HM
                        44799.  Previously  published: Roland Baughman, ‘Southey the Schoolboy’,
                            Huntington Library Quarterly, 7 (1944), 264 [in
                        part]; and Kenneth Curry (ed.), New Letters of Robert
                            Southey, 2 vols (London and New York, 1965), I, pp.
                        1–4.Dating note: Baughman gives this a tentative date of 26 August
                        1792; Curry suggests a period between 1792–summer 1793. Internal evidence
                        and the fact that the letter was written at 9 Duke Street, Bath, suggests a
                        date of summer/autumn 1792, when Southey was at his parents’
                    house.</p>
<p>These letters were edited with the assistance of Carol Bolton, Tim Fulford and Ian Packer</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
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<head>22. Robert Southey to <ref target="people.html#CollinsCharles">Charles
                        Collins</ref>, <date>[c. summer/ autumn 1792]</date>
<note place="foot" resp="editors" type="headnote">Address: M<hi rend="sup">r</hi> C Collins/
                        opposite the lying-in hospital/ Lambeth/ near/ Westminster Bridge<lb/>
                        Stamped: BATH<lb/> Postmark: [partial] 26/ 9<lb/>MS: Huntington Library, HM
                        44799<lb/>Previously published: Roland Baughman, ‘Southey the Schoolboy’,
                            <title level="j">Huntington Library Quarterly</title>, 7 (1944), 264 [in
                        part]; and Kenneth Curry (ed.), <title level="m">New Letters of Robert
                            Southey</title>, 2 vols (London and New York, 1965), I, pp.
                        1–4.<lb/>Dating note: Baughman gives this a tentative date of 26 August
                        1792; Curry suggests a period between 1792–summer 1793. Internal evidence
                        and the fact that the letter was written at 9 Duke Street, Bath, suggests a
                        date of summer/autumn 1792, when Southey was at his parents’
                    house.</note>
</head>
<lb/>
<lg type="stanza">
<l rend="indent2">
<ref target="people.html#CollinsCharles">Collins</ref>, if yet
                        remembrance can remain</l>
<l rend="indent2">If Friendship still may plead, nor plead in vain</l>
<l rend="indent2">If yet this hand is dear — attend — attend</l>
<l rend="indent2">And lay aside your Homer for your friend.</l>
</lg>
<lb/>
<lg type="stanza">
<l rend="indent2">Still still does study with unceasing rage</l>
<l rend="indent2">Devour the Grecian &amp; the Roman page?</l>
<l rend="indent2">Still shall the classics feed your greedy eyes</l>
<l rend="indent2">Whilst Ossian<note n="1" place="foot" resp="editors">The
                            controversial series of poems purportedly written by the ancient bard
                            Ossian (son of Fingal), published by James Macpherson (1736–1796; <title level="m">DNB</title>).</note> on the shelf neglected lies</l>
<l rend="indent2">Whilst Gibbon<note n="2" place="foot" resp="editors">Edward
                            Gibbon (1737–1794; <title level="m">DNB</title>), historian, whose works
                            include <title level="m">The History of the Decline and Fall of the
                                Roman Empire</title> (1776–1788).</note> with a careless look you
                        see</l>
<l rend="indent2">And Spenser’s only read by <ref target="people.html#RoughWilliam">Rough</ref> &amp; me.</l>
</lg>
<lb/>
<lg type="stanza">
<l rend="indent2">Behold yon hothouse — see each anxious hour</l>
<l rend="indent2">The curious florist guards his favorite flower —</l>
<l rend="indent2">From India Italy — no matter where</l>
<l rend="indent2">Tis placd in Englands cold ungenial air —</l>
<l rend="indent2">Too weak to stand the chilly winds that fly</l>
<l rend="indent2">Along Britannias bold &amp; bracing sky</l>
<l rend="indent2">Raisd with unceasing care in artful bed</l>
<l rend="indent2">It rears in artificial bloom its head</l>
<l rend="indent2">Some half a dozen friends the plant admire</l>
<l rend="indent2">And soon both master friends &amp; plant expire.</l>
</lg>
<lb/>
<lg type="stanza">
<l rend="indent2">Now view yon violet — its fragrance round</l>
<l rend="indent2">Perfumes the air &amp; ornaments the ground</l>
<l rend="indent2">Of every flower the sweetest &amp; the best</l>
<l rend="indent2">Each village tenant wears it in her breast.</l>
<l rend="indent2">Say <ref target="people.html#CollinsCharles">Collins</ref>
                        which is best? or which shall claim</l>
<l rend="indent2">With most desert the honord due of fame?</l>
</lg>
<lb/>
<lg type="stanza">
<l rend="indent2">The moral comes — intent the letter’d sage</l>
<l rend="indent2">Brunck<note n="3" place="foot" resp="editors">Richard François
                            Philippe Brunck (1729–1803), a French classical scholar notorious for
                            cavalier handling of the texts he edited.</note> or the Scholias<note n="4" place="foot" resp="editors">An editor who made commentaries in the
                            margins of Latin or Greek texts.</note> turns the Grecian page —</l>
<l rend="indent2">Full many a year behold him studious pore</l>
<l rend="indent2">Till sense &amp; learning can correct no more.</l>
<l rend="indent2">The new edition comes — its merit see.</l>
<l rend="indent2">Perhaps a δε for
                        μεν or
                        μεν for
                            δε!<note n="5" place="foot" resp="editors">Southey is playing games, reversing the order of the tags that every
                            student of Greek soon knows simply mean, depending on their place in the
                            sentence, ‘on the one hand’ and ‘on the other’.</note>
</l>
</lg>
<lb/>
<lg type="stanza">
<l rend="indent2">Who knows not Petrarch?<note n="6" place="foot" resp="editors">Francesco Petrarca (1304–1374), Italian poet and humanist. His
                            unfinished Latin epic <title level="m">Africa</title> was little read in
                            the eighteenth century, whilst his sonnets in Italian still commanded a
                            wide audience.</note> many a studious day</l>
<l rend="indent2">He wove intent the Latin epic lay.</l>
<l rend="indent2">The Latin lay despised forgotten lies.</l>
<l rend="indent2">Yet have his sorrows bathd the readers eyes</l>
<l rend="indent2">Yet has the Bard in native language known</l>
<l rend="indent2">Deservd &amp; gaind the immortal laurel crown.</l>
</lg>
<lb/>
<lg type="stanza">
<l rend="indent2">Why then my friend shall Genius blaze in vain</l>
<l rend="indent2">Why pour her rapid flow in Latin strain.</l>
<l rend="indent2">Canst thou my friend the narrow praise desire?</l>
<l rend="indent2">
<ref target="people.html#Doyly">D’Oyley</ref> may equal — <ref target="people.html#VincentWilliam">Vincent</ref> will admire —</l>
<l rend="indent2">Smedley<note n="7" place="foot" resp="editors">Edward Smedley
                            (1750–1825), an Usher at Westminster School 1774–1820.</note> may view
                        you with approving eyes</l>
<l rend="indent2">And Dunces ask their bible exercise!</l>
</lg>
<lb/>
<lg type="stanza">
<l rend="indent2">But say — say <ref target="people.html#CollinsCharles">Collins</ref> will the Doctors name</l>
<l rend="indent2">Expand the portals of the pile of Fame?</l>
<l rend="indent2">What from such labors can such Genius hope</l>
<l rend="indent2">When even Bentley only lives in Pope?<note n="8" place="foot" resp="editors">Richard Bentley (1662–1742; <title level="m">DNB</title>), classical scholar caricatured by Alexander Pope
                            (1688–1744; <title level="m">DNB</title>) in the <title level="m">Dunciad</title>. Bentley, infamously, published a revised
                            (presumably, he thought, improved) version of Milton’s <title level="m">Paradise Lost</title> in 1732.</note>
</l>
</lg>
<lb/>
<lg type="stanza">
<l rend="indent2">Yet deem not even Southeys dreaded strain</l>
<l rend="indent2">Holds learning useless — or thinks study vain</l>
<l rend="indent2">Tho’ he who sways with wig &amp; rod the school</l>
<l rend="indent2">Proclaims me impious insolent &amp; fool.</l>
<l rend="indent2">Yet I have felt enrapt the great delight</l>
<l rend="indent2">When Hector<note n="9" place="foot" resp="editors">In the
                                <title level="m">Iliad</title>, a Trojan hero, killed by
                            Achilles.</note> rages in the field of fight</l>
<l rend="indent2">Yes I have wept when poor &amp; tempest tost</l>
<l rend="indent2">The suffering monarch<note n="10" place="foot" resp="editors">The Greek hero Odysseus.</note> reachd his native cost —</l>
<l rend="indent2">Without one blush een I can dare relate</l>
<l rend="indent2">That I have wept when Argus<note n="11" place="foot" resp="editors">In the <title level="m">Odyssey</title>, Book 17,
                            Odysseus’ dog, who recognises his master on his return home after twenty
                            years and then dies.</note> bowd to fate.</l>
<l rend="indent2">Yet still my native tongue demands my lays</l>
<l rend="indent2">And there &amp; there alone I seek for praise —</l>
</lg>
<lb/>
<lg type="stanza">
<l rend="indent2">Let not thy once lovd friends request be vain</l>
<l rend="indent2">Write soon in verse &amp; English be the strain.</l>
<l rend="indent2">If I may beg &amp; beg without offence</l>
<l rend="indent2">That you will stoop awhile to Common Sense.<note n="12" place="foot" resp="editors">Thomas Paine (1737–1809; <title level="m">DNB</title>), <title level="m">Common Sense</title> (1776), a key
                            tract in support of the American Revolution.</note>
</l>
</lg>
<p rend="indent5"> —————</p>
<p>
<date when="1792">Monday.</date>
<address>
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<ref target="places.html#DukeStBath">No 9 Duke Street Bath</ref>
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