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 rce240 letterEEd.26.240 Romantic Circles, http://www.rc.umd.edu, University of Maryland College Park, MD March 15, 2009

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Houghton Library, bMS Eng 265.1 (18). Previously published: Kenneth Curry (ed.), New Letters of Robert Southey, 2 vols (London and New York, 1965), I, pp. 138–140.

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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240. Robert Southey to Joseph Cottle, 28 July [1797] Address: For/ Mr Cottle/ High Street/ BristolStamped: RINGWOODEndorsements: (89) 33; 1797MS: Houghton Library, bMS Eng 265.1 (18)Previously published: Kenneth Curry (ed.), New Letters of Robert Southey, 2 vols (London and New York, 1965), I, pp. 138–140. Friday 28 July. My dear Cottle

Herbert CroftHerbert Croft, 5th Baronet (1751–1816; DNB), had been imprisoned for debt. is in Exeter jail! I am very sorry for it — because one cannot so well attack him in that situation.

there is a French poem upon the voyage of Columbus in ten books written by Madame Boccage:Marie-Anne Fiquet, Madame du Boccage (1710–1802), La Columbiade, ou La Foi Portée au Nouveau Monde (1756). her works cannot be very scarce as she has not been dead above twenty years. should you see them in a catalogue at any time I should be glad of this poem of hers; there may be something worth transplanting in it.

The day you left us my drawings arrived from Lisbon: this was a judgement for your hurry to depart. you would have been very much pleased with them. there are above twenty, & among them a finished view of Madrid.

I have a letter from the French Captain.Captain Boutet (first name and dates unknown), whose release Southey had helped to procure. he tells me Mr BirtA friend of Joseph Cottle’s, Isaiah Birt (1758–1837) was the Minister of the Baptist Church at Plymouth Dock. Joseph Cottle was one of the booksellers responsible for distributing his A Vindication of the Baptists, in Three Letters, Addressed to a Friend in Saltash (1793). called upon him & offered him money. that the next day the Commissary sent for him & told him he was to go by the first cartel. he thanks me very much & gives me his address at Nantes.

I wrote to Danvers yesterday & gave him a message for you. you will I hope be able to send me the book by him: it is indispensably necessary for my fourth book. a very great progress has been made in the third since you left us. I am sadly in want of a good library. I shall perpetually be in want of Giraldus CambrensisThe prolific chronicler Giraldus Cambrensis (c. 1146–1220), whose Itinerarium Cambriae seu Laboriosae Baldvini Cantuariensis Archiepiscopi per Walliam Legationis Accurata Descripto Auctore Silv. Giraldo Cambrensis Southey made use of in Madoc (1805). in my Welch proceedings, he is a scarce author, & it may be very long before I meet with him. this will give me much trouble by leaving so much to insert hereafter.

Thomas desires to be remembered to you. he is about to pay us a visit, & I shall much rejoice to see him. I shall have some very fine Portugueze views from Thomas May.Either the grandfather or brother of Southey’s friend, the Lisbon merchant John May.

Since you left me I have been reading the Saint Louis of Le Moyne:Pierre Le Moyne (1602–1672), Saint Louis (1651–1658), used by Southey in the second edition of Joan of Arc (1798). an epic poem in 18 books. Le Moyne had genius — but he has introduced the most incredibly ridiculous thing in his poem. Louis is wounded with a poisoned arrow, for which there is no earthly cure, but he is healed by the waters of a fountain in which the Virgin Mary had, on the way to Egypt, washed her little boys clouts!

They tell me I am civilly wiped in that stupid poem the Pursuits of Literature.Thomas James Mathias (1753/4–1835; DNB), The Pursuits of Literature, or What You Will. A Satirical Poem in Dialogue. With Notes. Part the Second, 6th edn (London, 1798), pp. 297–298 (and note).

Do you know [MS torn] RogersSamuel Rogers (1763–1855; DNB), author of The Pleasures of Memory (1792). His first published volume was An Ode to Superstition, With Some Other Poems (1786). Southey is conflating him with the clergyman-poet Samuel Rogers (c. 1731–1790), author of Poems on Various Occasions (1782). (the Memory man) published two volumes of poems about 15 years ago? the Review says of him, when he attempts to be serious he is dull, & when he aims at wit, obscene. I think it is the Monthly for 1782.A summary of the review of Samuel Rogers, Poems on Various Occasions (1782), in the Monthly Review, 67 (August 1782), 151. he is a stupid fellow.

I must not forget to desire you to give a large copy of the Poems when finished in my name to Danvers & to Estlin. I wrote to Danvers about your copying Madoc. how is your eye? if not well enough to permit your own answering make your brother your amanuensis.

Did you go to Corfe? King John who was almost as great a scoundrel xxxx xxxxxx xxxx for his amusement**: Southey adds footnote: ‘not quite’. starved above twenty Breton Knights to death in the dungeon there. John (1167–1216; reigned 1199–1216; DNB). This story was versified in Southey’s ‘March 18th. King Edward the Martyr murdered at Corfe. Inscription for a monument at Corfe castle’, published anonymously in the Morning Post, 17 March 1798. the old villains bones were examined lately at Worcester you hear he had something to answer for tooth-drawingRaphael Holinshed (1525–1580; DNB), Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland (1577) claimed that King John extorted 10,000 marks from a Jew of Bristol by drawing one of his teeth each day until he agreed to supply the money. in the next world.

God bless you. Robert Southey