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 rce57 letterEEd.26.57 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.

Tipped into a graingerised copy of The English Bards and Scotch Reviewers, by Lord Byron. Illustrated with Portraits and Views, the First and Fourth Editions, with the alterations from the Fifth Edition (London, 1811), pp. [185–6], Hornby Library, Liverpool City Libraries. Not previously published.

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
57. Robert Southey to Miss Seward, 18 September 1793 Address: Miss Seward/ Sapey/ near Clifton/ WorcestershirePostmark: SE/ 20/ 93MS: Tipped into a graingerised copy of The English Bards and Scotch Reviewers, by Lord Byron. Illustrated with Portraits and Views, the First and Fourth Editions, with the alterations from the Fifth Edition (London, 1811), pp. [185–6], Hornby Library, Liverpool City LibrariesUnpublished.
Brixton Causeway.
Wednesday Sept. 18th. 1793 Dear Madam have you never seen A Lady’s lap dog on the green Run with her glove away? And toss his playful head in air And snarl & shake & bite & tear Quite angry in his play. On top the hedge he drags his prize And there the bristled hedge-hog lies — The lap dog stands at bay Now backward leaps now forward goes — And after he has prickd his nose Drops tail & runs away. Dear Madam — now apply to me This very proper simile. The ode you wish, the hog — Oft as I try to strike the strain I try & try & try in vain Altho no puppy-dog. Not seldom will some glove-like toy The vacant harmless hour employ The vacant hour may please — But sooth to say I deem unfit My odd unfashioned rambling wit To strike at themes like these. Let Historys eventful page Record to every future age A CordèsCharlotte Corday (1768–1793) who, on 13 July 1793, stabbed Jean Paul Marat (1743–1793) to death in his bath. She was guillotined four days later. honord name — Adown the rapid stream of time The heroines praise shall sail sublime And reach the port of Fame. Meantime my little slender boat On Times rough sea shall lightly float And glide the billows oer Spread out the wide-embosom’d sail Swift said along before the gail Then sink to rise no more.

—————

Your request my Dear Madam at once flattered & mortified me — fully sensible of the honor you did me in making it, I could not feel otherwise than mortified at my own incapability. do not however imagine that this proceeds from any dislike to Charlotte Cordè — to me she appears not inferiour to BrutusMarcus Junius Brutus (85–42 BC), one of the assassins of Gaius Julius Caesar (100/102– 44 BC). & I firmly believe what she herself avowed that no one but a Republican could have accomplished so glorious a deed. a few centuries hence some Bard may celebrate her with safety — when Time has thrown his sacred viel over history & Fancy may pry into it unrestraind.

you see how I attempt to excuse myself — i[MS obscured] reality any recent event ties down Imagination too much — the Poet cannot ornament with safety.

be kind enough to accept of these excuses — & my best respect to Mrs Seward — Miss S & Mr SeverneFrancis Severn (c. 1760/61–1828), Rector of Abberley, Worcestershire, 1780–1828. with many thanks for the favors I have receivd. you will [MS torn] good enough to make my acknowledgements to all friends who may enquire for me.

your much obliged humble servant Robert Southey.

I wrote to Edmund at Aberistwyth & fear the letter did not reach him as he has been so long silent.