310. Robert Southey to Caleb Hillier
Parry, [after early May
1798]
*
My dear Sir
I return you the print with many thanks. it is
as I imagined the same as that in Hordals book, [1] & in
the old history of the Siege of Orleans, [2] with only the omission of the
sword. [3] the picture at Orleans is
the original of all, & that I believe to xxx
be the rude production of a rude age, tho by the dress, long
after the reign of Charles 7th. [4]
I am Sir
yr obliged
Robert Southey.
Notes* Address: To/ Mr
Parry/ Catharine Place
MS: Department of Rare Books,
Special Collections and Preservation, River Campus
Libraries, University of Rochester, Robert Southey
Papers A.S727
Unpublished.
Dating note: The
brevity of the address suggests this letter was written
when Southey was in Bath. It must have been written
before Parry’s move to 27 The Circus, Bath in 1800. Most
probably the letter dates from shortly after the
publication of the second edition of Joan of
Arc in early May 1798, when Southey visited
Bath. The 1798 edition included a new frontispiece, an
engraving by Robert Hancock of Joan wielding a sword.
However, the printed text did not record the provenance
of this portrait. This omission may have led Parry to
send Southey a print of Joan that he owned as a point of
comparison and reference. In the 1806 third edition of
Joan, Southey took care to note the
frontispiece’s provenance. His note contains several
echoes of this letter to Parry. BACK [1] Jean Hordal (1542-1618),
Heroinæ Noblissimæ Ioannæ Darc Lotharingæ
Vulgo Aurelianensis Puellæ Historia
(Ponti-Mussi, 1612), p. [xii]. Hordal claimed to be
descended from a brother of Joan of Arc. BACK [2]
L’Histoire et
Discours Au Vray du Siège qui fut mis devant la
Ville d’Orléans par Les Anglois (Troyes,
1621), unpaginated. BACK [3] The
engravings in the above showed Joan wielding a sword and
were the basis for the frontispiece of Joan of
Arc (1798). BACK [4] This was further
explained by Southey in a note to Joan of
Arc, 3rd edition (London, 1806), I, p. 89n:
‘The portrait … is from a picture in the Town-hall of
Orleans … The dress is of a later age than the time of
Joan of Arc, and the countenance, beyond a doubt,
fictitious.’ Charles VII (1403-1461; King of France
1422-1461). BACK |
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