Westbury.
Nov 6. 1798.
My dear Sir
It is I believe nearly six months since I
have had any communication with you, or any account of you
but what the newspapers gave me. it is not however too late
to offer you my congratulations & best wishes upon the
occasion that placed your name there. [1] did you
receive a copy of Joan of Arc [2]
in May? I sent it the very day on which I left Bath for a
long journey to Yarmouth & Norwich. On my return I found my mother in
the bustle of quitting one house without having fixed upon
another to remove to. We took one at last at this place,
little more than two miles from Bristol, over Durdham Down,
& this is likely to be our home till Ediths health
can bear London air & London confinement.
My brother Tom soon recovered
from his wounds, & as soon as he had joined his ship
Lord
Bridport removed him to the Royal George. We now
shortly expect him home as the ship is at Spithead &
about to be docked. he has about six months longer to serve
& will I doubt not do well in the navy.
For myself, I am busy with a second edition
of my Letters, & with a second volume of Poems, [3] both which
will be published by Christmas. you will find in them some
tolerable ballads, & half-a-dozen Eclogues, in my own
judgement the best of my smaller pieces. at present more
time than I can either willingly or conveniently spare is
taken up in walking eight miles every day, which I do in
obedience to medical advice. I have been a good deal
indisposed, & at the heart, which is an awkward place.
they tell me I have sate too much & walked too little,
& this daily journey, for so I may call it, is my chief
prescription. it has I think already rendered the seizures I
complained of less frequent & less violent.
Lloyd is at
Cambridge, of Caius College. if you have not already seen
your acquaintance caricatured, pray send for the first
number of the Anti-Jacobine Magazine. [4] the caricature is
worth two shillings, & you will not be amused the less
for not recognizing the likeness.
I have discovered that your chronicle is no
other than Stowes, published after his death by Howes. [5]
there is a compleat copy in Ld Foleys Library, [6]
where I learnt this from the title page, & afterward
found it mentioned by Thomas Hearne. [7]
My
Mother & Edith both
desire to be remembered to you. believe me with best
wishes
yrs very truly
Robert Southey.
my direction is at Cottles.
Wine Street. Bristol.
Notes
* Address: To/ Charles Biddlecombe Esqr/ Burton/ near Ringwood/
Hampshire
Stamped: BRISTOL
MS: Columbia
University Library, Jeanne d’Arc Ms. Coll, J6 So824
Unpublished. BACK
[1] Biddlecombe had married
Catherine Lacy on 4 June 1798. The event was reported in
the Press (e.g. Express and Evening
Chronicle) on 9 June 1798. BACK
[3] A second, revised
edition of Southey’s Letters Written During a
Short Residence in Spain and Portugal was
published in 1799. Southey’s two volume collection
Poems appeared in 1799: volume one
was a third edition of the collection first published in
1797; volume two consisted of poems published previously
(though not under Southey’s own name) in the
Morning Post and the Monthly
Magazine or published for the first time. It
included the six ‘English Eclogues’. BACK
[4] Southey had been caricatured
as an ass in James Gillray (1757–1815;
DNB), ‘The New Morality’,
Anti-Jacobin Review and Magazine, 1
(1798), between 114 and 115. BACK
[5]
Annales; or a
general chronicle of England. Begun by John Stow ...
and Continued ... Unto the End of this Present Yeere
... by Edmund Howes, Gent. appeared in a
number of updated editions between 1607 and 1631. BACK
[6] Thomas Foley, 3rd Lord Foley
(1780–1833). The family Library was at Witley Court,
Worcestershire. Southey probably visited it during his
stay in Herefordshire in August–September 1798. BACK
[7] Thomas Hearne (1678–1735;
DNB), Ductor Historicus: or, A
Short System of Universal History, and an
Introduction to the Study of it, 2nd edn, 2
vols (London, 1704–1705), I, p. 208. BACK
