380. Robert Southey to Thomas Southey,
12 February 1799
*
My dear Tom
My Mother
has been telling me a long story about Capt Hawker, [1] which she has
I find written to you about. I take half to be Hawkers lies
& half my
Aunts. the crime he accuses you of is defending
Charles Fox [2] – stript of all ornament the story comes
to this. My
Mother will I believe never know any of her
children well enough to seperate truth from falshood in the
gossiping about them.
I did not send my Letters before the
Poems [3] – to save expence. both are now printed,
& the first copies that are put together shall be shippd
for you. Owing to the continuance of indisposition I have
omitted keeping this term – & so avoided a cold &
weary journey, & saved the expence of it – no
unimportant consideration this last – particularly as I have
an Apothecarys bill running up.
You shall not again be so long without
hearing from me. you know that many employments allow me but
little leisure – & now my two books are done – I have
more work. the business of Chatterton of which you have
heard me speak is now to be brought forward. [4] I hope to do much for the
family. your name will be on the subscription list [5] – & you will have a valuable book
added to your floating library.
Mrs Coleridge has buried her child, &
is now with the other little boy at Martinhall. [6]
Edward was
with xxxx us about ten days.
the boy has strong genius – but he has been miserably
managed. I kept him a little under – however he is very
desirous of coming again. My Mother is
again in the Green, where I suppose the usual topic of
discourse to entertain her is your disaffection – & my
unhappy principles – “for I always said” adds my Aunt “that
Robert would be the ruin of all his brothers!”
The Income Bill has taken place – & in
fourteen days I must give in a statement of my affairs. [7] Well – well – the
faster we go, the sooner we shall reach the end of the
journey.
I hope none of these jack-ass praters will
get at your
Uncle – let them bray as they please elsewhere.
We have been buried in the snow & delayed
with the thaw. all our bottles & jugs burst with the
frost – & if I had been corked & put out at night I
might have burst too. News we have none. the loss of the
Ambuscad as you may suppose excited much surprize. [8] peace is more necessary & more
distant than ever – I look on at what passes in this world,
silently, but not without emotion, nor without hope. Lisbon
is I think in serious danger. if so my Uncle may be
expected in England: I do not think the French can possibly
be fools enough to spare it longer. that port taken, the
Mediterranean is again theirs, & Egypt safe. Nelson [9] has had better poets
than the other Admirals to celebrate him. but he will not
have a place in my Kalendar. [10]
God bless you. I write from Cottles & am
hastening home.
yrs affectionately
R Southey.
Feby. 12.
99.
When do you pass? if in May we shall meet.
Notes
* Address:
To/ Mr T. Southey/ Royal George/
Spithead./ Single
Postmark: BRISTOL/ FEB 12/
99
MS: British Library, Add MS
47890
Unpublished. BACK
[1] Captain Thomas Hawker (dates unknown), who was head of
the Impress Service in Bristol from 1793 and a neighbour
of Southey’s aunt Elizabeth Tyler. BACK
[2] The
politician Charles James Fox (1749–1806;
DNB). Fox led the group of Whigs who
opposed the war with France and favoured parliamentary
reform. BACK
[3] The second
edition of Letters Written During a Short
Residence in Spain and Portugal and the
two-volume Poems, both published in
1799. BACK
[4] Southey and Joseph Cottle’s
planned subscription edition of the works of Thomas
Chatterton (1752–1770; DNB), eventually
published in 1803. BACK
[5] In 1803 Tom Southey
was listed as a subscriber in his brother’s edition of
Chatterton. BACK
[6] Berkeley Coleridge had
died on 10 February 1799; Sara Coleridge and her
surviving son, Hartley, went to Westbury, where Southey
and his wife were renting a house they nicknamed ‘Martin
Hall’. BACK
[7] The new Income Tax
introduced in December 1798. BACK
[8] The
Ambuscade had been captured by the
French on 14 December 1798 while blockading the port of
Rochefort. BACK
[9] Horatio Nelson,
Viscount Nelson (1758–1805; DNB), whose
victory at the Battle of Aboukir Bay, 1798, was widely
celebrated in verse; see, for example, William Sotheby
(1757–1833; DNB), The Battle of
the Nile (1799). BACK
[10] Nelson may have been excluded from the
planned, but unexecuted, ‘The Kalendar’, but he was the
subject of Southey’s best-selling Life,
published in 1813. BACK
