406. Robert Southey to Thomas Southey,
12 May 1799
*
My dear Tom
Blessed be God that whether the day be
pleasant or unpleasant it passeth on – in London & at
Brixton the day
consisteth of twenty four hours & the hours of sixty
minutes & the minute of sixty seconds exactly as at Martin hall, but
upon my soul there is a strange difference sensible in the
duration of the seconds minutes hours & days. it is almost not yet a fortnight
since you & I embarked from home, & yet the thirteen
days have seemd longer than the thirteen weeks that preceded
them.
Your letters have reached me. bad as a
seaport is you say it is better than London. I believe you
& congratulate you on your release. on the 28th – perhaps on the night of the 27th I hope to reach home. in this
accursed town (for even at Brixton I consider myself within its atmosphere)
I will not remain an hour longer than is necessary. since
you left town I have been there thrice, & hunted the
book-stalls with some success as to French poetry. Of my
Dutch grammar I know much but I beklaage myzelf [1] for not having a dictionary to read
Jacob Cats, it is not worth while to purchase the dictionary
unless I could take Cats home with me. William Taylor
has sent me the Noah [2]
& half tempted me to think of making a poem on that
subject which might rank with Milton & Klopstock. [3]
I must not forget to give you a Dutch
sentence in the grammar – “Ik beminde minne goeden en rikken broeder” – that is – I love you
my good & rich brother. & in a
following sentence there is the same love of a sister. Tom
you & I have no Dutch affection – for God knows we are
not quite so rikken
[4] as we would wish.
Carlisle has
prescribed for me bark & steel, which I have not yet
begun to take. It is only at home that I can be regular in
any thing, elsewhere there are a thousand little restraints
which dog me & fritter away the hours. I have only
written some thing in Madoc [5] to finish the canoe fight; – the Elegy Love Elegy upon the
wig [6] –
& this morning I have written a poem upon a pig, [7] at least enough of
it for Stuart,
which will I think when some thirty lines are added to it be
the best of all my quaint pieces. this has been my weeks
work & considering I have dined out once, drank tea
twice, & walked three times to London, it is as much as
well might be expected.
I am attacked about Lloyd’s cursed
Anti-Jacobine letter. [8] how tho I abuse
that jackass Letter & his nasty lines upon the fast [9]
to you & to himself, yet I do not like to hear others
abuse him, it gives me pain & while I blame the books I
justify his motives.
Tomorrow I may perhaps hear from him as I
purpose calling on Charles Lamb. plague on it it is Whit Monday I
recollect – & I do not know where to find him.
Your Exeter bookseller [10] blundered a little. certainly
he is right in saying the Joan [11] made my reputation, but about the smaller
pieces he is wrong. you know my own opinion of Mary [12] – & you also
know that I am not apt to think worse of my own poems than
they deserve. if I should write about Noah, & it is not
improbable, my fingers itch to be counting hexameters. [13]
George Dyer whose
dirty dressing gown disgusted you, but [MS torn] knows every
body, & who is esteemed by every body, is catering for
my Almanac. [14] there is a double advantage in
this, contributions not only save me, but interest the
vanity of the contributors in the sale of the book.
About politics I can only give you a pun that
escaped me last night. Grosvenor said we had the essence of Liberty in
England, & I replied then it was the volatile essence –
for it had all fled away.
God bless you. when shall we meet
again? I shall have to go house hunting on my
return.
your affectionate broeder
Robert Southey.
Sunday 12 May. Still de Koele May! [15]
1799.
Notes
* Address: To/
Mr Thomas Southey./ to be left
at the Kings Arms/ Plymouth./ Single
Stamped:
[partial] BRIDGE St / NOON
Postmark: BMA/ 13/
99
MS: British Library, Add MS 30927
Previously
published: John Wood Warter (ed.), Selections
from the Letters of Robert Southey, 4 vols
(London, 1856), I, pp. 70–72 [in part]. BACK
[1] The Dutch translates as ‘I
pity myself’. BACK
[2] Johann Bodmer (1698–1783), Noachide
(1752). Southey thought it was a ‘bad poem’; see
Common-Place Book, ed. John Wood
Warter, 4 series (London, 1849–1850), IV, p. 2. BACK
[3] Friedrich Gottlieb
Klopstock (1724–1803), author of the epic Der
Messias (1748–1773). BACK
[4] The Dutch translates as
‘rich’. BACK
[5]
Madoc (1797-1799), Book
13. BACK
[6] ‘Love Elegy.
The Poet Relates How He Stole a Lock of Delia’s Hair,
And Her Anger’, published anonymously in the
Morning Post, 10 May 1799. BACK
[7] ‘The Pig. A Colloquial
Poem’, published anonymously in the Morning
Post, 24 May 1799. BACK
[8] Charles Lloyd, A Letter to the Anti-Jacobin
Reviewers (1799). BACK
[9] Charles Lloyd,
Lines Suggested by the Fast, Appointed on
Wednesday, February 27, 1799 (1799). BACK
[10] Probably either Gilbert Dyer
(1743–1820; DNB) or Shirley Woolmer (fl.
1781–1831); see Southey to Joseph Cottle, 22 September
1799, Letter 437. BACK
[11]
Joan of Arc, an Epic Poem
(1796). BACK
[12] First published in
Southey’s Poems (1797) and much-reprinted
as ‘Mary the Maid of the Inn’. BACK
[13] Southey was modelling
himself on Johann Bodmer (1698–1783), whose epic
Noachide (1752) was written in
hexameters. For Southey’s plan see Common-Place
Book, ed. John Wood Warter, 4 series
(London, 1849–1850), IV, pp. 2–3. BACK
[14] Southey’s Annual Anthology, published in
1799 and 1800. BACK
