445. Robert Southey to Joseph Cottle,
12 October 1799
*
Christ Church.
Saturday Oct. 12 99
My dear Cottle
We arrived here on Tuesday night last. our
house is to be revolutionized & we are in lodgings. you
will direct as formerly Burton near Ringwood. I thank you for supplying
my
mother with money, I daily expect the remittances
which would have arrived by this had I been stationary,
& from which I will return you the sum – inclosing at
the same time a small note which I shall beg of you thus to
apply – in sending me a Joan of Arc [1]
– the arithmetic book mentioned in a former letter [2] – & dissected maps of the world
& its four quarters seperately.
As soon as we get possession & are
settled I shall forward the Chatterton work, [3] bestowing on it considerable care &
attention in the notes.
The Anthology [4] must go to Press as soon as we can get
materials. I have about 150 Pages ready, – & my expected
contributions from the old contributors not yet arrived.
from these I may
calculate from 40 to 60 – & Hucks
[5] has promised me a packet. Coleridge also gives the Christobel [6] to begin with, <&> about 25 more.
What have you done? when the muster is made there will
probably be enough, as I purpose writing some few pieces
which will amount to about 30 pages expressly for the
volume. [7]
You are settled in Gloucester Street I hear.
in the use of exercise I am afraid your present leisure will
be unfavourable to your health. you will sit too much. the
shop tho it fatigued you must have been of service in this
point – you have most corpulent propensities, & must use
what exercise you can. how comes on the correction of
Alfred [8] – at a distance I can give you
<only> one precept which must be right, do not be
afraid of using the pruning knife – & if you can
compress two books into one, be assured you will improve
them. of all faults prolixity is the most fatal. The witch
part of your poem is the best. [9] imagination is certainly
the most powerful faculty of your mind, if you can weave
machinery into the books you will enliven them, & this
is what they want. ask the opinion of others & see how
far they accord with mine.
Thalaba the Destroyer [10] comes on well. it
will have much to recommend it & from the success of the
metre, its publication may probably make an era in the
history of English poetry. it may possibly be ready to go to
Press when the Anthology [11] is finished.
My brother Tom is again taken
prisoner – & now in Ferrol. [12] captured I suppose by the ships
that dodged about to Rochefort – L’Orient – & home
again. [13] this is a worse capture than the last,
for then he was in a prize vessel & had only a change of
cloaths with him – now all is gone – his cabin furniture –
cloaths, everything. we are anxiously expecting news of him.
all we now know is by the paper that his vessel is in
Ferrol.
This country has been inundated. & very
fine was the prospect. the waters had greatly abated, but
today the rains are falling again.
Edith desires
to be remembered to your Mother & Sisters. join my
remembrances to hers – write soon – & believe me
yours as ever
Robert Southey.
Notes* Address: To/
Mr Cottle/ Gloucester Street/
Brunswick Square/ Bristol/ Single
Stamped: CHRIST/
CHURCH
Endorsements: 53 (110)/ Southey 99
MS:
Beinecke Library, GEN MSS 298, Series I, Box 1, folder
8
Unpublished. BACK [2] The identity of this
book is uncertain, but the description of it in a letter
to Cottle, 22 September 1799 (Letter 437) fits William
Butler’s (1748–1822), Arithmetical Questions,
having, for the most part, a Reference, either to
Sacred, Profane, or Natural History, Chronology,
Geography, or Commerce (1788; 2nd edn 1795),
specifically designed for the instruction of ‘young
ladies’. BACK [3] Southey and Joseph Cottle's
edition of The Works of Thomas Chatterton
(1803). BACK [5] Joseph Hucks (1772–1800),
poet and friend of Coleridge. His ‘On viewing the
Monastery lately erected at Lulworth’, ‘To a Flower’ and
‘To His Veil’ were included in Annual
Anthology (Bristol, 1800), pp. 50–52,
194–195. BACK [6] The Annual
Anthology (Bristol, 1800), opened with
Southey’s ‘St Juan Gualberto’ (pp. 1–19). ‘Christabel’
was never finished and remained unpublished until
1816. BACK [7] Southey
did not, in fact, write anything specifically for the
Annual Anthology, instead reprinting
poems that had either already appeared in the
Morning Post or been written much
earlier and not previously published. BACK [8] Joseph
Cottle, Alfred, an Epic Poem, in Twenty-Four
Books (1800), dealt with the defeat of a
Danish invasion by Alfred, the Great (849–899, reigned
871–899; DNB). BACK [9] In Joseph Cottle, Alfred, an Epic
Poem, in Twenty-Four Books (1800), Book 1,
lines 135–600, Ivar, one of the leaders of the Danish
army, consults a witch. BACK [12] It was widely reported in the British
Press in early October 1799, e.g. St James’s
Chronicle, 5 October 1799, that the brig,
Sylph, on which Tom Southey
was serving, had been captured and was at the Spanish
port of Ferrol. BACK [13]
True Briton, 13 September 1799, had
reported that five Spanish ships had managed to avoid
the British blockade of the western coast of France and
sailed between the ports of Rochefort and
Lorient. BACK |
|
