447. Robert Southey to Humphry Davy,
18 October 1799
*
Massena! [1]
Buonaparte! [2] Switzerland –
Italy – Holland – Egypt – all at once! [3] the very spring-tide of fortune, – it
was a dose of gaseous oxyd [4]
to me whose powerful delight still endures. – I was about
writing to you when your letter reached me. Your
Researches [5] into the science
of Nature & of Man I shall look for with periodical
eagerness; fully estimating the importance of researches,
the which unfortunately
I shall only be able imperfectly to understand. Science I
have none, except in Anatomy. knowing little but terms.
Thalaba the Destroyer, [6]
for so you must call the ci-devant Destruction of the
Dom-Daniel, has been for some time suspended. At Exeter the
advantage of a good library [7] induced me to employ my time in
laying in materials, a magazine of information,
winter-stores for this country, where there is a dearth of
books. So I travelled into Egypt & the Levant &
Persia & the East Indies with every traveller whom I
could find going that way – Fryer – Olearius – Mandelslo –
De la Roque – the lying Lucas – Chardin the Jeweller who is
worth them all, & who – plague on the Revolution of
1688! never published in English his last three volumes – so
that I could only get at the first. [8]
My employment was gutting these for notes – information
served as a leaven for invention, incidents were grafted
upon local or national traits – & like the Bee I have
laid up my winter store of food. Since my arrival here I
have resumed the story, & am now rapidly advancing to
the close of the fourth book.
For the Anthology also I have done something.
Some Songs characteristic of the different tribes of
American-Indians [9] will form an diff division of some length – in the after
volumes [10] I shall
continue the plan & go thro the different nations whose
customs & superstitions seem fit for poetry. I purpose a
poem of some length on our rocks at the Hot Wells [11] – in that calm & elevated blank
verse which when I have written has excited in me stronger
emotion than any other species of composition. here I shall
affix my name. thank x
Tobin
[12] for his intended
communications in my name – I shall be glad to receive them.
his Soldiers Ghost [13] is a fine poem if
he does not intend to print it, I should be much gratified
by having a copy.
I am revolutionizing here – organizing two
beggarly cottages into one dwelling house. in the course of
a fortnight we shall have a comfortable habitation to enter
– small but big enough to hold us & any friend who may
think it worth while to visit us. there is a garden quite
large enough & quite empty, so that I may follow my own
taste in filling it – the ground is very good & has long
been fattening in fallowness. here I mean to take much of my
necessary quantum of exercise.
The Brutus of your plan I suppose to be the
fabulous settler of Britain. [14] you will
find Popes sketch on the subject in Ruffheads life of
Pope [15] – there is little merit or originality
in it. from its utter obscurity the story is good – & it
suits a Cornish man from the rank Corineus [16] must necessarily hold. perhaps I
mistake your hero however – & you may mean have chosen the more
elevated & republican theme of Rome delivered – &
the expulsion of the Tarquins. [17] a difficult
& mighty subject. – Mango Capac [18] lies among
my after plans – a solitary name
xx germ fermenting in some recess of my brain,
by one day by
developement & accretion to assume a mature shape &
size. the history is so utterly unaccountable that I can
form no hypothesis probable enough for poetry.
Will you be good enough to send me some
foxglove for my
mother & likewise some of the asthma-drops,
that she may take when her cough is removed? Danvers will
convey them to me. – I shall not visit Bristol till I come
to superintend the printing of Thalaba – w[MS torn] must
first be written. in the spring however this will bring me
there – & I shall work perhaps with more eager industry
that I may the sooner see the old city where I <have>
ever had some person to remember with affection. Edith is
tolerable – & desires to be remembered to you. My brother – whom
you once saw – is a prisoner at Ferrol. [19] & we are anxiously waiting to
hear from him.
God bless you
yrs truly
Robert Southey.
Burton.
Friday <Oct.> 18. 99.
near Ringwood.
Notes* Address: To/
Mr Davy./ Pneumatic
Institution./ Hot Wells./ Bristol. /
Single
Endorsements: Oct 99 Southey; Oct: 1899/
Ringwood
MS: Royal Institution, London, Davy
MSS
Previously published: John Davy (ed.),
Fragmentary Remains, Literary and Scientific,
of Sir Humphry Davy, Bart. (London, 1858),
pp. 39–41. BACK [1] Jean-Andre Massena (1758–1817), French
general, commander during the French victory at the
Second Battle of Zurich, 25–26 September 1799. BACK [2] Napoleon Bonaparte (1769–1821; First Consul 1799–1804,
Emperor of the French 1804–1814). BACK [3] French armies had won the
following victories: Second Battle of Zurich, 25–26
September 1799, securing command of Switzerland; Battle
of Castricum, 6 October 1799, halting the Anglo-Russian
invasion of Holland; Battle of Aboukir Bay, 25 July
1799, destroying an Ottoman army that was invading
Egypt. Only in Italy were the French being
defeated. BACK [4] Nitrous oxide, or ‘laughing gas’. BACK [5] Humphry Davy, Researches, Chemical and
Philosophical, Chiefly Concerning Nitrous Oxide, or
Dephlogisticated Nitrous Air, and Its
Respiration (1800). BACK [6] Southey’s Islamic romance
Thalaba the Destroyer (1801). BACK [7] Exeter Cathedral Library, which contained
over 6,000 books. BACK [8] John Fryer (d. 1733; DNB),
A New Account of East-India and Persia, in
Eight Letters. Being Nine Years Travels, Begun in
1672, Finished 1681 (1698); Adam Olearius
(1603–1671), The Voyages and Travells of the
Ambassadors Sent by Frederick Duke of Holstein, to
the Great Duke of Muscovy, and the King of Persia.
Begun in the Year MDCXXXIII and Finish’d in
MDCXXXIX, trans. John Davies (1625–1693;
DNB), 2nd edn (1669); Johann Albrecht
von Mandelslo (1616–1664), The Voyages and
Travels of J. Albrecht von Mandelslo (A Gentleman
belonging to the Embassy, sent by the Duke of
Holstein to the great Duke of Muscovy, and the King
of Persia) into the East Indies. Begun in the year
MDCXXXIII and finish’d in MDCXL, trans. John
Davies, 2nd edn (1669); Jean de La Roque (1661–1745),
Voyage de Syrie & du Mont-Libon
(1722); Paul Lucas (1664–1737), Voyage du Sieur
Paul Lucas, fait par ordre du Roi dans la Grece,
l’Asie Mineure, la Macedonie et l’Afrique
(1712). Lucas’s description of the ‘fairy chimneys’ of
Cappadocia in Asia Minor (eroded volcanic rock
formations) as pyramids or ancient cemeteries led to
widespread accusations of lying and exaggeration. John
Chardin (1643–1713), Travels of Sir John Chardin
into Persia and Ye East Indies, Through the Black
Sea, And into the Country of Colchis (1686).
Chardin was a Protestant French jeweller who travelled
extensively in Persia and settled in England in 1681.
The ‘Glorious Revolution’ of 1688 disrupted publication
of further English volumes of his
Travels, but a complete edition was
published in French in Amsterdam in 1711. All these
books, apart from Lucas, appeared in Southey’s notes to
Thalaba the Destroyer (1801). BACK [9]
Annual Anthology (Bristol, 1800)
contained three ‘Songs’ on native Americans: ‘The
Huron’s Address to the Dead’, pp. 56–58; ‘The Old
Chikkasah to his Grandson’, pp. 83–85; and ‘Song of the
Araucans during a thunder-storm’, pp. 297–299. None were
written especially for the Annual
Anthology. Indeed, they were each published
in the Morning Post, on 24 October 1799,
21 September 1799 and 10 August 1799
respectively. BACK [10] Only two
volumes of the Annual Anthology were
published, in 1799 and 1800 respectively. Southey
planned a third, but it did not appear. BACK [11] See
Common-Place Book, ed. John Wood
Warter, 4 series (London, 1849–1850), IV, pp. 195–196
for Southey’s plan for a poem on the Avon gorge, near
Bristol. BACK [12] James Webbe Tobin
contributed eight poems, all signed ‘J.W.T.’, to the
Annual Anthology (Bristol, 1800):
‘Lines Written in Devonshire’, pp. 41–42; ‘The
Gallinipper’, pp. 46–49; ‘To Lydia’, pp. 101–102; ‘Ode
to Mr Packwood’, pp. 137–139; ‘Sonnet III’, p. 147; and
‘Epigrams XV–XVII’, pp. 271–272. BACK [13] Tobin’s poem did not appear in the Annual
Anthology (1800). BACK [14] Brutus, in legend the first king of
Britain and great-grandson of Aeneas. BACK [15] Owen
Ruffhead (c.1723–1769; DNB), The
Life of Alexander Pope, Esq. Compiled from Original
Manuscripts; With a Critical Essay on His Writings
and Genius (London, 1769), pp.
409–420. BACK [16] In legend, Corineus was a
Trojan follower of Brutus. When the latter divided up
his new kingdom of Britain, Cornwall was allotted to
Corineus. BACK [17] Lucius Iunius Brutus, the man credited
with expelling the last king of Rome, Tarquinius
Superbus (King of Rome 534–509 BC). BACK [18] Legendary founder of Incan Peru and the
subject of a proposed poem by Southey. BACK [19] 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 |
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