My dear Coleridge
I am making up my mind for a visit to the
South of Europe. my complaint is wholly debility – so they
all tell me – & Davy tells me so – & you know he is one of my
Deities. a diseased sensibility – physical sensibility for
thank <God> I have none of the it in the common meaning – disordering me now
at the heart – now in the bowels – keeping me awake at night
& making me idle by day. Now climate is the remedy – but
– where to go? to Lisbon? I have seen it, & moreover if
I return there people know I have made a book, & I
become an object of curiosity. besides I would prefer
foreign society to English, & only English society is to
be had at Lisbon. To Italy? yes – if I know where – & I
should like some companions. however this last is a mere
luxury & very dispensable, for Edith will
accompany me, & if I can possibly afford to take him, my
brother Harry – now old enough to profit by travel.
Should Thalaba [1]
bring me 150 pounds – & I almost calculate upon it – I
shall have 300 for the years expences – for ourselves enough
– but little enough for a third. if I could get a pupil –
with brains enough to be a companion –
But where to go? Florence indeed &
Leghorn – indeed it is always easy to retire into Germany in
case of the French conquests approaching. a worse question
is – how to go? by sea is seeing nothing – emptying the
tripes instead of filling the head – & the journey thro
Germany threatens tremendous expence. I should go with the
resolution of staying till I thought myself recovered –
strong enough to bear confinement in London; with no
settling view. Peace would open a way home thro Switzerland
& France. Now if you could fall in with these schemes,
we might plunder Italy as the French have done [2] – xxxx xxxxxx xxxxxx xxx xxxxx
xxxx.
Thalaba is my dependance – Cottle got 150£ by
the second Joan of Arc. [3] Thalaba will be 12 books & as
many notes, & surely I ought to get as much by it. to
night if no time-assassins drop in I shall write the 20 or
30 lines that finish the fifth book. my plan is to print
1000 copies & sell the impression – four months from
this time is sufficient to get this done – & then I am
ready to start. think of this – & see if it be among
possibilities to accompany us. surely we could make the
journey pay.
As for my coming to London – my business must
be Thalaba & that can be done here more to my mind –
& London always oppresses my spirits like a prison. it
is possible that I may come up to see the publishers about
it – but if this can be done by letter or by you I shall
heartily rejoice to save the fatigue of the journey. the
question is simple – I send a sample of the poem – any one
of the books – “I have 1000 copies of this – they may sell
for 10-6 or 12s – a copy – what will you
give me for them? Cottle received 6s for the
Joan of Arc & made 150£. & that was a second edition
– of course less valuable.
So much for my expedition & ways &
means. interim as Trauma says elliptically, what are you doing?
& what are your booksellers engagements? Phillips’s
selection [4] I understand – but
after engagements are made it appears to me that London is
not the best place for you to fulfill them in. I do not know
whether Spinosism [5] be connected with any dislike to green
fields – but assuredly I do not like Buckingham Street so
well as Kingsdown – nor the Strand as well as our Down.
Will you not be troubled with company in town & have be at a great expence of
time?
Northmore [6] is
in town. I hold he would be glad to see
you.
The Fears in Solitude &c [7] – could <might> certainly
be admitted – & would be the best part of the volume –
but I should rather see them in a volume of your own.
however xxx you know best
your own intentions – which seem to be strangely anti-poetic
in publishing. Should your name be to the Mad Ox? [8] the other pieces
which always were anonymous shall remain so. The Francini
piece [9] I thought Stuart might
supply – does he not file the papers? will you if
<you> see him the day this arrives – acknowledge for
me the receipt of his letter & the bill.
Mary Hays is a
woman whom I respect – she is worth seeing – for with all
her mistaken notions, she has genius, more than most of the
lady writers. I will write to her about Joan [10] – there is
nothing new to be found – except scepticism as to her
fate
That is a good poem of
George Dyers
in the Magazine [11] – & he has sent me five
stanzas upon a Nightingale! [12] to say that he – the Nightingale – is
not the Bird of Night – but the Poet of the Spring! God
bless him & forgive him. Lamb is lazy
& will give me nothing.
What sort of a book is this by Mariana
Starke? does it really give any useful information as to
travelling & residing in Italy? the advertisement smells
of Phillips. [13]
Concerning the French [14] I
wish Buonaparte [15] had staid in Egypt &
that Robespierre [16] had guillottined
Sieyes. [17]
these cursed complex governments are good for nothing, &
will ever be in the hands of intriguers. the Jacobines were
the men – & one house of representatives, lodging the
executive in committees, the plain & common system of
government. the cause of republicanism is over, & it is
now only a struggle for dominion. there wanted a
Lycurgus [18] after Robespierre – a man loved
for his virtue, & bold & inflexible. who should have
levelled the property of France, & then would the
Republic have been immortal, & the world must have been
revolutionized by example. at present I have the true Cynic
growl – softening down into Stoical – not Epicurean apathy.
all the nations are so detestably governed – that I wo see no preference except
it be in the amount of taxes. God bless you – & not as a
vulgar phrase. Ediths love,
yrs affectionately
Robert Southey.
Notes* Address: To/ Mr
Coleridge/ 21. Buckingham Street/ Strand/ London/
Single
Postmark: B/ DEC 23/ 99
MS: Hispanic
Society of America, New York
Previously published:
Catalogue of the Collection of Autograph
Letters and Historical Documents Formed Between 1865
and 1882 by Alfred Morrison, 6 vols (London,
1883–1892), VI, pp. 158–159; Kenneth Curry (ed.),
New Letters of Robert Southey, 2 vols
(London and New York, 1965), I, pp.
209–211. BACK [1]
Thalaba the Destroyer (1801) was
published by Longman and Rees. Southey was unable to
keep the copyright and he was paid only £115. BACK [2] Since 1796, French forces in
Italy had captured and sent back to Paris huge
quantities of pictures, sculptures and manuscripts,
including iconic pieces like the Laocoon,
Apollo Belvedere and the
Medici Venus. BACK [3] The second edition of Southey’s
Joan of Arc was published in 1798 by
Joseph Cottle. BACK [4] Coleridge was being paid for work on projects planned
by the publisher Richard Phillips (1767–1840;
DNB) (Coleridge to Southey, 24
December 1799, E.L. Griggs (ed.), The Collected
Letters of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 6 vols
(Oxford, 1956–1971), I, p. 552). Phillips was soon
asking for his money back. BACK [5] Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677), a philosopher who Coleridge
much admired at this time. In his letter to Southey of
24 December 1799, Coleridge jokingly related his liking
for London to Spinoza’s philosophy (E.L. Griggs (ed.),
The Collected Letters of Samuel Taylor
Coleridge, 6 vols (Oxford, 1956–1971), I, p.
551). BACK [6] The geologist and writer Thomas Northmore
(c.1766–1851; DNB), who Southey and
Coleridge had met in Exeter earlier in 1799. BACK [7] Coleridge’s Fears in
Solitude, Written in 1798, During the Alarm of an
Invasion. To which are added, France, an Ode; and
Frost at Midnight had been published in
quarto in 1798. None of the poems were reprinted in
Southey’s Annual Anthology. BACK [8] Coleridge’s ‘Recantation,
illustrated in the story of the Mad Ox’, Annual
Anthology (Bristol, 1800), pp. 59–66 was his
only signed poem in the volume. BACK [9] Coleridge’s
‘The Apotheosis, or the Snow Drop’, Morning
Post, 3 January 1798 was signed ‘Francini’.
It was a reply to Mary Robinson’s (1758–1800;
DNB) ‘Ode to the Snow Drop’,
Morning Post, 26 December 1797. It
was not reprinted in Annual Anthology
(1800). BACK [10] Mary Hays had asked (via
James Webbe Tobin and Coleridge) ‘what books to consult’
about Joan of Arc (E.L. Griggs (ed.), The
Collected Letters of Samuel Taylor
Coleridge, 6 vols (Oxford, 1956–1971), I, p.
550). Her account of Joan appeared in Female
Biography; or, Memoirs of Illustrious and Celebrated
Women, of All Ages and Countries, 6 vols
(London, 1803), I, pp. 146-172. BACK [11] George Dyer, ‘Democritus Junior’, Monthly
Magazine, 8 (December 1799), 889–890.
Southey’s blandishments must have worked because it was
reprinted in Annual Anthology (Bristol,
1800), pp. 284–286. BACK [12] George Dyer, ‘To the Nightingale’,
Annual Anthology (Bristol, 1800), pp.
217–218. BACK [13] Mariana
Starke (1761/2–1838; DNB), Letters
from Italy, Between the Years 1792 and 1798,
Containing a View of the Revolutions in that
Country (1800), advertised in the
Monthly Magazine, 8 (December 1799),
899. Southey was correct: Richard Phillips published
both the Monthly Magazine and Starke’s
book, thus using the former to promote the
latter. BACK [14] The Brumaire coup of 9–10
November 1799, which abolished the Directory and placed
executive power in the hands of three Consuls. BACK [15] Napoleon Bonaparte (1769–1821; First Consul 1799–1804,
Emperor of the French 1804–1814). Napoleon had led the
French conquest of Egypt in 1798–9, but left to return
to France on 24 August 1799. He was the main beneficiary
of the Brumaire coup. BACK [16] Maximilien Francois Marie Isidore de Robespierre
(1758–1794), leading Jacobin. BACK [17] Emmanuel
Joseph Sieyes (1748–1836), a member of the Directory
May–November 1799, he was the instigator of the Brumaire
coup, though soon outmanouevred by Napoleon. BACK [18] The
Spartan legislator Lycurgus (c. 700–630 BC), noted for
his emphasis upon austerity, equality among citizens and
military fitness. BACK |
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