655. Robert Southey to John Rickman,
[started before and continued
on] 6 February [1802]
*
I copy for you the most authentic account of the xxxx Στηλαι [1] – as part of your office is to settle
the disputes about the Round Towers. [2] Raderus is the
authority quoted in the Acta Sanctorum . T. 1. p. 262. [3]
Columnarum (quas ego omnibus Aegypti prodigiosis pyramidibus
elaboratis, & pictis obeliscis, colossis, columnisq
Trajani, propter ipsa quae supra illas fulgebant sidera,
antepono) formae fere fuit, ut arbitror, rotunda, altitudo
varia – Auctor enim Stylitarum Simeon primum columellam
ascendit non nisi senûm cubitorum (sive novempedum) mox
duodenûm, postea vicenûm duûm, postremo tricenûm senûm, sive
ut Nicephorus & alii tradunt, quadregenûm. Modius, seu
cella, sive domicilium columnis impositum, in quo
consistebant, in omnem partem binos cubitos seu tres pedes
patebat, tecto nullo, ut libere caelum omne contemplarentur,
& omnibus injuriis caeli expositi majorem haberent
tolerantiae segetem & messem. Januas habebant nonnulli,
nullas alii, quod tempestatis violentia parietis partem
disjecisset Scalae admovebantur, cum vel alii ad illos
enitebantur, vel illi, ad alios se demitterent, quod quidem
vel nunquam, vel ad summa Reipublicae pericula devocati
factitabant. Statione porro aeternâ se cruciabant; nec enim
jacendi vel decumbendi spatium erat: poterant tamen sedere;
sedisse verà nusquam lego, numquam puto. Nam primis
quidraginta diebus Simeon ad trabem se alligari [4] curavit, alterisq quadraginta mox
liber absque adminiculo consistebat, medio corpore superne
velut Ecclesiastes in ambone extabat. [5]
Feby. 6.
35. Strand.
The otherside extract hath been written many
days. meantime the removal of Mr
Abbot [6] to England
left me ignorant of your due direction. & I am now half
suspicious that Mary
Lamb has given me one which wants some of its
formalities. The Letter you sent viâ Caroli Agni –
after crossing the Channel & travelling from Holyhead to
London, has lost its way between Westminster Bridge &
the Strand.
matter for some vexation – & a legitimate cause for
breaking the third commandment. [7] Yesterday yours to Lamb was brought
me with the commission for an Epitaph. [8] I
will write one if I can. but what medicine will move a
costive brain? you did not know that in my judgement it is
more difficult to write an Epitaph than an Epic Poem or a
voluminous History. with the full feeling &
consciousness of incapacity nothing can be done well. I
cannot – I never could succeed in these short compositions.
carving beef never teaches a man to dissect butterflies.
Oaks will grow on my ground – but I cannot raise cucumbers
there.
Corry & I
have not seen the light of each others countenance for this
last fortnight. tho (except one day when prevented by
serious illness) I have daily & generally twice a day,
done the duty of my Secretaryship by knocking at his door.
he is now unwell, but mending. I also have been & am in
that sort of health that makes me think with regret of
Lisbon. As soon as the form of announcing my wishes to the
Chancellor is
past, I purpose migrating for a week or ten days to Norwich.
change will benefit me. I shall be glad to see my
brother – & William Taylor.
this London poisons my body – & God knows is not the
most favourable atmosphere for my brain.
Burnetts
pupils have eloped. [9] Lord Stanhope
seems attached to him & will be his friend. That right
republican Lord [10] is an excellent man &
of less eccentric habits than there was reason to suspect. –
Davy of
course is well & successfully employed. a new discovery
of his will enrich somebody – that the Terra Japanica is
pure tannine. [11] I wish it would lower the price of
shoe-leather. Carriages driven by Steam are the most
important novelties. Two Cornish men are in London for the
patent. [12] they succeed on the hills of
Cornwall, & the next army that shall cross the Alps will
be saved some fatigue.
I have unpleasant tidings from Tom. he is sent to
the West Indies after Ganteaume! [13]
Edith is very
unwell – & I fear will not be better while she remains
in town. You will be glad to hear that my History is
progressive. [14] the
head progress outruns the hand. I confess a silk-worm
propensity to feeding rather than spinning. howbeit there is
a visible progress, & the Moths do not digest so many
folios as I do. Meantime I am increasing my knowledge of the
Living Remarkables, & added to my list – Charlotte
Smith [15] – a woman of genius,
good sense, & pleasant manners – Mrs Inchbald [16] – very odd – very clever
– very beautiful. D’Israeli [17] – he looks <like> a Portugueze who
being apprehended for an assassin is convicted of being
circumcised. I don’t like him. – Turner, the
Historian of the Anglo Saxons. [18] read his book,
it is the very worst in style that ever can be written – but
in research & novelty of information the best historical
work, beyond comparison that I have ever seen. I like the
man & only wish there was one spark of genius in that
dark warehouse of his. the Misses Berrys [19] – to whom Ld Orford left so
much. [20] very
delightful women. Mrs Damer [21] – Lawrence the painter. [22] somewhat oily of tongue.
to day I am to meet Hopner. [23] I am about to call on
Sotheby. [24] this by the blessing of
God being my last long spell in London, tis well to make the
most of it. Farewell.
yrs truly
Robert Southey.
Should you ascertain that these Round Towers were the
Fool pillars that you suspect, it will rather favour the
claims of the Patricians [25] to earlier
civilization than Giraldus & the English allow
them. [26]
Notes* Address:
John Rickman Esqr
Endorsements: R.S./ Feb 6th/ 1802; R.S.
MS:
Huntington Library, RS 20
Previously published:
Kenneth Curry (ed.), New Letters of Robert
Southey, 2 vols (London and New York, 1965),
I, pp. 268-270 [in part]. BACK [1] The Greek translates as
‘pillars’. BACK [2] Ireland has about 120 stone towers. Their
age and origin has been much debated and Rickman seems
to have been collecting evidence that they were built
for early Christian ascetics. BACK [3]
Acta
Sanctorum (1643-1940) is a 68-volume
critical hagiography of Catholic saints, organised by
calendar date of the saints’ feast-days. Southey had
borrowed the first three volumes from Dr Williams’s
Library; see Southey to John Rickman, [c. 17 January
1802], Letter 651. Matthaus Rader (1561-1634) was a
German Jesuit and hagiographer. BACK [4] Southey inserts a footnote:
‘N.B. This settles the question whether the Crocodiles
of the old & new world are of the same species. for
it plainly implies the existence of an Alligator in
Egypt.’ This is a rather painful pun on the Latin word
‘alligari’. BACK [5] The Latin translates as: ‘I
count the Pillars before all Egypt’s prodigious,
elaborate pyramids and its painted obelisks, colossi and
Trajan’s columns, because of the stars which shone over
them: their cross-section was pretty well round, I
think, and their heights various. The founder of the
Stylite sect Simeon first ascended a little pillar of
six cubits at the least (or nine feet); then twelve,
then twenty-two and finally thirty-six, or, as
Nicephorus and others say, forty cubits’ height. The
barrel or cell or room perched on the pillars in which
they used to live extended two cubits (or three feet) in
all directions and was roofless, so that they could gaze
at the whole of heaven in freedom and by exposure to all
the perils of the sky have a greater crop and harvest of
endurance. Some had doors, some not, because the
violence of a storm had dislodged part of a wall.
Ladders were put in place when either people tried to
reach them or they went to see others, something they
used to do either not at all or when invoked at times of
great political anxiety. They tortured themselves by
staying perpetually on their feet, since there was no
space to lie or stretch out; that they sat I read
nowhere, and I think they never did. For his first forty
days Simeon took care to be tied to a plank; for the
next forty he kept position on his own without aid,
visible from the waist up like a preacher in a pulpit.’
The source is Acta Sanctorum, (1643), I,
p. 262. BACK [6] Rickman’s
employer, the politician Charles Abbot (1757–1829;
DNB). Abbot was in London and was
soon to leave his post as chief secretary to the Lord
Lieutenant of Ireland. On 10 February 1802 he began a
new role as The Speaker, 1802-1817. BACK [7]
Exodus 20: 7, ‘You shall
not make wrongful use of the name of the Lord your
god’. BACK [8] Rickman had asked both Lamb
and Southey to write an epitaph for Mary Druitt (c.
1782-1801), who is buried at Wimborne, Dorset. It does
not appear that Southey undertook the task. BACK [9] Burnett had been employed as tutor to Charles Stanhope
(1785-1809) and James Stanhope (1788-1825), the younger
sons of the controversial politician and inventor
Charles (‘Citizen’) Stanhope, 3rd Earl Stanhope
(1753-1816; DNB). The boys’ flight from
their father’s house was described in a letter from
Charles Lamb to John Rickman, [?1 February 1802], E.W.
Marrs Jr (ed.), The Letters of Charles and Mary
Anne Lamb, 1796-1817, 3 vols (Ithaca, NY and
London, 1975-1978), II, pp. 49-50. BACK [10] Earl
Stanhope was notoriously democratic and pro-French in
his political opinions. BACK [11] Davy
had conducted experiments to confirm the view of Sir
Joseph Banks (1743-1820; DNB) that Terra
Japonica, or Catechu, an extract obtained from mimosa
wood, was rich in tannin and could therefore be used in
the process of tanning leather. As Terra Japonica was
cheaper than oak bark, the substance usually employed,
its widespread use might reduce the price of leather
goods. Davy publicised his discovery in ‘An Account of
some Experiments and Observations on the Constituent
Parts of Certain Astringent Vegetables; and On Their
Operation in Tanning’, Philosophical Transactions
of the Royal Society of London, 93 (1803),
233-273. BACK [12] Richard
Trevithick (1771-1833; DNB) and Andrew
Vivian (1759-1842) secured a patent for their steam
locomotive on 24 March 1802. The locomotive had been
trialled in Camborne, Cornwall, in December 1801. Their
initiative was backed by two fellow Cornishmen, Davies
Giddy (1767-1739; DNB) and Humphry
Davy. BACK [13] Honoré Joseph Antoine Ganteaume
(1755-1818), commander of the French fleet which left
Toulon on 14 February 1802 to support the French
re-conquest of Haiti. BACK [14] Southey’s projected ‘History of Portugal’. BACK [15] The poet
and novelist Charlotte Smith (1749-1806;
DNB). BACK [16] The writer and
actress Elizabeth Inchbald (1753–1821;
DNB). BACK [17] The writer Isaac D’Israeli (1766–1848;
DNB). He was of Italian-Jewish
descent. BACK [18] Sharon Turner's four-volume
History of the Anglo-Saxons was
published between 1799 and 1805. BACK [19] Mary (1763–1852;
DNB) and Agnes (1764–1852;
DNB) Berry, cousins of Southey’s
friend Barbara Seton. BACK [20] Horace
Walpole, 4th Earl of Orford (1717–1797;
DNB). On his death, Walpole left the
Berry sisters £4000 each, the house Little Strawberry
Hill and his literary manuscripts. BACK [21] The sculptor and writer Anne
Seymour Damer (1749–1828; DNB). As
executor and residuary legatee of Walpole’s estate, she
inherited his property at Strawberry Hill,
Twickenham. BACK [22] Thomas Lawrence (1769–1830;
DNB). BACK [23] The painter John Hoppner (1758–1810;
DNB). BACK [24] The
poet and translator William Sotheby (1757–1833;
DNB). BACK [25] The Irish, as followers of their
5th-century patron saint St Patrick; but also a play
on the Roman word for aristocrats. BACK [26] Giraldus Cambrensis (c. 1146- c. 1223;
DNB) had given a very
unsympathetic portrait of Irish civilization in his
Topographia Hibernica
(1188). BACK |
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