677. Robert Southey to Charles
Danvers, 17 May
[1802]
*
My dear Danvers
You will doubtless have attributed my silence
to its right cause – the expectation daily disappointed of
being able to fix determinately the day of my departure. If
possible – we move Friday – but I look with alarm to a world
of business in the interim & almost fear that our the preliminaries cannot
be so xxx xx <got
thro> as to allow the definitive stroke before Monday or
Tuesday. I must see Corry – & I hope take leave of him. it will
be unpleasant to leave London in uncertainty upon that
point.
I forgot to mention Mrs
James [1] in my last – but
have not forgotten to look about me, & shall get
something. let me know how much you propose to raise &
what you have raised, that John May may proportion his exertions to the
necessity. – Burnett tells me he has money to send you by me.
I will settle Mrs Jardines account with Longman – as
for Johnson there is none to settle – he has not sold half a
dozen copies. [2] your soap shall be remembered, & Rexes instruments. I
am sure if Cottle be debtor to the Meeting that he is not
now able to discharge the debt. you see I am galloping thro
a letter of business.
We were at Richmond for four & twenty
hours last week – at John
Mays. it is a lovely place. in the probable event
of my soon fixing somewhere I hesitate between that
neighbourhood – Norwich & Bristol.
I have the likeness of one of her friends for
Mrs Danvers – as marvellously like as the
little Portugueze John Morgan [3] – & that too
of an equal favourite. is xxx the death of Mrs Butler
Danvers [4] of some advantage to your mother? or
do I recollect rightly that there is a child yet in the
way? [5]
Keenan, dissatisfied with his former picture,
is again painting me. [6] we think the likeness
very strong – & the picture an admirable one – he
himself he esteeming it his best work. Sotheby [7]
has been introduced to me – he is a man of taste & much
original thought. Davy has printed his introductory Lecture, [8] of which I am to be
the bearer to you & King – he will
seems disposed to join us if we should compass a walk into
South Wales, of which Edith is already in bodily & vociferous fear.
Rickman in
all probability will soon rise higher, & put himself
into a situation which will enable him to be of the greatest
possible use to the country. You cannot imagine the effect
which Sheridans speech produced upon the house. [9] almost
I doubt whether the Ministry can recover it. Bonaparte? have
you not yet cut the throat of his picture?!!! [10]
We have just received a letter from Miss
James [11] – who
has narrowly escaped the same fate as her brothers [12] – but in so ridiculous a way
that I laugh while I write. she is in the country & in a
farm yard saw for the first time in her life – a well
“Curiosity prompted me to examine it, & the method of
their drawing up water; – when – by one of those
unaccountable motions which sometimes pursue us, I from
happening to stand with my back towards the Well while
receiving the shock, fell into it. My Jaw bone struck
against the edge which enabled me to place my elbow there
also, & by that means extricated myself with the loss of
only one Shoe. I’ve received several bruises, but – thank
God none dangerous.” She means not to tell her Mother of
this – so do not you mention it.
Last week there came a letter from Tom, dated Port
Royal – he had borne the climate well so far – but how long
he may escape it if he stays or how long he is likely to
stay God knows. Poor fellow he says he had written by the
last packet to his
Mother. – The report at Jamaica is that the French
in St Domingo are dying very fast. I yet
trust in Toussaint – & the yellow fever & the good
cause. [13]
The preparations for departure are going on –
& much as I hate packing this is the most agreable that
I have had for many a long year – even since I was a school
boy. – remember us to the Hemmets [14] whom we shall be heartily
glad to see. Priscilla doubtless is improved – so cannot her
sister be – for I never saw one in whom so little alteration
was to be wishd. George Burnett is coming to pack books – &
Mrs Smith of Bath [15] dines here. Mrs
Lovell is so bilious that she looks half
jaundiced. I heartily wish she were at Bristol – half afraid
lest she should be unable to take the journey. another
reason for hastening my departure.
The silver forks from for Mrs H. [16]
my Uncle
probably intends to bring himself – they being smuggled
goods. I do not doubt that he will be shortly in Eng[MS
torn] Eleven sheets of Rowley (Chattertons second volume)
are printed – four or five of the first. [17]
they go on galloping.
That it should come to pass –
Hath been led by temptation astray.
Hath been taken in
For a deadly sin –
Yea – he hath committed a play! [18] – Tho this to the godly
At first will sound oddly
His acquittal they soon may determine
For truth to say
The Methodists play –
Would do very well for a sermon.
God bless you. I shall write speedily to name
the day of our departure – our love to Mrs
Danvers –
yrs affectionately
Robert Southey
Monday May 17.
Notes* Address: To/ Mr
Danvers/ Kingsdown/ Bristol
Stamped:
[illegible]
Postmark: [partial] 802
MS: British
Library, Add MS 30928
Unpublished. BACK [1] Mrs James
(first name and dates unknown) had lost her four sons in
a shipwreck earlier in 1802. Southey and his friends
were attempting to raise money to invest in an annuity
for her; see Southey to Charles Watkin Williams Wynn,
[c. 21 June 1802], Letter 683. BACK [2] Joseph
Johnson (1738-1808; DNB), bookseller and
publisher, had sold fewer copies than expected of
Sermons, By the Late Rev. David Jardine, of
Bath. Published from the Original Manuscripts, by
the Rev. John Prior Estlin (1798); see
Southey to Charles Danvers, 12 April 1802, Letter
669. BACK [3] The allusion is unclear, but possibly
relates to a miniature of John
Morgan, Southey’s Bristol friend, made by an
unidentified Portuguese artist. BACK [4] Danvers’s
relation Mary Danvers, only child of Sir John Danvers
(d. 1796), had married Augustus Richard Butler
(1776-1820). Mary’s husband had assumed the name
Butler-Danvers in 1796. Mary Butler-Danvers had died on
10 May 1802. BACK [5] Southey was
right: Mary Butler-Danvers had a son, George John
Danvers Butler (1794-1866), who later inherited the
Earldom of Lanesborough. BACK [6] John Keenan (fl. c. 1780-1819), Irish portrait painter,
whom Southey had met in Exeter in 1799. Keenan painted
two portraits of Southey. BACK [7] The poet and translator
William Sotheby (1757-1833; DNB). BACK [8] Humphry Davy, A
Discourse, Introductory to a Course of Lectures on
Chemistry (1802). BACK [9] On Friday 14 May 1802, the
politician and playwright Richard Brinsley Sheridan
(1751-1816; DNB) had delivered a
parliamentary speech ‘characterized throughout by the
most exquisite wit and humour’ ridiculing the
government’s change of heart towards France and its
conduct of the peace negotiations; see Cobbett’s
Annual Register (15 May 1802). BACK [10] Danvers, presumably, had
an image of Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821; First Consul
1799-1804; Emperor of the French 1804-1814) hanging in
his parlour, which Southey advised him to dispose of;
see Southey to Charles Danvers, 23 February [1802],
Letter 659. BACK [11] Miss James
(first name and dates unknown), the daughter of the Mrs
James whom Southey was trying to assist. BACK [12] Miss James’s four
brothers, whose identity is unknown, had drowned in a
recent shipwreck. BACK [13] Toussaint
L’Ouverture (1743-1803), leader of the revolution
against slavery in Haiti, effective ruler of the country
1796-1802 and of the whole island of Hispaniola
1801-1802. A French expedition had arrived in Haiti on
29 January 1802 to re-conquer the colony. Toussaint was
forced to surrender on 7 May 1802, but yellow fever was
decimating the French troops, who lost 15,000 men to the
disease in the first two months of the campaign. French
troops finally withdrew from Haiti in December
1803. BACK [14] Unidentified; probably Bristol-based
friends of the Southeys. They could be connected to the
butcher Edward Hemmett listed in Matthews’s New
Bristol Directory, for the Year, 1793-4
(Bristol, 1793), p. 42. BACK [15] Unidentified; given that she
was obviously an acquaintance from Bath, it is possible
she was, or was connected to, the Bath lodging-house
keeper listed in The New Bath Guide
(Bath, 1800), p. 71. BACK [16] Unidentified; perhaps Mrs
Hemmet. BACK [17] Printing of Southey and
Joseph Cottle’s subscription edition of The Works
of Thomas Chatterton was underway. It was
eventually published in three volumes in 1803. BACK [18] Joseph Cottle
does not seem to have finished his tragedy. The only
account of it is in Charles Lamb to Thomas Manning,
[Mid-November 1802], E.W. Marrs Jr (ed.), The
Letters of Charles and Mary Anne Lamb, 3
vols (Ithaca, NY and London, 1975-1978), II, pp.
88. BACK |
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