The Collected Letters of Robert Southey. Part 2: 1798-1803 A Romantic Circles Electronic Edition Southey, Robert, 1774-1843 Lynda Pratt Romantic Circles General Editor, Neil Fraistat General Editor, Steven E. Jones Technical Editor Laura Mandell 2011-08-15 rce300 letterEEd.26.291 Romantic Circles, http://www.rc.umd.edu, University of Maryland College Park, MD August 15, 2011

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Bodleian Library, MS Don. d. 3. Previously published: Kenneth Curry (ed.), New Letters of Robert Southey, 2 vols (London and New York, 1965), I, pp. 161–163. Dating note: 7 March 1798 was a Wednesday. The letter was completed the following day.

These letters were edited with the assistance of Carol Bolton, Tim Fulford and Ian Packer

For permission to publish the text of MSS in their possession, the editor wishes to thank the Beinecke Rare Books and Manuscript Library, Yale University; Berg Collection of English and American Literature, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations; the Bodleian Library Oxford University; the British Library; Boston Public Library; the Syndics of Cambridge University Library; the Syndics of the Fitzwilliam Museum Cambridge; Haverford College, Connecticut; the Historical Society of Pennsylvania; the Hornby Library, Liverpool Libraries and Information Services; the Houghton Library, Harvard University; the John Rylands Library, Manchester; the Kenneth Spencer Research Library, University of Kansas; Luton Museum (Bedfordshire County Council); Massachusetts Historical Society; McGill University Library; the National Library of Scotland; the Newberry Library, Chicago; the New York Public Library (Pforzheimer Collections); the Pierpont Morgan Library, New York; the Public Record Offices of Bedford, Suffolk (Bury St Edmunds) and Northumberland, the Master and Fellows of Trinity College, Cambridge; the Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle upon Tyne; the Trustees of the William Salt Library, Stafford, the Wisbech and Fenland Museum; the University of Virginia Library.

A research grant from the British Academy made much of the archival work possible, as did support from the English Department of Nottingham Trent University.

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291. Robert Southey to Henry Herbert Southey, 7[–8] March 1798 Address: To / Henry Herbert Southey/ with the Reverend George Burnett Yarmouth./ SingleStamped: BRISTOLPostmark: B/MR/ 9/ 98MS: Bodleian Library, MS Don. d. 3Previously published: Kenneth Curry (ed.), New Letters of Robert Southey, 2 vols (London and New York, 1965), I, pp. 161–163. Dating note: 7 March 1798 was a Wednesday. The letter was completed the following day. March 7th 98. being the day appointed for a Fast. My dear Harry

If, as I am apprehensive, my letter inclosing a two pound bill did not reach Burnett, you are ignorant that it is my intention to visit Yarmouth at the end of May, & pass a fortnight with you. how I shall arrange my march remains to be settled, & I must consult the map, as if it be not too far out of the road I should like to see Amos Cottle at Cambridge on the way. of this however more in due season.

We are now at Bristol, on Kingsdown Parade, within a few doors of the Montague.The Montague Tavern in Kingsdown Parade, Bristol. you will direct to Cottles, altering however his direction to Wine Street, as he this day removes to the house which Wade last inhabited.The Bristol businessman Josiah Wade (fl. 1790s-1830s). He was particularly friendly with Coleridge. in consequence of this revolution, he gives up the house in the Barton. this is news for Burnett, tho it may not interest you.

My book Joan of Arc (1798). is now rapidly advancing & the first volume will be finished within a week. when it is compleated I shall make up a parcel, & I hope to get the books from the Green by that time. I have Livy & Herodian & (I believe) Velleius Paterculus.The Roman historians Titus Livius (59 BC–AD 17); Herodian of Syria (c. AD 170–240); and Marcus Velleius Paterculus (19 BC–AD 31). What book are you now reading? by that time Jardines sermons Sermons, By the Late Rev. David Jardine, of Bath. Published from the Original Manuscripts, by the Rev. John Prior Estlin (1798). will be published, & I suppose Burnett will chuse to have them. As a “lucid piece of mystical divinity” I may venture, without having yet seen it, to recommend him a sermon upon the last verse of the first chapter of Matthew by ––– Gilbert, now in the press.An unidentified publication by William Gilbert, based on Matthew 1: 25: ‘And knew her not till she had brought forth her firstborn son; and he called his name Jesus’. Lloyds bookCharles Lloyd’s Edmund Oliver (1798). will also be compleated. so that you will have a respectable cargo. Lloyd has begun another novel,Possibly Charles Lloyd’s novel Isabel, not published until 1820. also in Letters. he tells me that one only character is introduced in it, & that it will more resemble WerterJohann von Goethe (1749–1832), Die Leiden des Jungen Werther (1774). than any other book. In that stile of writing, in anatomizing the feelings, I believe Lloyd will exceed any writer that this country has ever produced. & perhaps – almost equal Goethe & Rousseau. Lamb has written a little tale, about one volume full – of which I only know that it is very dismal & called Rosamund Grey.Charles Lamb, A Tale of Rosamund Gray and Old Blind Margaret (1798).

Is there a book society at Yarmouth like that of which Estlin Danvers & the Morgans are members? if not I think Burnett would do well in setting some such scheme on foot, & I will send them <him> the regulations of the Bristol one. Mr PittWilliam Pitt, the Younger (1759–1806; DNB), Prime Minister 1783–1801, 1804–1806. means to tax printing. this is part of his plan to check the diffusion of information & it cannot be too vigorously counteracted.

I know not whether a little Bristol tittle-tattle may be news to Burnett – however let it go. John Morgan is to be married to Caroline Kiddell.Possibly a relative of the Bristol merchant George Kiddell. Southey’s information was incorrect: Morgan eventually married Mary Brent. However, Morgan’s connections with the Kiddell family continued and in 1815, a George Kiddell assisted him in the negotiations over the publication of Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s Biographia Literaria (1817). poor Gilbert is deplorably in love with one of the daughters of that WainhouseWilliam Wainhouse (1738/9-1797), Rector of Badgworth in Somerset and author of Poetical Essays (Latin and English) Intended for Instruction and Amusement (1796). whose poems are to be found in Burnetts Library, he says “she has a greater compass of mind than any woman he ever conversed with. She ridicules him I understand. A debating society meet every Saturday night at the Red Lodge, the members are respectable, & Gilbert the CiceroMarcus Tullius Cicero (106–43 BC), Roman orator and politician. The Red Lodge is a Tudor building on Park Row in Bristol. of the forum. I have never visited them yet, nor shall I speak when I go. I do not like these societies, they only encourage vanity & excite bad feelings. When you ridicule the arguments of another you injure him & yourself.

I ought to have written to you before – but my leisure time is little, & no man wants more leisure than myself. the idea of visiting Yarmouth pleases me much. I have not shaken Burnett by the hand since August 1796. I hope I look forward to having a house in London in the course of the winter as a possible thing; so I hope George will be in town to assist my taste in fitting it up, & fill the friends bed. this is possible, & if the possibility shall not be destroyed by any relaxation of exertion on my part. To live always in lodgings is very expensive & very uncomfortable; I want to feel at home, & to have a home for my friends.

Have you written any themes yet? of course I mean English th[MS torn] of all exercises I look upon this as the most useful. facility of composition is useful in every possible situation.

My Uncle Hill has been in England. he came however no farther than Falmouth, & merely to recover his health by the effect of a voyage, for he had been some time unwell. he wishes Tom to get on the Lisbon station, & if Tom chuses to go, Lord Proby will take him over. I have written him word of this, & he will determine as his judgment thinks best.

Edith is better. our love to Burnett. write soon. [MS missing]

Thursday.