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 rce305 letterEEd.26.296 Romantic Circles, http://www.rc.umd.edu, University of Maryland College Park, MD August 15, 2011

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British Library, Add MS 30927. Not previously published.

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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296. Robert Southey to Thomas Southey, 15 March [1798] Address: To/ Mr Southey/ H.M.S. Mars/ Spithead/ or elsewhere/ SingleStamped: BRISTOLMS: British Library, Add MS 30927Unpublished.

You see my dear Tom that Edith has been my scribe upon this occasion.This suggests that there was a verse enclosure, in Edith’s hand, with this letter. If so, it does not seem to have survived. I have another half written, which will be finished next week & then Scribarella shall set to work again.

I am sorry you think it necessary when you say you have given away the poems, to promise never to do so any more. I have always copies enough for you, & I would wish you to dispose of them as freely as I myself. When my new edition Joan of Arc (1798). is ready, of which the first volume is this day compleated, you shall be supplied again.

Charles Fox, “who sung the banished man of Ardebeil,” is now preparing the seven most striking of my Uncles sketches for the Engraver.Southey is quoting his own ‘To A. S. Cottle’, in Amos Simon Cottle, Icelandic Poetry, or the Edda of Saemund Translated into English Verse (Bristol, 1797), p. 35. Joseph Cottle published Charles Fox (1740?–1809; DNB), ’Aks-i partaw. A Series of Poems: Containing the Plaints, Consolations, and Delights of Achmed Ardebeli (1797). Fox was also an artist and it would seem he was preparing some sketches, probably of Portuguese scenes, by Southey’s uncle, Herbert Hill, for publication. they are to be in Aqua tinta, & the bookThe volume of Herbert Hill’s sketches did not appear. to go to the press as soon as I am ready with the corrections.

The old scoundrel ChiltonMr Chilton (first name and dates unknown) was the owner of the boarding-house at 8 Westgate Buildings, Bath, and therefore Margaret Southey’s landlord; see The New Bath Directory (Bath, [1792]), p. 29. is still off & on with my Mother about the lease – have it he will, I believe there is no doubt of that, but he always skulks from any attempt to fix a meeting & settle it. My Mother came over to dine in the College Green some ten days ago, & I saw her at Cottles. on Saturday I go over & remain till the following Monday. – by the by direct to Cottle Wine Street for the future; he is removed to where CowardUnidentified. lived, & a most noble shop has he gained by the exchange.

Lloyds bookCharles Lloyd, Edmund Oliver (1798). comes on but slowly, I now correct the proofs for him, the second volume is only advanced 88 pages. You have I suppose learnt from him that he has begun another novel, & that Lamb has finished one.Charles Lamb, A Tale of Rosamund Gray and Old Blind Margaret (1798). Lloyd’s new novel may well have been Isabel, which was not published until 1820. The poems which he is about to print, it is his intention to dedicate to me, they are all, as indeed expressed in the title, Blank Verse.Charles Lamb and Charles Lloyd, Blank Verse (1798). Lloyd’s contributions were dedicated to Southey.

God bless you. tell me your last number of the M Magazine. I hope to send you St. Patricks PurgatorySouthey’s ‘St Patrick’s Purgatory’ was published anonymously in the Morning Post, 8 May 1798. next week.

Ediths love. yr affectionate brother Robert Southey

15 March

You will have the earliest possible news of Ld. Proby.