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 rce343 letterEEd.26.334 Romantic Circles, http://www.rc.umd.edu, University of Maryland College Park, MD August 15, 2011

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National Library of Wales, MS 4811D. Previously published: Kenneth Curry (ed.), New Letters of Robert Southey, 2 vols (London and New York, 1965), I, pp. 170–172.

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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334. Robert Southey to Charles Watkin Williams Wynn, 15 July [1798] Address: To/ C. W. Williams Wynn Esqr./ Christ Church/ OxfordStamped: BRISTOLEndorsement: July 15 1798 MS: National Library of Wales, MS 4811DPreviously published: Kenneth Curry (ed.), New Letters of Robert Southey, 2 vols (London and New York, 1965), I, pp. 170–172. Sunday July 15th My dear Wynn

If you hold your intention of visiting Ireland (a country which is about to experience the blessings of a regular government somewhat in the way Holland did under Philip 2nd −)The attempted revolution by the United Irishmen which began on 23 May 1798 had largely been crushed by this time. Radicals in Britain remained intensely critical of the government’s use of executions, deportations and torture to punish the rebels and suppress dissent, and Southey is comparing the situation in Ireland with that of the Protestant Netherlands under the absolute rule of the Spanish Catholic Philip II (1527–1598; reigned 1556–1598). After a period of discontent and repression, in 1566–1572 the Netherlands successfully revolted against Spanish rule. can you not make your way thro Bristol? we have a spare bed room − & the most beautiful spots in this country are within a very easy walk.

I do not like your plea for the torture in Ireland.The British army had been engaged in a sustained campaign in Ireland since late 1796 to destroy arms held by those they identified as potential rebels. The declaration of martial law in March 1798 confirmed the army could use whatever methods it chose and these included torture. The best-known local method was ‘pitchcapping’ – forcing a helmet of boiling tar onto the head of the victim. it is not a general one − & tho it may hold good possibly in some cases, it appears to me liable to the unanswerable objections against breaking infringing a general principle for a particular good. It has been carried too to its worst lengths in Ireland: not merely to compel a discovery of arms, but to compel them to discover the hiding places of accused persons. HerveyBeauchamp Bagenal Harvey (1762–1798; DNB), Protestant lawyer and one of the leaders of the Irish rising in Wexford. He was arrested on 26 May 1798 on the basis of information disclosed under torture by Anthony Perry (c. 1760–1798), a leader of the United Irishmen in Wexford. was found out in this manner. bad as the Irish are − & God knows I have a most evil opinion of the half-christened herd − I cannot but think the ruling party in Ireland worse. under whatever term it may be vieled, the torture has been to all intents introduced in that country. − there was a time when an Englishman if he saw the rack carried into his neighbours house, would have objected to it on the idea that it might soon come to his own: − but the excesses of the French have frightened us now & there is I wish there was no more danger of an utter despotism than there is of anarchy. BurleighWilliam Cecil, Lord Burleigh (1521–1598, DNB). This saying has also been attributed to another Elizabethan statesman, Francis Bacon (1561–1626, DNB). was wise when he said that England never could be undone but by a parliament.

Where was the Virgilian taste of your Etonian acquaintanceUnidentified. Presumably he was referring to the removal of Book 9 of the 1796 edition from Southey’s Joan of Arc (1798). This revision took Joan of Arc even further away from the pattern of Virgil’s (70–19 BC) epic, the Aeneid. when they complained that I had lopped off an excrescence from the poem? the Vision‘The Vision of the Maid of Orleans’ was published in Poems, 2 vols (Bristol, 1799), II, pp. [1]–69. will soon go to the press − I have some additions making – enough to make it just large enough to put in boards. My LettersThe second edition of Letters Written During a Short Residence in Spain and Portugal appeared in 1799. wait for the paper only. I correct them as they go to press, that is after much lopping off previously. the drawings come on but slowly — for Charles Fox (the author of Achmed Ardebeili, in whose hands the sketches are) is often sick & always slow.Southey’s plan for Charles Fox (1740?–1809; DNB) to illustrate the second edition of his Letters came to nothing. Fox’s ’Aks-i partaw. A Series of Poems, Containing the Plaints, Consolations, and Delights of Achmed Ardebeili, a Persian Exile had been published by Cottle in 1797. They will I trust be well done, AlkenSamuel Alken (1756–1815; DNB), specialised in aquatints and etchings of picturesque landscapes. is to be the engraver, & we wish to have them as highly finished as the Welsh views in Sothebys blank verse book.Samuel Alken’s engravings had appeared in William Sotheby (1757–1833; DNB), A Tour Through Parts of Wales, Sonnets, Odes, and Other Poems (1794). Cottle has sold the edition of Joan of ArcThe second edition of Joan of Arc, published in 1798. to Longman the bookseller — (he did this as wanting ready money to enter the printing business, in which he is now a partner with Biggs x) this will be of service to the book. — you would hardly credit the little dirty tricks practised by the London booksellers to ruin country publications: RobinsonThe Robinsons were a dynasty of booksellers, printers and publishers, at this time headed by George Robinson II (d. 1801; DNB), George Robinson III (d. 1811; DNB) and John Robinson (1753–1813; DNB). In the mid 1790s, they had been part of a congerie with Cottle, and had sold Joan of Arc (1796) and Letters Written During a Short Residence in Spain and Portugal and Poems (1797). has denied having any of my books whilst he had nearly an hundred on his shelf — & I have known other instances of the same conduct.

In settling papers which have been three or four years bundled up I found the inclosed drawing.The drawing has not survived. I pray you observe the man who looks as if he had been cut down from the gallows, & just alighted on his legs before he fell farther. I need not point out the excellencies of the other figures. they may perhaps amuse you

God bless you. yrs affectionately Robert Southey.