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 rce349 letterEEd.26.340 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: John Wood Warter (ed.), Selections from the Letters of Robert Southey, 4 vols (London, 1856), I, pp. 59–60 [in part].

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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340. Robert Southey to Charles Watkin Williams Wynn, 3 August [1798] Address: To/ C. W. Williams Wynn Esqr/ Christ Church/ OxfordStamped: BRISTOLEndorsement: August 3 1798MS: National Library of Wales, MS 4811DPreviously published: John Wood Warter (ed.), Selections from the Letters of Robert Southey, 4 vols (London, 1856), I, pp. 59–60 [in part]. My dear Wynn

Your account of poor Bunbury Southey’s old schoolfriend Charles John Bunbury had recently died at the Cape of Good Hope. woke in me the recollections & almost the feelings of old friendship. Good God what a blessing might he have been to his friends & to his country! It is mortifying to look back to our school days & reflect that Matthew Lewis should be the wonder of the day,The poet and playwright, Matthew Gregory Lewis (1775–1818; DNB), author of the controversial Gothic novel, The Monk (1796). & Bunbury dead & forgotten. a man so gifted – & the victim of one failing. he should have been removed from Westminster ere habit was rooted in him – I think I could cure the vice at 16 which would destroy at six & twenty. I am no friend to public schools – where they are beneficial to one they are ruinous to twenty. nor do I think that the argument you once used in defence of universities a just one – that young men take <run> their xxxxx <race> of vice & grow tired & come away with characters unblemished. this to me seems the real evil. people will be ashamed of debauchery if they are not kept in countenance.

Have you collected any thing for poor Blighs widow?Southey was attempting to raise funds for the widow of the Midshipman James Blythe (1766/7–1798), killed in the fight between the Mars and L’Hercule on 21 April 1798. if you have send it me to remit to her – & you may inclose a frank afterdated some few days – for her Darlington Durham. we have raised here three & thirty pounds already & sent it. & I shall endeavour to get the boy when old enough into Xts Hospital.There is no evidence that Southey did manage to get Blythe’s son into Christ’s Hospital School in London.

Did I tell you of a plan in which John May has engaged with Marten,Matthew Martin (1748–1838; DNB), secretary to the Society for Bettering the Condition and Improving the Comforts of the Poor. the Secretary to the Society for bettering the condition of the Poor? they have hired a room where they hear the stories of all the beggars who chuse to apply, & get them relieved either by making the parish officers do their duty, or assisting them themselves. you would be surprized at the numbers they have relieved. there is room for much to be done in this way. If ever you are disposed to make motions in this way the house, I should be delighted to see you the Reformer of the Poor Laws.

I have found an Irish story for you. a gentleman saw a boy driving a cow through his hedge backward & forwards – & askd him what he was doing – Och – says he – I am taiching the cow to get her own living.A paraphrase of Maria Edgeworth (1768–1849; DNB) and Richard Lovell Edgeworth (1744–1817; DNB), Practical Education, 2 vols (London, 1798), I, p. 211.

My LettersThe second edition of Letters Written During a Short Residence in Spain and Portugal, published in 1799. are in the press & I have pruned them. Bob is very civil in his half years retrospect.The review of the first edition of Letters Written During a Short Residence in Spain and Portugal in the British Critic, 11 (April 1798), 362–367 had praised the volume’s style but cautioned readers about its radical politics. The British Critic was published twice a year; hence providing a ‘half years retrospect’. the Vision will go soon – it will be the pocket size – & I shall add a few ballads & small pieces to make it thick enough for a volume.‘The Vision of the Maid of Orleans’ published, with several shorter works, in Poems, 2 vols (Bristol, 1799), II, pp. [1]–69.

God bless you yrs as ever Robert Southey.

I have long wished to see St Palayes Book.Jean-Baptiste de la Curne de Sainte-Pelaye (1697–1782), Memoirs of Ancient Chivalry. To which are added, the Anecdotes of the Times, from the Romance Writers and Historians of those Ages (1774). pray send it directed to Cottles.

Friday 3rd August.