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 rce353 letterEEd.26.344 Romantic Circles, http://www.rc.umd.edu, University of Maryland College Park, MD August 15, 2011

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MS untraced; text is taken from Joseph Cottle, Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey (London, 1847). Previously published: Joseph Cottle, Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey (London, 1847), pp. 217–218.Dating note: The similarities between this letter and that to John May of 2 September [1798] (Letter 346), suggest that the letter to Cottle was written at a slightly earlier date.

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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344. Robert Southey to Joseph Cottle, [late August 1798] MS: MS untraced; text is taken from Joseph Cottle, Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey (London, 1847)Previously published: Joseph Cottle, Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey (London, 1847), pp. 217–218.Dating note: The similarities between this letter and that to John May of 2 September [1798] (Letter 346), suggest that the letter to Cottle was written at a slightly earlier date.
Hereford,
1798. My dear Cottle,

My time here has been completely occupied in riding about the country. I have contrived to manufacture one eclogue,Probably ‘The Wedding’, later published in Annual Anthology (Bristol, 1800), pp. 119-126. and that is all; but the exercise of riding has jostled a good many ideas into my brain, and I have plans enough for a long leisure. You know my tale of the ‘Adite,’ in the garden of Irem.The story of a man who claimed to have found the hidden garden of Irem. See George Sale (c. 1696–1736; DNB), The Koran, Commonly Called the Alcoran of Mohammed, Translated into English Immediately From the Original Arabic, with Explanatory Notes Taken From the Most Approved Commentators. To Which is Prefixed a Preliminary Discourse (1734), ‘Preliminary Discourse’, p. 6, cited by Southey as a note to Thalaba the Destroyer (1801), Book 1, line 187; see Common-Place Book, ed. John Wood Warter, 4 series (London, 1849–1850), IV, pp. 181–188 for Southey’s initial plan of the poem. I have tacked it on to an old plan of mine upon the destruction of the Domdanyel, and made the beginning, middle, and end.At the beginning of Book 1 of Thalaba the Destroyer (1801), Thalaba and his mother Zeinab discover the garden of Irem. There is a tolerable skeleton formed. It will extend to ten or twelve books, and they appear to me to possess much strong conception in the Arabian manner. It will at least prove that I did not reject machinery in my Epics, because I could not wield it. This only forms part of a magnificent project, which I do not despair of one day completing, in the destruction of the ‘Domdanyel.’ My intention is, to show off all the splendor of the Mohammedan belief. I intend to do the same to the Runic, and Oriental systems; to preserve the costume of place as well as of religion.

I have been thinking that though we have been disappointed of our Welsh journey, a very delightful pilgrimage is still within our reach. Suppose you were to meet me at Ross. We go thence down the Wye to Monmouth. On the way are Goodrich castle, the place where Henry V. was nursed; and Arthur’s cavern.After the death of his mother, Henry V (1386/7–1422; reigned 1413–1422; DNB) was fostered by Maud Montague, Countess of Salisbury (d. 1424; DNB), who lived at Courtfield, near to Goodrich Castle, Herefordshire. Arthur’s cavern is a cave just north of the town of Monmouth, on the English-Welsh borders, where, in legend, Arthur and his knights sleep, awaiting England’s call. Then there is Ragland Castle somewhere thereabout, and we might look again at Tintern. I should like this much. The Welsh mail from Bristol, comes every day through Ross; we can meet there. Let me hear from you, and then I will fix the day, and we will see the rocks and woods in all their beauty. God bless you.

Yours affectionately, Robert Southey.