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 rce386 letterEEd.26.377 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. 180–181.

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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377. Robert Southey to Charles Watkin Williams Wynn, 4 February [1799] Address: To/ C W Williams Wynn Esqr M.P./ 5. Stone Buildings/ Lincolns Inn/ LondonPostmarks: BRISTOL/ FEB 4 99; [partial] FE/ 99Endorsements: Feby. 4/ 1799; Mr. WynnMS: National Library of Wales, MS 4811DPreviously published: Kenneth Curry (ed.), New Letters of Robert Southey, 2 vols (London and New York, 1965), I, pp. 180–181. My dear Wynn

I hoped to have seen you instead of writing again – but in fact I am not well enough to venture upon the journey, & it is better to err on the prudent side than to venture too much. the season is against me – I want the cold bath – I am relaxed & incapable of much exertion. if you were the physicians wig instead of the judges, you should have a detail of all my physical feelings.

this is very unfortunate. month after month passes away & I am already at an age when a man ought to be settle travelling on in his road. I want to be so settled as to look on to no removal.

however to a pleasanter subject. I thought you knew that that all my lesser ballads were reserved for the Anthology or Gleanings.The first volume of the Annual Anthology appeared in 1799. The x Cross Roads which I repeated to you & a story of a Sailor conscience haunted for flogging a negro to death a circumstance which occurred here, make all the ballads besides those you know in the volume.‘The Cross Roads’ and ‘The Sailor, who had Served in the Slave-Trade’, Poems, 2 vols (Bristol, 1799), II, pp. [89]–102, [103]–114. On these things I bestow not much correction. on a great work like Madoc I should think ten years labour well bestowed. Southey had first thought of writing about Madoc in 1789. His poem was not published until 1805.

Are you satisfied with the plan of Queen Mary?Southey’s proposed tragedy, set during the reign of Mary I (1516–1558; reigned 1553–1558; DNB); see Common-Place Book, ed. John Wood Warter, 4 series (London, 1849–1850), IV, pp. 190–192. & do you think it better than my old BandittiA plan or idea for a work (probably a play) which has not survived. It was possibly modelled on Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller (1759–1805), Die Raüber (1781). – Pedro the JustAnother unexecuted or lost work. Pedro I (1320–1367; King of Portugal, 1357–1367); his lover Inez de Castile (1325–1355) was murdered on the orders of his father. When he became King he personally killed two of the murderers, while one more escaped. He was alleged to have arranged for Inez’s corpse to be crowned Queen. For Southey’s plan see Common-Place Book, ed. John Wood Warter, 4 series (London, 1849–1850), IV, pp. 189–190. – or the Pythoness?The Pythia was the title given to the priestess of Apollo at Delphi, who was famous for her prophecies, uttered under the influence of vapours rising from the earth. Southey planned – but did not execute – a drama based on an episode from Biblioteke, 16.26, about the abduction of the Pythia by Echecrates the Thessalian; see Southey to John May, 3 December 1798, Letter 358. I like it & think I have thought of it long enough to begin.

To the pious painter, the story of which I found in the Pia Hilaria, there is a sequel in Le Grands book which must be balladized in a second part – how the Devil was even with him.The first part of ‘The Pious Painter’ was published anonymously in the Morning Post, 2 November 1798; the second appeared in the same newspaper on 26 July 1799. Southey’s sources were Angelinus Gazaeus (1568–1653), Pia Hilaria (London, 1657), pp. 31–36 and Pierre Jean Baptiste Le Grand d’Aussy (1737–1800), Fabliaux, 4 vols (Paris, 1779–1781), IV, p. 51. Cornelius Agrippa‘A Ballad of a Young Man that would Read Unlawful Books and How he was Punished’, Annual Anthology (Bristol, 1799), pp. 198–200. is bad enough – a better far is what perhaps you have not seen – The Well of St Keyne.Southey’s ballad, first published anonymously in the Morning Post, 3 December 1798. the Saints are very kind to me. St Isidro – (not Isidore) has furnished me with a legend which will work up into a somewhat terrific & grotesque.Probably ‘The Wedding Night’, Morning Post, 18 December 1799. St Isidore of Seville (c. 560–636) was a well-known Spanish saint. I loppd off the other botch & merely made it The Parson & the Undertaker.Published as ‘The Surgeon’s Warning’ in Poems, 2 vols (Bristol, 1799), II, pp. [161]–173. It might perhaps have been The Undertaker that beast & my brother the Priest. but the Poet is like the Law & de minimisThe Latin translates as ‘on trivialities’. it takes no notice.

God bless you. you are I suppose like us knee deep in snow – but ours is clean snow – & I can study a Lapland description.

yrs truly R Southey.

Monday 4 Feby.