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 rce392 letterEEd.26.383 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. 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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 NINES categories for Genre and Material Form at http://www.performantsoftware.com/nines_wiki/index.php/Submitting_RDF#.3Cnines:genre.3E on 2009-02-26 Architecture Artifacts Bibliography Collection Criticism Letters Drama Life Writing Politics Folklore Ephemera Fiction History Leisure Manuscript Reference Works Humor Education Music nonfiction Paratext Perodical Philosphy Photograph Citation Family Life Poetry Religion Review Visual Art Translation Travel Book History Law Southey Letters: Biographies Southey Letters: Places Laura Mandell XSLT Transforming after latest corrections Laura Mandell XSLT Transforming Averill Buchanan corrections from proofing Averill Buchanan Part II added
383. Robert Southey to Charles Watkin Williams Wynn, 25 February 1799 Address: To/ C W Williams Wynn Esqr/ 5. Stone Buildings/ Lincolns Inn/ LondonPostmarks: BRISTOL/ FEB 25 99; FE/ 26/ 99Endorsements: Feb. 25 1799; Mr. WynnMS: National Library of Wales, MS 4811DUnpublished. My dear Wynn

If I had not letters written by you of a late date & a frank so late as the 20th the newspapers would have indeed alarmed me. I have seen your name in the Sun, Star & Courier as being on board the Proserpine.The frigate Proserpine had been wrecked off Heligoland on 31 January 1799. Although the London newspapers had reported the presence of a Mr Williams Wynn on board, Southey had confused his friend with his older brother, Sir Watkin Williams Wynn (1772–1840; DNB). The passengers had also included Wynn’s uncle, Thomas Grenville (1755–1846). For an account of the sufferings of the passengers and crew see A Narrative of the Loss of His Majesty’s Ship the Proserpine, James Wallace, Esq. Captain. Compiled by John Wright, First Lieutenant (1799). − this is a dreadful circumstance. I also have apprehensions of the same kind for a brother of Edith. lately wrecked on the Spanish coast, & about to return from Porto by way of Dublin. weeks are elapsed since he ought to have been here, & from the continued winds, & the accounts of wrecks innumerable in the Irish Channel, I have <reason for> very serious fears.

I could not help being startled at seeing your name. the probability of your going had before occurred to me, & then I began to think of all the possibilities that you might <have> left London at the latest period. however it is palpably impossible, & yet I shall be glad to see your handwriting.

You ask me about law. in Coke & BlackstoneEdward Coke (1552–1643; DNB), author of the four-part Institutes of the Laws of England (1628–1644); and William Blackstone (1723–1780; DNB), Commentaries on the Laws of England (1765–1769). every passage is familiar to my eyes, to my mind they are not familiar because I have not the opportunity of applying them. for any thing but a Lawyer, my professional knowledge would I believe be great, & as a part of general information I should neither wish or want more. but this is not Lawyers enough. since the weather has broke I am sensibly better, but very different indeed from what I was twelve months ago in bodily strength. at present no person can be more unequal to any kind of application.

I expect to send you my bookEither Poems (1799) or Letters Written During a Short Residence in Spain and Portugal (1799). tomorrow. it appears to me very odd that people should think me careless of correction after what has been done to Joan of Arc – Joan of Arc had been heavily revised for the second edition of 1798.

God bless you – yrs affectionately R Southey.

Feby. 25. 99.

Have you seen the Inscription for an Oak – & the Wig of the Scarecrow?Southey was being slightly premature: ‘Musings On the Wig of a Scarecrow’ and ‘Inscription Under an Oak’ were published anonymously in the Morning Post on 21 and 27 February 1799, respectively. there is a story in Plutarchs Morals of Pausanias which will make a fine ballad.Plutarch (AD 46–120), Greek historian; Pausanias (d. 471 BC), a Spartan general haunted by the ghost of a young woman he had murdered. For Southey’s planned poem, see Common-Place Book, ed. John Wood Warter, 4 series (London, 1849–1850), IV, p. 163.