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 rce396 letterEEd.26.387 Romantic Circles, http://www.rc.umd.edu, University of Maryland College Park, MD August 15, 2011

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Huntington Library, HM 4820 . Previously published: J. W. Robberds (ed.), A Memoir of the Life and Writings of the Late William Taylor of Norwich, 2 vols (London, 1843), I, pp. 261–264 [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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387. Robert Southey to William Taylor, 12 March 1799 Address: To/ Mr Wm Taylor Junr/ Surry Street/ Norwich/ SinglePostmarks: BRISTOL/ MAR 12 99; B/ MR/ 13/ 99Endorsement: Ansd 25MS: Huntington Library, HM 4820 Previously published: J. W. Robberds (ed.), A Memoir of the Life and Writings of the Late William Taylor of Norwich, 2 vols (London, 1843), I, pp. 261–264 [in part]. My dear friend

Burnett has mistaken my complaint, & you have mistaken my disposition. at one time I was apprehensive of some local complaint of the heart, but there is no danger of its growing too hard, & the affection is merely nervous. the only consequence which there is any reason to dread, is that it may totally unfit me for the confinement of London & a Lawyer’s office. I shall make the attempt, somewhat heartlessly, & discouraged by the prognostics of my medical adviser.Possibly Thomas Beddoes, whom Southey did consult in 1799. if my health suffers I will abandon it at once – at the age of 25 there is little leisure for waiting – the world will be again before me – or if xx following xxxx xxxxxxxx legs xxxxxx xxx xxxxxxxx xxxx xxxxxxxxx Burnett – & the prospect sufficiently comfortable. I have no wants & few wishes. literary exertion is almost as necessary to me now as meat & drink, & with an undivided attention I could do much. – Once indeed I had a mimosa-sensibility, but it has long been rooted out. five years ago I counteracted Rousseau by dieting upon Godwin & Epictetus.The Stoic philosopher Epictetus (c. AD 60–after100), whom Southey had read to counteract the influence of Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778). they did me some good, but Time has done more. I have a dislike to all strong emotion & avoid whatever would excite it. a book like WerterJohann von Goethe (1749–1832), Die Leiden des Jungen Werther (1774). gives me now unmingled pain. in my own writings you may observe that I rather dwell upon what affects than what agitates.

You will by this I suppose have received my volume.The second volume of Poems (1799). The first volume was a third edition of the collection first printed in 1797. when another edition of the first is printed you shall have an answerable copy.

I should much like more reliques of RowleyThomas Chatterton (1752–1770: DNB) ascribed his medieval-style poems to Thomas Rowley, a fictional fifteenth-century monk. – were it not that the language would preclude them, like the other reliques, from ever becoming popular. a ballad or two – some fragments of a Romance – & more books of the English MetamorphosesThomas Chatterton’s incomplete ‘Englysh Metamorphosis: Bie T. Rowleie’ (1769). might make an amusing volume. these are tempting subjects. eight years ago I thought of continuing the Metamorphoses – & soon after actually planned six books to compleat the Faery Queen, & wrote three Cantos.Edmund Spenser’s (1552–1599; DNB)’ unfinished The Faerie Queene (1590–1596). the Cantos I burnt – but the plans I believe still exist. I should like to see your play.William Taylor’s play, Wortigerne (1801), in the style of Thomas Chatterton’s Rowley forgeries. somebody should do for the Hindoo Gods what Dr Sayers, has done for Odin.Frank Sayers (1763–1817; DNB), whose Dramatic Sketches of the Ancient Northern Mythology (1790) included poems about Odin, chief of the Norse gods. Sayers was a close friend of Taylor’s and a significant early influence on Southey. we know enough of them now for a poetical system.

A man of Lynn,The port of Kings Lynn, Norfolk. who once wrote to ask me when I should publish Madoc, has published a volume of verses himself lately – George Goodwin is his name.George Goodwin (dates unknown), Rising Castle, With Other Poems (1798). This appears to have been Goodwin’s only book, although he contributed two new poems, ‘Omar at the Tomb of Azza’ and ‘Fragments’, to Annual Anthology (Bristol, 1800), pp. 219–222, 281–283. in reviewing his book I was amused at cautioning him against imitating a living writer. Critical Review, 25 (March 1799), 314–318. I will copy below a burlesque imitation, surely allowable, as being of myself. the Anti-JacobinesThe editors of and contributors to the Anti-Jacobin Review, who had lampooned Southey, Coleridge and other members of their circle. seem to be ashamed of their own verses of late. they must have known as little of Coleridge & me when they talkd of our “splay-foot madrigals of love”An attack on Southey, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Charles Lamb and Charles Lloyd, in ‘The Anarchists. – An Ode’, in Anti-Jacobin Review and Magazine, 1 (September 1798), 366. as they did of the “Taylors the brothers of Norwich” – correspondents to the Monthly Magazine. Anti-Jacobin Review and Magazine, 1 (August 1798), 201. even party spirit will not support that precious review here. there was one man violent enough to take it ln in instead of the Monthly Review – but even her could not endure its stupid malignity & returned to his old one, in spite of the principles.

You have heard of the Metallic Tractors.The quack remedy Perkins Patent Tractors, created by Elisha Perkins (1741–1799). Drawing on experiments conducted by Luigi Galvani (1737–1798), Perkins theorized that redirecting the body’s natural electricity could draw out pain and disease. He developed brass and iron rods of about 4 inches in length, with one flat side and one round side with one blunt end and one pointed end. The practitioner held the rods in his hand and rested the point of the rods on the skin. Then he stroked or drew the tractors over the unhealthy area of the body to attract and draw out affliction; see Benjamin Douglas Perkins (1774–1810), The Influence of Metallic Tractors on the Human Body (1798). The subject of much controversy, Perkinism was attacked by James Gillray (1757–1815; DNB) in his satirical print ‘Metallic Tractors’ (1801). a surgeon here has practised at the Infirmary with two pieces of wood coloured like them, & actually in several instances cured paralysed limbs!The experiments carried out at the Bristol Infirmary (probably by a Mr Smith and his colleagues) and various Bristolian medical establishments to expose the quack medicine behind Perkinism are described in John Haygarth (1740–1827; DNB), Imagination, As a Cause and as a Cure of Disorders of the Body; Exemplified by Fictitious Tractors, and Epidemical Convulsions (Bath, 1800), pp. 6–14. one of the patients declared he felt more pain from them than when five pieces of bone were extracted from his leg. the patients are astonished at the effect of the Tractors & the Surgeons at the effect of faith. I grow daily more sceptical & shall soon disbelieve nothing. this fact authenticates to me many of the Saint & relic miracles. my inclination credits the existence of apparitions – & for the reality of witchcraft I have in spite of system, certain doughty arguments, not easily confuted.

If Burnett had time to spare & were advanced enough in medical knowledge here would be a fine opportunity for him. the Pneumatic InstitutionThe Pneumatic Institute, Dowry Square, Bristol, was devoted to using gases to treat illness. Its early findings were publicised in Thomas Beddoes, Notice of Some Observations Made at the Medical Pneumatic Institution (1799). opens tomorrow, & it will be part of their plan to receive students in medicine, without a premium. the mischief is that studies here, which would probably be of more importance than all the University lectures in Europe, could not assist him in graduating. I hope much from pneumatic medicine, but if the first trials should prove unsuccesful I will xxxxxxxxx xxx an outcry will be raisd against it. they will also find a difficulty in getting patients. even in hopeless disorders people are not fond of having experiments tried upon them. Davy, the young man who has the management of the institution, possesses most extraordinary talents. Beddoes speaks of him with unbounded praise, & he appears to deserve it.

I thank you for your poetry. What is the Burnie-Bee?Taylor’s ‘To the Burnie Bee’ in the Annual Anthology (Bristol, 1799), p. 64 was given the note ‘A provincial name of the beetle coccinella, or lady-bird.’ This information was conveyed in a letter from Taylor to Southey, 25 March 1799 (J.W. Robberds (ed.), A Memoir of the Life and Writings of the Late William Taylor of Norwich, 2 vols (London, 1843), I, p. 268). is it not <the Humble Bee, or> what we call the Dumbledõre, a word whose descriptive droning deserves a place in song? the Lines of the 16th century I suppose you altered from Beaumont & Fletcher for the sake of the parodyTaylor’s ‘Lines Written in the 16th Century’, Annual Anthology (Bristol, 1799), pp. 205–206, were an adaptation of John Fletcher’s (1579–1625; DNB) ‘Hence, all you vain delights’ from The Nice Valour (1647). Southey had wrongly assumed that Fletcher’s collaborator, Francis Beaumont (1584–1616; DNB), was a co-author. Taylor, who had seen the song transcribed on the blank leaf of an old astrological almanac, had himself incorrectly assumed it was by Philip Massinger (1583–1640; DNB); see Taylor to Southey, 25 March 1799, J.W. Robberds (ed.), A Memoir of the Life and Writings of the Late William Taylor of Norwich, 2 vols (London, 1843), I, p. 268. Taylor followed his adaptation with a parody of the song’s sentiments, ‘Parodied in the 18th Century’, Annual Anthology (Bristol, 1799), pp. 206–207. – the Almanach goes to the Press next week. Annual Anthology (1799). I expect no communications out of the circle of my own acquaintance for the first volume – but I hope the first volume will be popular enough to bring in cart-loads for the second. I have begun an Eclogue between The Devil & St Anthony,St Anthony of Egypt (252–356), whose legend included his temptation by the devil. The Eclogue was sent to Taylor on 18 March 1799 (Letter 391). for which my Saint bookPossibly Southey’s copy of the Acta Sanctorum. furnished me with the hint. there are mines of poetry in the Popish Legends. my KalendarSouthey’s unrealised plan for a sequence based on the calendar. will be rich in them.

Inscription – under an OakPublished anonymously in the Morning Post, 27 February 1799.

____

Here Traveller pause awhile: this ancient oak Will parasol thee if the Sun ride high, Or should the sudden shower be falling fast Here mayest thou rest umbrellaed. all around Is good & lovely. hard by yonder wall The kennel stands; the horse flesh hanging near Perchance with scent unsavoury may offend Thy delicate nostrils, but remember thou, How sweet a perfume to the hound it yields, And sure its useful odours will regale More gratefully thy philosophic nose, Than what the unprofitable violet Wastes on the wandering wind. nor wilt thou want Such music as benevolence will love, For from these fruitful boughs the acorns fall Abundant, & the swine that grub around, Shaking with restless pleasure their brief tails That like the tendrils of the vine curl up, Will grunt their greedy joy. dost thou not love The sounds that speak enjoyment? oh if not – If thou wouldst rather with inhuman ear Hark to the warblings of some wretched bird Bereft of freedom, sure thine heart is dead To each good feeling, & thy spirit void Of all that softens or ennobles man.

________

We are growling at the Income BillIncome tax was introduced for the first time in December 1798 at a rate of 10% on incomes over £200 pa. here, & wondering what will be the next measure. perhaps a tenth of capital. the people are ready willing to submit to anything. Edward the Confessor returned a tax to the people because he saw the Devil dancing upon the money raised by it.The actions of Edward the Confessor (1003/5–1066; reigned 1043–1066; DNB) are recounted in Southey’s ‘The Tax Repealed; Or, An Historical Ballad of King Edward the Confessor’, published anonymously in the Morning Post, 10 April 1799. I wish he would make his appearance in the Treasury now!

God bless you – yrs truly R Southey.

Tuesday. March 12. 99.