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 rce415 letterEEd.26.406 Romantic Circles, http://www.rc.umd.edu, University of Maryland College Park, MD August 15, 2011

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British Library, Add MS 30927. Previously published: John Wood Warter (ed.), Selections from the Letters of Robert Southey, 4 vols (London, 1856), I, pp. 70–72 [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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Southey's spelling has not been regularized.

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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
406. Robert Southey to Thomas Southey, 12 May 1799 Address: To/ Mr Thomas Southey./ to be left at the Kings Arms/ Plymouth./ SingleStamped: [partial] BRIDGE St / NOON Postmark: BMA/ 13/ 99MS: British Library, Add MS 30927Previously published: John Wood Warter (ed.), Selections from the Letters of Robert Southey, 4 vols (London, 1856), I, pp. 70–72 [in part]. My dear Tom

Blessed be God that whether the day be pleasant or unpleasant it passeth on – in London & at Brixton the day consisteth of twenty four hours & the hours of sixty minutes & the minute of sixty seconds exactly as at Martin hall, but upon my soul there is a strange difference sensible in the duration of the seconds minutes hours & days. it is almost not yet a fortnight since you & I embarked from home, & yet the thirteen days have seemd longer than the thirteen weeks that preceded them.

Your letters have reached me. bad as a seaport is you say it is better than London. I believe you & congratulate you on your release. on the 28th – perhaps on the night of the 27th I hope to reach home. in this accursed town (for even at Brixton I consider myself within its atmosphere) I will not remain an hour longer than is necessary. since you left town I have been there thrice, & hunted the book-stalls with some success as to French poetry. Of my Dutch grammar I know much but I beklaage myzelfThe Dutch translates as ‘I pity myself’. for not having a dictionary to read Jacob Cats, it is not worth while to purchase the dictionary unless I could take Cats home with me. William Taylor has sent me the NoahJohann Bodmer (1698–1783), Noachide (1752). Southey thought it was a ‘bad poem’; see Common-Place Book, ed. John Wood Warter, 4 series (London, 1849–1850), IV, p. 2. & half tempted me to think of making a poem on that subject which might rank with Milton & Klopstock.Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock (1724–1803), author of the epic Der Messias (1748–1773).

I must not forget to give you a Dutch sentence in the grammar – “Ik beminde minne goeden en rikken broeder” – that is – I love you my good & rich brother. & in a following sentence there is the same love of a sister. Tom you & I have no Dutch affection – for God knows we are not quite so rikken The Dutch translates as ‘rich’. as we would wish.

Carlisle has prescribed for me bark & steel, which I have not yet begun to take. It is only at home that I can be regular in any thing, elsewhere there are a thousand little restraints which dog me & fritter away the hours. I have only written some thing in Madoc Madoc (1797-1799), Book 13. to finish the canoe fight; – the Elegy Love Elegy upon the wig‘Love Elegy. The Poet Relates How He Stole a Lock of Delia’s Hair, And Her Anger’, published anonymously in the Morning Post, 10 May 1799. – & this morning I have written a poem upon a pig,‘The Pig. A Colloquial Poem’, published anonymously in the Morning Post, 24 May 1799. at least enough of it for Stuart, which will I think when some thirty lines are added to it be the best of all my quaint pieces. this has been my weeks work & considering I have dined out once, drank tea twice, & walked three times to London, it is as much as well might be expected.

I am attacked about Lloyd’s cursed Anti-Jacobine letter.Charles Lloyd, A Letter to the Anti-Jacobin Reviewers (1799). how tho I abuse that jackass Letter & his nasty lines upon the fastCharles Lloyd, Lines Suggested by the Fast, Appointed on Wednesday, February 27, 1799 (1799). to you & to himself, yet I do not like to hear others abuse him, it gives me pain & while I blame the books I justify his motives.

Tomorrow I may perhaps hear from him as I purpose calling on Charles Lamb. plague on it it is Whit Monday I recollect – & I do not know where to find him.

Your Exeter booksellerProbably either Gilbert Dyer (1743–1820; DNB) or Shirley Woolmer (fl. 1781–1831); see Southey to Joseph Cottle, 22 September 1799, Letter 437. blundered a little. certainly he is right in saying the Joan Joan of Arc, an Epic Poem (1796). made my reputation, but about the smaller pieces he is wrong. you know my own opinion of MaryFirst published in Southey’s Poems (1797) and much-reprinted as ‘Mary the Maid of the Inn’. – & you also know that I am not apt to think worse of my own poems than they deserve. if I should write about Noah, & it is not improbable, my fingers itch to be counting hexameters.Southey was modelling himself on Johann Bodmer (1698–1783), whose epic Noachide (1752) was written in hexameters. For Southey’s plan see Common-Place Book, ed. John Wood Warter, 4 series (London, 1849–1850), IV, pp. 2–3.

George Dyer whose dirty dressing gown disgusted you, but [MS torn] knows every body, & who is esteemed by every body, is catering for my Almanac.Southey’s Annual Anthology, published in 1799 and 1800. there is a double advantage in this, contributions not only save me, but interest the vanity of the contributors in the sale of the book.

About politics I can only give you a pun that escaped me last night. Grosvenor said we had the essence of Liberty in England, & I replied then it was the volatile essence – for it had all fled away.

God bless you. when shall we meet again? I shall have to go house hunting on my return. your affectionate broeder Robert Southey.

Sunday 12 May. Still de Koele May!‘May is still cool’.

1799.