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<title type="main">The Collected Letters of Robert Southey. Part 2: 1798-1803 </title>
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<name>Southey, Robert, 1774-1843</name>
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<date when="2011-08-15">August 15, 2011</date>
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<p>MS
                        untraced; text is taken from Charles Cuthbert Southey (ed.), Life and
                            Correspondence of Robert Southey, 6 vols (London,
                        1849-1850).  Previously  published: Charles Cuthbert Southey (ed.)
                            Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey, 6 vols
                        (London, 1849-1850), II, pp. 151-154.</p>
<p>These letters were edited with the assistance of Carol Bolton, Tim Fulford and Ian Packer</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
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<div n="592" type="letter">
<head>592. Robert Southey to <ref target="people.html#ColeridgeSamuelTaylor">Samuel
                        Taylor Coleridge</ref> [fragment], <date when="1801-07-25">25 July
                        [1801]</date>
<note place="foot" resp="editors" type="headnote">MS: MS
                        untraced; text is taken from Charles Cuthbert Southey (ed.), <title>Life and
                            Correspondence of Robert Southey</title>, 6 vols (London,
                        1849-1850)<lb/>Previously published: Charles Cuthbert Southey (ed.)
                            <title>Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey</title>, 6 vols
                        (London, 1849-1850), II, pp. 151-154.</note>
</head>
<opener>
<date when="1801-07-25">July 25.</date>
</opener>
<p rend="indent1"> In about ten days we shall be ready to set forward for <ref target="places.html#Keswick">Keswick</ref>; where, if it were not for the
                    rains, and the fogs, and the frosts, I should, probably, be content to winter;
                    but the climate deters me. It is uncertain when I may be sent abroad, or where,
                    except that the south of Europe is my choice. The appointment<note n="1" place="foot" resp="editors">The proposal by Wynn that Southey should become
                        Secretary to Sir William Drummond (c. 1770-1828; <title>DNB</title>),
                        classical scholar, poet and diplomat; Charge d’Affaires in Denmark
                        1800-1801, Minister-Plenipotentiary in Naples 1801-1803 and 1807-1808, and
                        Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire in 1803.</note> hardly doubtful, and the
                    probable destination Palermo or Naples. We will talk of the future, and dream of
                    it, on the lake side.        
                        .        
                        .        
                        .        
                        .        
                        .        
                        .        
                        .        
                        I may calculate upon the next six months at my own disposal;
                    so we will climb Skiddaw this year, and scale Etna the next; and Sicilian air
                    will keep us alive till <ref target="people.html#DavyHumphry">Davy</ref> has
                    found out the immortalising elixir, or till we are very well satisfied to do
                    without it, and be immortalised after the manner of our fathers. My pocketbook
                    contains more plans than will ever be filled up; but whatever becomes of those
                    plans, this, at least, is feasible.        
                        .        
                        .        
                        .        
                        .        
                        .        
                        .        
                        .        
                        .        
                        Poor H——,<note n="2" place="foot" resp="editors">Probably
                            <ref target="people.html#HucksJoseph">Joseph Hucks</ref>, who had
                        studied law, enrolling at the Inner Temple, London. Hucks had died in
                        1800.</note> he has literally killed himself by the law; which, I believe,
                    kills more than any disease that takes its place in the bills of mortality.
                        Blackstone<note n="3" place="foot" resp="editors">Sir William Blackstone
                        (1723-1780; <title>DNB</title>), <title>Commentaries on the Laws of
                            England</title> (1765-1769).</note> is a needful book, and my Coke<note n="4" place="foot" resp="editors">Sir Edward Coke (1552-1634;
                            <title>DNB</title>), <title>Institutes of the Laws of England</title>
                        (1628-1644).</note> is a borrowed one; but I have one law book whereof to
                    make an auto-da-fé; and burnt he shall be: but whether to perform that ceremony,
                    with fitting libations, at home, or fling him down the crater of Etna directly
                    to the Devil, is worth considering at leisure.</p>
<p rend="indent1"> I must work at <ref target="places.html#Keswick">Keswick</ref>;
                    the more willingly, because with the hope, hereafter, the necessity will cease.
                    My Portuguese materials must lie dead, and this embarrasses me. It is impossible
                    to publish any thing about that country now, because I must one day return
                    there, – to their libraries and archives; otherwise I have excellent stuff for a
                    little volume; and could soon set forth a first vol. of my History,<note n="5" place="foot" resp="editors">Southey’s unfinished ‘History of
                        Portugal’.</note> either civil or literary. In these labours I have incurred
                    a heavy and serious expense. I shall write to Hamilton,<note n="6" place="foot" resp="editors">The <title>Critical Review</title>, for which Southey had
                        first worked in 1797, was owned from 1799 to 1804 by Samuel Hamilton (fl.
                        1790s-1810s).</note> and review again, if he chooses to employ me.
                                .
                                .
                                .
                                .
                                .
                                .
                                .
                                It was <ref target="people.html#CottleJoseph">Cottle</ref> who told me that your
                        Poems<note n="7" place="foot" resp="editors">The collection first published
                        as <title>Poems on Various Subjects</title> (1796).</note> were reprint<hi rend="ital">ing</hi> in a <hi rend="ital">third</hi> edition: this cannot
                    allude to the Lyrical Ballads, because of the number and the participle present.
                                .
                                .
                                .
                                .
                                I am bitterly
                    angry to see one new poem smuggled into the world in the Lyrical Ballads, where
                    the 750 purchasers of the first can never get at it.<note n="8" place="foot" resp="editors">A second, revised and expanded edition of Coleridge and
                        Wordsworth’s <title>Lyrical Ballads</title> was published in 1800. The
                        changes included the addition of an entirely new second volume and a
                        substantial ‘Preface’. The only ‘new poem’ added to the first volume was
                        Coleridge’s ‘Love’, which replaced Wordsworth’s ‘The Convict’; see
                            <title>Lyrical Ballads</title>, 2 vols (London, 1800), I, pp.
                        138-144.</note> At Falmouth I bought Thomas Dermody’s Poems,<note n="9" place="foot" resp="editors">Thomas Dermody (1775-1802;
                            <title>DNB</title>), <title>Poems, Moral and Descriptive</title> (1800),
                        his first publication since <title>Poems</title> (1792).</note> for old
                    acquaintance sake; alas! the boy wrote better than the man!
                                .
                                .
                                .
                                .
                                .
                                .
                                .
                                Pyes Alfred<note n="10" place="foot" resp="editors">Henry James Pye (1745-1813;
                            <title>DNB</title>), <title>Alfred</title> (1801).</note> (to
                    distinguish him from Alfred the pious<note n="11" place="foot" resp="editors">Joseph Cottle, <title>Alfred, An Epic Poem, in Twenty-Four Books</title>
                        (1800).</note>) I have not yet inspected; nor the wilful murder of
                    Bonaparte, by Anna Matilda;<note n="12" place="foot" resp="editors">Hannah
                        Crowley (1743-1809; <title>DNB</title>), dramatist and poet. She had written
                        poetry in the 1780s under the pseudonym ‘Anna Matilda’. Later she published
                            <title>The Siege of Acre: an Epic Poem</title> (1801), which took as its
                        subject the unsuccessful attempt by Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821; First
                        Consul 1799-1804, Emperor of the French 1804-1814) to capture the city of
                        Acre from an Anglo-Turkish force in 1799.</note> nor the high treason
                    committed by Sir James Bland Burgess, Baronet, against our lion-hearted
                        Richard.<note n="13" place="foot" resp="editors">Sir James Bland Burgess
                        (1752-1824; <title>DNB</title>), author of <title>Richard the First: a Poem
                            in Eighteen Books</title> (1801), an epic poem on Richard I (1157-1199;
                        King of England 1189-1199; <title>DNB</title>).</note>
<ref target="people.html#DavyHumphry">Davy</ref> is fallen stark mad with a
                    play, called the Conspiracy of Gowrie, which is by <ref target="people.html#RoughWilliam">Rough</ref>;<note n="14" place="foot" resp="editors">William Rough, <title>The Conspiracy of Gowrie</title>
                        (1800), about an attempt in 1600 to kidnap James VI and I (1567-1625; King
                        of Scotland 1567-1601, King of Great Britain 1601-1625;
                        <title>DNB</title>).</note> an imitation of Gebir,<note n="15" place="foot" resp="editors">Walter Savage Landor, <title>Gebir</title> (1798).</note>
                    with some poetry; but miserably and hopelessly deficient in all else: every
                    character reasoning, and metaphorising, and metaphysicking the reader most
                    nauseously, By the by, there is a great analogy between hock, laver, pork pie,
                    and the Lyrical Ballads, – all have a <hi rend="ital">flavour</hi>, not beloved
                    by those who require a <hi rend="ital">taste</hi>, and utterly unpleasant to
                    dram-drinkers, whose diseased palates can only <hi rend="ital">feel</hi> pepper
                    and brandy. I know not whether <ref target="people.html#WordsworthWilliam">Wordsworth</ref> will forgive the stimulant tale of Thalaba, – ’tis a
                    turtle soup, highly seasoned, but with a flavour of its own predominant. His are
                    sparagrass (it ought to be spelt so) and artichokes, good with plain butter, and
                    wholesome. </p>
<p rend="indent1"> I look on Madoc<note n="16" place="foot" resp="editors">Southey
                        had completed a version of <title>Madoc</title> in 1797-1799 and hoped to
                        correct it for publication. A heavily revised version was not published
                        until 1805.</note> with hopeful displeasure; probably it must be corrected,
                    and published now; this coming into the world at seven months is a bad way; with
                    a Doctor Slop<note n="17" place="foot" resp="editors">The incompetent doctor in
                        Laurence Sterne (1713-1768; <title>DNB</title>), <title>Tristram
                            Shandy</title> (1759-1769).</note> of a printer’s devil standing
                    ready for the forced birth, and frightening one into an abortion.
                                .
                                .
                                .
                                .
                                .
                                .
                                .
                                .
                                .
                                Is there an
                    emigrant at <ref target="places.html#Keswick">Keswick</ref>, who may make me
                    talk and write French? And I must sit at my almost forgotten Italian, and read
                    German with you; and we must read Tasso<note n="18" place="foot" resp="editors">Torquato Tasso (1544-1590), Italian poet and author of <title>Jerusalem
                            Liberated</title> (1580).</note> together.
                                .
                                .
                                .
                                .
                                .
                                </p>
<closer>
<salute rend="indent1"> God bless you!</salute>
<salute rend="indent2"> Yours,</salute>
<signed rend="indent3"> R. S.</signed>
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