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 rce627 letterEEd.26.618 Romantic Circles, http://www.rc.umd.edu, University of Maryland College Park, MD August 15, 2011

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Royal Institution, London, Davy MSS. Previously published: John Davy (ed.), Fragmentary Remains, Literary and Scientific, of Sir Humphry Davy, Bart. (London, 1858), pp. 47-48.Dating note: The letter was written from Dublin. Similarities between this and letters to Edith Southey and John May of 16 October 1801 (Letters 616 and 615 respectively), giving Southey’s postal address, suggest that this was written around that time. Southey left Dublin on 23 October 1801.

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.

All quotation marks and apostrophes have been changed: " for “," for ”, ' for ‘, and ' for ’.

Any dashes occurring in line breaks have been removed.

Because of web browser variability, all hyphens have been typed on the U.S. keyboard.

Dashes have been rendered as a variable number of hyphens to give a more exact rendering of their length.

Southey's spelling has not been regularized.

Writing in other hands appearing on these manuscripts has been indicated as such, the content recorded in brackets.

& has been used for the ampersand sign.

£ has been used for £, the pound sign

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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
618. Robert Southey to Humphry Davy, [c. 16 October 1801] Address: To/ Mr DavySeal: Red wax, three female figuresEndorsement: SoutheyMS: Royal Institution, London, Davy MSSPreviously published: John Davy (ed.), Fragmentary Remains, Literary and Scientific, of Sir Humphry Davy, Bart. (London, 1858), pp. 47-48.Dating note: The letter was written from Dublin. Similarities between this and letters to Edith Southey and John May of 16 October 1801 (Letters 616 and 615 respectively), giving Southey’s postal address, suggest that this was written around that time. Southey left Dublin on 23 October 1801.

If you have not seen Danvers on your way to town, you will be surprized to receive a letter from me dated at Dublin. the wind of fortune has shifted & driven me here.Southey had accepted the position of private secretary to Isaac Corry, Chancellor of the Irish Exchequer. I came by Rickmans invitation to a birth somewhat similar to his own, in which capacity in a very few weeks I shall remove to London, & be your neighbour once again. in June I return here, & Rickman wants me to bring you over in your leisure. the government here have purchased the first collection of minerals in the world, the Leskean collection.The Leskean collection of 7,331 mineralogical specimens, which had been acquired by the Dublin Society in 1792. this is one bait. of the chemistry here he sends a specimen herewith. here is a noble city, an odd people, & the map promises glorious lakes & mountains – things which, in spite of Tobin, I never will believe you can cease to love as devoutly as I love them.

It is since we parted at Bristol that I read the Gowrie,William Rough, The Conspiracy of Gowrie (1800). Rough had been a schoolboy at Westminster with Southey in 1786-1792. His first book was Lorenzino di Medici, and Other Poems (1797). & indeed after what you had said, I read it with astonishment. you had praised it, & your praise passed current with me – perhaps because I had received so much of it myself, but still more because on other subjects I had never heard it ill bestowed. the Gowrie I thought very, very bad. there were imitations from all writers – a leading dash of the GebirWalter Savage Landor, Gebir (1798). He attended Trinity College, Oxford 1793-1794, when Southey had been at Balliol. He had to leave after an altercation with some fellow students led him to fire a shotgun at the closed shutters of a window. running thro the whole. no character, no feeling, no truth of nature. metaphor heaped upon metaphor, an eternal reasoning – soliloquizing conversations about nothing. Rough promised much when a school boy, but I am satisfied that he never will perform any thing great. his first book was feeble – this is turgid, the palsy – & the dropsy. he has not a healthy genius.

I now remember who the author of Gebir is. he was a contemporary of mine at Oxford – of Trinity, & notorious as a mad Jacobine. his Jacobinism would have made me seek his acquaintance but for his madness. he was obliged to leave the University for shooting at one of the Fellows thro the window. all this I immediately recollected on getting at his name. – how could you compare this mans book with Roughs? the lucid passages of Gebir are all palpable to the eye – they are the master touches of a painter – there is power in them, & passion, & thought & knowledge.

I was travelling in Wales, thro the country of Madoc,Southey had finished a version of Madoc in 1797-1799, but was revising it for publication. It did not appear until 1805. when Rickman summoned me hither. Upon that poem I meant to have employed myself, & to have laboured at it, compleatly recasting the metal. now I know little what leisure will be left me, but there is no reason to fear unremitting task work. in common prudence the offer could not be refused, & there were also feelings of a higher order which left me no choice. What little I have heard of the rulers here is very favourable. they are encouragers of science & literature, laborious in removing old grievances, wash cleaning away the old corruption, & anxious to improve the country & the people.

Direct to me, if in the course of a week you can find leisure to write under cover to

Right Honble

Isaac Corry

&c &c &c

Dublin

I give you the address in its due form. your hand writing Davy I shall be glad to see – still more so to see you when I reach London. times have changed since we first became intimate, & we also must have changed. you probably more than me, for mine are older & riper habits. I do not love to think of this – for the world cannot mend the young man whom I knew before the world knew him [MS torn] very spring & blossom of his genius & his goo[MS torn]

God bless you Davy! Robert Southey.