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 rce645 letterEEd.26.636 Romantic Circles, http://www.rc.umd.edu, University of Maryland College Park, MD August 15, 2011

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. 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
636. Robert Southey to Charles Danvers, [c. 4 December 1801] Address: To/ Mr Danvers/ 9. St James’s Place/ Kingsdown/ BristolStamped: BRIDGE-St./ WestminsterPostmark: [partial] BDE/ 801 MS: British Library, Add MS 47890Unpublished.Dating note: The letter’s contents suggest a date in early December 1801, round about 4 December, when Southey began to attend the lectures given by Adam Walker.

At last my dear Danvers, I repay you the thirty pounds, & remit HamiltonsSamuel Hamilton (fl. 1790s-1810s), owner of the Critical Review, 1799-1804. Southey had reviewed intermittently for the journal since 1797. old debt. I wish this last had been a larger sum. let me know the amount of MauricesJoseph Maurice (dates unknown), an apothecary with a shop on St Michael’s Hill, Bristol. He had treated Southey and his family while they lived in Bristol. bill – the taylor being paid & the smaller sums that you have expended for me there will remain from ten to twelve pounds towards defraying it. I had nearly forgotten to say that a Mr Lomax of LiverpoolMr Lomax (dates unknown) had sent Southey £2 for a copy of The Works of Thomas Chatterton (1803), edited by Southey and Joseph Cottle. In the list of subscribers at the beginning of volume 1, he was described as ‘Mr. J. Lomax, one Copy, 2l.’ He might have been either the merchant James Lomax or John Lomax, both of whom lived in Bold St, Hanover St, Liverpool, in 1800. foolishly sent his subscription for Chatterton to me – making it two £. it is better pay it at once to Mrs NewtonMary Newton (1749-1806), Chatterton’s sister, who was the beneficiary of Southey’s and Cottle’s edition of her brother’s works. be good enough when you go near that end of the town to pay it her – & just take her memorandum.

If Maurices account be not a heavy one – may I ask you to discharge it for me? it hangs upon my mind, & I have no immediate means of clearing myself. Corry advanced me my first quarter – you will conceive what a hole the journeys from Llangedwin to Keswick – thence to Ireland – again to Keswick & to London must have made in it. probably my second quarter will not be paid till the end of the half year. meantime I must labour to keep pace with an increased expenditure. Hamilton promises to send me books. I have again engaged with Stuart Southey had ‘engaged’ to write poems for the Morning Post, owned by Daniel Stuart, as he had done in 1798-1799. But only three of his poems appeared in September-December 1801, and Southey did not publish anything further in the Morning Post until 4 February 1803. – the two will bring me I trust fifty pounds in the half year. Sometimes I look at Kehama,For Southey’s plan for The Curse of Kehama (1810), see Common-Place Book, ed. John Wood Warter, 4 series (London, 1849–1850), IV, pp. 12-15. By this date he had only drafted Book 1. sometimes dream of a play which would be a great prize & indeed float me for the rest of my voyage. MadocSouthey had finished a version of Madoc in 1797-1799. He was revising it for publication, but it did not appear until 1805. shall not be sacrificed to any temporary exigence. I schemed a prose story one day in a stage Common-Place Book, ed. John Wood Warter, 4 series (London, 1849–1850), IV, pp. 9-10, contains Southey’s sketch for a novel with a hero called ‘Oliver Elton’. In a subsequent note (IV, p. 10) dated ‘Parkgate. Saturday Oct. 10, 1801’, Southey described the story as concerning ‘a man who, by practical wisdom and useful knowledge, preserves himself from misery in difficult circumstances, and makes and deserves his own happiness.’ – the opposite moral to that stupid Forester of Miss Edgeworth.Maria Edgeworth (1768-1849; DNB). ‘Forester’ was one of the short stories in Moral Tales for Young People (1801). It dealt with a young man of high principles but no tact. a plain tale how a young man by acting consistently upon philosophical principles preserved himself in difficult circumstances from what would else have been utter misery – so much for my embryos – the play I suppose must come to something – according to all laws of motive.

My Mother is as may be expected, one day better – one day worse. her present exceeding weakness she attributes to a bowel complaint when at Knowle. if I could see her gain any, the least strength perhaps I also might think so, & fancy the cough was her old one, & the expectoration not consumptive. but every symptom is against this. neither the present is agreable – nor the prospect chearing. I wish my years service were over – that the time were past & my own lot determined –

We expect soon to see Charlotte SmithCharlotte Turner Smith (1749-1806; DNB), poet and novelist; author, among many other works, of Celestina (1791) and The Old Manor House (1793). She was an old friend of Mary Barker; the two spent the winter together in London in 1801-1802. – indeed she will probably be our neighbour, & I promise myself some pleasure in her company. – My visit to Holland House did not take place. Lady H.Elizabeth Vassall Fox, Lady Holland (c. 1771-1845; DNB), literary and political hostess. Her second husband was Henry Richard Fox, 3rd Lord Holland, Whig politician and Hispanophile. was unwell – & since that time Wynn has left town – so it is prorogued indefinitely. – Of Coleridge we see little – he talks of leaving town – foolishly I think as Stuart pays him – almost prodigally – for doing little – but doing any thing is a labour from which he would willingly shrink. I have not yet heard how Burnett goes on in his new employment. PhillipsSir Richard Phillips (1767-1840; DNB), publisher and proprietor of the Monthly Magazine. has used him so scurvily that if Georges account be quite accurate he ought to be paragraphed for a rascal in every newspaper. he bargained with him for two sheets – of which the price was to be ten guineas. Phillips afterwards sent him word that he might make it three sheets. accordingly Burnett did so – & when he demanded the 15 guineas in ratio – no Sir – said the overgrown scoundrel – I told you you might make it thr[MS torn] sheets if you pleased – but I never said I would pay for three. – So ends [MS torn] only connection with a bookseller which Burnett can hope to make. I doubt [MS torn]s ability for his present task – tho it be the easiest possible. for he is very inactive & the little time his indolence has ever sacrificed to reading has been wasted upon metaphysics – ploughing sand!

I should be less pleased than surprized if Corry was to set about trans metap metamorphosising me from a secretary into a tutor for his son.William Corry (c. 1786-1853). already I go with him to Walkers Lectures.Probably given by Adam Walker (1730/1-1821; DNB), famed for his lectures, especially on astronomy. no bad way of spending two hours – if they must be spent apart from the great desk & the carpet. Out of his own branch of business he possesses very little knowledge – doubtless I must appear to him as deficient as he does to me – as in every conversation one or the other must betray some ignorance. my own expectations & intentions I laid open fully in my last. if it were but possible to drop your house & its concerns at Keswick, I should wish no alteration in them.

Our love to Mrs D. you had better acknowledge this in a letter directed straight, else it may be delayed at Mr Corrys. I am obliged to make the draft payable to bearer, it being without a stamp

God bless you yrs affectionately R Southey