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 rce660 letterEEd.26.651 Romantic Circles, http://www.rc.umd.edu, University of Maryland College Park, MD August 15, 2011

Material from the Romantic Circles Website may not be downloaded, reproduced or disseminated in any manner without authorization unless it is for purposes of criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, and/or classroom use as provided by the Copyright Act of 1976, as amended.

Unless otherwise noted, all Pages and Resources mounted on Romantic Circles are copyrighted by the author/editor and may be shared only in accordance with the Fair Use provisions of U.S. copyright law. Except as expressly permitted by this statement, redistribution or republication in any medium requires express prior written consent from the author/editors and advance notification of Romantic Circles. Any requests for authorization should be forwarded to Romantic Circles:>

Romantic Circles c/o Professor Neil Fraistat Department of English University of Maryland College Park, MD 20742 fraistat@umd.edu

By their use of these texts and images, users agree to the following conditions: These texts and images may not be used for any commercial purpose without prior written permission from Romantic Circles. These texts and images may not be re-distributed in any forms other than their current ones.

Users are not permitted to download these texts and images in order to mount them on their own servers. It is not in our interest or that of our users to have uncontrolled subsets of our holdings available elsewhere on the Internet. We make corrections and additions to our edited resources on a continual basis, and we want the most current text to be the only one generally available to all Internet users. Institutions can, of course, make a link to the copies at Romantic Circles, subject to our conditions of use.

Huntington Library, RS 19. Previously published: Kenneth Curry (ed.), New Letters of Robert Southey, 2 vols (London and New York, 1965), I, pp. 266-268 [dated January 1802].

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

All other characters, those with accents, non-breaking spaces, etc., have been encoded in HTML entity decimals.

 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
651. Robert Southey to John Rickman, [c. 17 January 1802] Address: To/ Mr John Rickman Esqr Endorsement: R.S. Jan 17/ 1802MS: Huntington Library, RS 19Previously published: Kenneth Curry (ed.), New Letters of Robert Southey, 2 vols (London and New York, 1965), I, pp. 266-268 [dated January 1802]. My dear Rickman

You will not be surprized to learn that I have lost my Mother. She had so long made a part of all my cares & calculations & hopes that I shall very long feel the loss. but enough of this. I have something of your philosophy. which old EpictetusEpictetus (c. 55-135 AD), Greek Stoic philosopher. His ideas were preserved by his pupil, Lucius Flavius Arrianus (before 86-after 146 AD) in the Enchiridion, or Handbook of Epictetus’s thought. taught me, & know how foolish it is to foster unavailing thoughts of disquietude.

The disturbances & inconveniences of a sick house have hitherto kept me from seeing your cousin.Mr Beaumont (first name and dates unknown). I had engaged Lamb to meet him, & was obliged to put him off on that account. We are now meditating a removal from lodgings that are become unpleasant. Mr Corry has offered me apartments on the second floor of his official house. they are bad rooms, & unfurnished. still if I can hire furniture I am disposed to like the scheme – because we become as independant as dwellers in the Inns of Court or Colleges, & because I may doubtless lock up my books there when we migrate to green Erin.Ireland. The little intercourse we have of late had has been of the same kind. – except indeed that I am a gainer by a ream of this paper, a ream of foolscap & another of note-sheetlings, all of the same quality with appropriate pens & sealing-wax. Likewise he offered & paid me a second quarter in advance. in all this there is an kind attention of which I am duly sensible. he introduced me yesterday to his nephew, a young man of Patrician speech & countenance.Unidentified; a relative of either Corry or his long-term partner, and mother of his six children, Jane Symms (dates unknown). but still no dinner – & nothing to do except reading Gregorys Economy of NatureGeorge Gregory (1754-1808; DNB), The Economy of Nature Explained (1796). with William.William Corry (c. 1786-1853), son of Isaac Corry. Southey was employed as Isaac Corry’s secretary, a post paid for by government funds. In fact, he was participating in a parliamentary expenses scandal. The secretarial post was a front, and Corry fraudulently diverted Southey’s services, using him to tutor his children.

The uncomfortable state of feelings to which of late I have been subject, have produced some good. I felt a stronger necessity for employment, & my historical papersPapers and notes relating to Southey’s projected ‘History of Portugal’. are considerably increased thereby. my collateral reading & collections are so extensive that there is some reason to suspect I may find a surplus enough for a volume of Works of Supererogation.In Catholic theology, works of supererogation are those beyond what is required by God. So Southey’s supplementary volume would include all his research beyond what was needed for his ‘History of Portugal’. Some of the wild Tales which are half history & half invention – the romance of history – but the history of manners – I shall berhyme – & then you will see them in the Morning Post.Southey had recommenced writing for the Morning Post in autumn 1801, but only contributed three poems. Two of them would fit the description he gives here: ‘O Thou Moor of Moreria’, Morning Post, 18 September 1801; and ‘Ballad. From The Spanish’, Morning Post, 23 December 1801. He contributed nothing in 1802, but published 13 poems (translations and original works) in the newspaper in 1803. You will easily recognize the mark of the beast. MadocSouthey had completed a version of Madoc in 1797-1799 and was revising it for publication. It did not appear until 1805. proceeds <grows> very slowly – symptoms of a long-living tree.

Lambs play is not yet born.Charles Lamb’s John Woodvil: A Tragedy (1802). the Press is parturient & I am looking with the expectation of hope for little Margaret.Margaret is a central character in John Woodvil: a Tragedy (1802). Cottle – he who brayed thro the epic trumpet, & played afterwards upon the Jews-harp, hath committed another work, an anonymous satire named the Methodist.Cottle’s Alfred, An Epic Poem, in Twenty Four Books (1800); A New Version of the Psalms of David (1801); and, pseudonymously, The Methodist (1801). The latter was reviewed as ‘entirely of the ironical kind, and is intended as a severe and biting satire against those who are not Methodists, particularly of the Established Church, and, above all, the Bishops. The author writes in the character of a zealous opposer of Methodists’, British Critic, 20 (September 1802), 320-321. quite as long & rather more fanatical than the extempore sermon of his own Angel in Alfred.Joseph Cottle, Alfred, An Epic Poem, in Twenty Four Books (London, 1800), pp. 417-437. Methodism has been very hurtful to him. his head has lost something – but such a head it matters not what becomes. but since he has taken to faith he has taken leave of good works. this rascally sect is growing with a dangerous rapidity. old Vincent has resented their attack upon Public Education with spirit & abilities that gave me very great satisfaction.Southey’s old enemy William Vincent, Headmaster of Westminster School. His A Defence of Public Education (1801) refuted charges that religious education was being neglected in public schools. there is a war brooding between our old Clergy, & these fanatics, who if they get the upper hand would torment us in all imaginable ways – from compelled attendance on hour-long sermons – up to roasting alive. – I take shelter in the Church that I may not be driven to the Meeting-House. & shall roar aloud if the Mother Church be in danger, with hearty good will. from ignorant Calvinistic persecution Good Lord deliver me! if I must believe or burn let me at least turn to a Jesuits faith.

I know not whether it is worth while to transfer the Westminster ticketA ticket for Westminster Public Library, a subscription library, founded in 1789. – I have enough employment upon the old books of the Redcross Street Library.Dr Williams’s Library, London, which was established by a bequest from the dissenting minister, Daniel Williams (c. 1643–1716; DNB). yesterday the three first volumes of the Acta Sanctorum Acta Sanctorum (1643-1940) , a 68-volume hagiography of Catholic saints, organised by calendar date of the saints’ feast-days. reached me from thence. noble books in which I find materials for every thing. perhaps you do not know that the first article in this immense work is – De sacrosancto Praeputio Christi & of where it was kept as a relic till immani Calvinistarum furore deperditum! –

Controvertitur a quibasdam an Christus cum praepartio resurrexit. de quo consuli posountThe passage is taken from Acta Sanctorum, 1. Jan., ‘Commemoratio Sacrosancti Praeputtii Christi’ and translates as: ‘About Christ’s sacred foreskin & of where it was kept as a relic until destroyed by the manic fury of the Calvinists. Some dispute whether the resurrected Christ had a foreskin. They demand a consultation on it’. January 1 is the Feast of the Circumcision, hence this is the first article in the first volume of the Acta Sanctorum. &c &c –

however you may like to hear the most probable opinion up[MS torn] article of faith Quod resectum est censet probabile esse in terris mansisse. corpus tamen resurgens habuisse praeputium formatum ex aliquâ parte materiae illius, quae aliquando fuerat in corpore Xti, & per continuam erat nutritionem resoluta.The passage translates as: ‘What was cut off he thinks probably remained on earth, but the resurrected body had a foreskin made from some part of the substance which had once been in Christ’s body, and had been kept supple by continuous feeding.’

As a better specimen of the same volume I find the warm bath used in Ireland about the age of St Patrick. Acta Sanctorum, 1. Jan., ‘De S. Mochua sive Cuano Abbate in Hibernia’.

The famous PrefaceThe ‘Preface’ to George Dyer’s Poems and Critical Essays (1802). which underwent elaboration proportionally longer than the nine years gestation of a classical poetQuintus Horatius Flaccus (65-8 BC), Ars Poetica, line 388, advised poets to keep their works back from publication for nine years. – shall be bought & carried to Ireland – & if need be deposited in the Library for Irish Information –

God bless you. yrs R S.