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 rce666 letterEEd.26.657 Romantic Circles, http://www.rc.umd.edu, University of Maryland College Park, MD August 15, 2011

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. Previously published: Orlo Williams, Lamb’s Friend the Census-Taker. Life and Letters of John Rickman (Boston and New York, 1912), pp. 74-76 [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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657. Robert Southey to John Rickman, [started before and continued on] 17 February [1802] Address: To/ John Rickman Esqr Endorsement: R.S./ Feby 17th 1802MS: Huntington Library, RS 21Previously published: Orlo Williams, Lamb’s Friend the Census-Taker. Life and Letters of John Rickman (Boston and New York, 1912), pp. 74-76 [in part]. My dear Rickman

I have ordered the Magazines The Commercial, Agricultural and Manufacturers Magazine, which Rickman had edited until 1801. & think Symmonds slow in getting them ready.Henry Delahay Symonds (d. 1816), the London publisher and bookseller. The Chancellor has been ill & invisible for three weeks – I call daily & duly at his door, but I must preface your papers with a note, as God knows when he will vouchsafe another audience. Of course I give him the books – it is enough that you give me leave so to do. At the years end, he will not be able to say he has got nothing by me – if he studies your lucubrations he will learn more than he already knows.

This removal of Mr Abbott will it remove you to England?Rickman’s employer, the politician Charles Abbot (1757–1829; DNB), Chief Secretary for Ireland 1801-1802, The Speaker 1802-1817. Abbot took up his new post as The Speaker on 10 February 1802. of course – unless he nominates you to some post as the best legacy he can leave the country. The Speakers SecretaryRickman did indeed follow Abbot, and later in 1802 accepted the post of Secretary to the Speaker of the House of Commons. has a very pretty house annexed to his office, which looketh to the Thames, near Westminster Bridge. I should willingly shake you by the hand in London – but growl confoundedly at passing six months without you among the PatriciansThe Irish, as followers of St Patrick, 5th-century patron saint of Ireland; but also a play on the word for Roman aristocrats. – & without employment – for of course I cannot remove many books for so short a stay. I am not well. neither this place, nor this climate, suit me.

Your have received John Woodville.Charles Lamb’s John Woodvil: A Tragedy (1802). I retain my first opinion. it is delightful poetry badly put together. an exquisite picture in a clumsy frame. Margaret is a noble girl – the other characters not so well conceived. A better imitation of old language I have never seen – but was the language of the serving men ever the language of nature? Lamb has copied the old writers – I suspect that they did not copy existing characters. those quaint turns of words & quainter contortions of thought never could be produced by ignorant men. the main incident of the play – (the discovery) is too foolish – the effect produced too improbable. Withal so beautiful is the serious dialogue that it more than redeems the story. most I like the concluding scene.

I am half amused & half provoked by the civilities which my Secretaryship procures me. & receive them with an accurate sense of their value. I on my part also am more civil perhaps than usual. my wish is to get abroad, & I am old enough never to kick away the stone which I may want to step upon. abroad I must go – so says my head & my whole intestinal canal & my inclination. Lisbon of course is the place desirable. I would compound for Madrid. it is a hateful city – & only its books can atone for a bad situation both as to earth & heaven. If in October however I see no near chance of a legation Southward – as the world will be before me I shall seriously think of taking root in Portugal, & seriously labour to get money enough for a land journey from Bilboa or St Sebastians thro Biscay to Madrid & thence elbow out of the straight road to Toledo & Cordova. These speculations <plans> you see are post-obit speculations for the natural death of my office may be calculated upon.

Did I tell you how Burnetts Tutorship is like my Secretaryship – a happy sinecure. that his pupils have both eloped, & that he receives his salary for eating & drinking with Lord Stanhope, & talking late after supper?Burnett had been employed as tutor to Charles Stanhope (1785-1809) and James Stanhope (1788-1825), younger sons of the controversial politician and inventor Charles (‘Citizen’) Stanhope, 3rd Earl Stanhope (1753-1816; DNB). The boys’ flight from their father’s house was described in a letter from Charles Lamb to John Rickman, [?1 February 1802], E.W. Marrs Jr (ed.), The Letters of Charles and Mary Anne Lamb, 1796-1817, 3 vols (Ithaca, NY and London, 1975-1978), II, pp. 49-50. the Historians ambition is gone by – a passion for the utilities has succeeded, & we have given him the new title Professor of Mathematics. the Lord who is of <not only> a good man, but a very clever one, has many mechanical inventions to bring forward of which I suppose some one will fall to the share of Burnett & so make him lazy for life by a valuable patent. He is as happy as the Great Mogul. Of the other George I have more doleful tidings. Mary Lamb & her brother have succeeded in talking him into love with Miss Bengey or Bungey or Bungay; but they have got him into a quagmire & xx cannot get him out again, for they have failed in the attempt to talk Miss Bungay or Bungey or Benjey into love with him.Dyer had fallen for the dramatist and novelist Elizabeth Benger (c. 1775-1827; DNB). Although nothing came of his passion, Benger and Dyer did have one thing in common: both were noted for their slovenly dress. this is a cruel business. for he has taken the infection, & it may probably soon break out in sonnets & elegies.

Wednesday 17. Feby.

I have got the Magazines home to day, written an Index to all your aliases, & sent them to the Chancellor[Corry] with a recommendatory epistle. You will at some time or other I hope collect those papers into a volume, their extensive circulation could not fail of producing great good, & at present they must necessarily be little known. They are merged in the Magazine, which has not character enough to be in request – & the Readers cannot possibly pay that attention to scattered papers under a dozen signatures which they would do to the volume of one author, where they would feel a consistancy & continue continuousness of opinions. A six shilling volume would contain them, or they might be printed at a cheaper & more serviceable price. now – three Magazine volumes must be purchased – & in decorum the first also. but the neat article is what is wanted. they that buy beef must buy bones – tis however xxx only in Portugal that they throw in bare bones to make weight.

Cottles Methodist.Cottle had published a pseudonymous satire, The Methodist (1801). It 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. Methodists in Bristol had taken the poem at face value and been suitably enraged. Some of the Sect in Bristol took its irony as sober serious opinion, & declared that the Author of such a wicked poem ought to be burnt!

farewell yrs truly Robert Southey.

I have tried vainly at an epitaph.Rickman had asked both Lamb and Southey to write an epitaph for Mary Druitt (c. 1782-1801), who is buried at Wimborne, Dorset. It does not appear that Southey undertook the task.

Edith continues exceedingly unwell.Edith Southey was pregnant with her first child. she has now been confined to the house nearly a month. I must think of removing her from London, however inconvenient.