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 rceNaN letterEEd.26.663b Romantic Circles, http://www.rc.umd.edu, University of Maryland College Park, MD August 15, 2011

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British Library, Add MS 47891. The French version (original) is to be found in Letter 663a. Previously published: John Wood Warter (ed.), Selections from the Letters of Robert Southey, 4 vols (London, 1856), I, pp. 186-189 [in French only].

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
663b. Robert Southey to John King, 16 March 1802 [translation]Address: To/ Mr King./ Pneumatic Institution/ Bristol – Hot-WellsStamped: BATHSeal: [partial, illegible]Endorsement: March 16 1802; The right hons Isaac Corry &c &c &c/ Gt George St WestminsterMS: British Library, Add MS 47891. The French version (original) is to be found in Letter 663aPreviously published: John Wood Warter (ed.), Selections from the Letters of Robert Southey, 4 vols (London, 1856), I, pp. 186-189 [in French only]. My friend

It is not easy for a man who does not know how to speak or write in French, to write a letter in this language without a grammar or dictionary. Oh well! he will take time to learn. and if you want to be irritated by reading letters of the greatest barbarity, here is your correspondent – you know I do not like the French language. it does not have the softness of Italian, nor the delicacy of Portuguese, nor the majesty of Spanish. French poetry is to my taste detestable – for an epigram, for a song, it is good enough. for an epic – for tragedy – holy God! what harmony. what a frightfully strange mouth is needed to pronounce it. A man of genius such as Voltaire – or the even greater Rousseau, will overcome the language. in fact in order to produce good work, a good worker is more valuable than good instruments.

You know of the arrangement that I have made with Messrs Longman & Rees for the works of Chatterton. my friend Rickman has drawn a view of the Church of St. Mary RedcliftDespite Southey’s praise, this drawing was not used in The Works of Thomas Chatterton (1803), edited by Southey and Joseph Cottle. for the frontispiece – it will be a beautiful engraving. but another will be required for the other volume, and Mr Duppa a knowledgeable artist, (perhaps you will have heard of the heads adapted from Michelangelo’s Last Judgment that he has published?)Richard Duppa, A Selection of Twelve Heads from the Last Judgement of Michael Angelo (1801). has suggested to me that the best subject would be the view of the interior of the apartment in which the collection of supposed manuscripts was deposited. I make so bold as to beg you to make the drawingJohn King’s drawing was used for the engraving opposite the title page of The Works of Thomas Chatterton, 3 vols (London, 1803), II, unpaginated. It was entitled ‘Interior of the Room in Redcliff Church where Rowleys Manuscripts were Said to have been Deposited’. – there is no need for me to excuse myself from soliciting humbly an act that can be called charitable. I think the antique chamber – and the old chest would also make a sufficiently pretty and very appropriate illustration.

The climate of my homeland is so execrable that today, in the spring, my hand shivers so much with the cold, notwithstanding I am so close to the fire that my legs are well roasted.

Believe me my friend that I <have formed> with the greatest and truest satisfaction, the hope that I will have you for my companion during my exile in Ireland. To live in a wild land – amongst the most strange and barbarous people, without a single friend – this prospect of the future was very terrible – Even curiosity will not last long without a companion. I have considered a tour of Killarney. and to the North to see the famous rocks of the Giants,i.e. the Giants Causeway in County Antrim. on which journey Rickman has promised to be my associate. I will not be sorry if I am able to exchange him as a traveller for you. The mountains and waterfalls of Wicklow will not be equal to those of your sublime land, nor the Fortunate IslesThe Canary Islands. that you have visited. But I believe it will be worthy of your paintbrush.

Unfortunately for the science of Galvani S. Patric did not leave one of theseLuigi Galvani (1737-1798), Italian doctor and physicist, had conducted experiments on frogs and shown the link between electricity and muscular activity. In legend, St Patrick (5th century) had cleared Ireland of snakes. – oh I am stupidly ignorant of this beast – what are they called? your friends – the little animals so slender and cold-blooded <by nature> of which you have murdered so many thousands with your scientific cold-bloodedness? all the venom of the island since that <time> has passed into the human inhabitants. If you had one of these people –in your laboratory, you could only analyse his potatoes and his whiskey, these are their primary constituents – Coleridge has suggested that they are a truly antediluvian race, whose ancestors did not want to enter the Ark with Noah,The story of Noah and the Ark is told in Genesis 6-9. but escaped in a small boat, that landed on Mount Tauré!A pun that links the origins of the Irish to bulls, as Taurus was a bull in Greek legend. as for me I have another theory more favourable to the nation’s vanity. I believe that they are from a much nobler origin than the other peoples of the world, because – all the others are from the loins of Noah. – by JoveThe chief of the gods in Roman mythology. it is worth nothing in this execrable language – because – I mean because other people spring from the loins of Noah, & they from the Sirloins of Pasiphae’s lover.Another story linking the Irish to bulls. Pasiphae was the wife of Minos, King of Crete. She fell in love with a white bull and their child was the Minotaur. there is a very aristocratic descent.

The final treatyThe Treaty of Amiens, between Britain and France, was signed on 25 March 1802. is expected every day, every hour I can say. a friendWilliam Taylor. who has needlessly been waiting some weeks for a passport to France, has this morning received intelligence from the Immigration Office that he will be able to go in a few days without restrictions.

Have you read Schiller’s tragedy about Joan of Arc? Friedrich Schiller (1759-1805), Die Jungfrau von Orleans (1801). They say that La Pucelle a witch is in love with an English officer – ! Mr Cottle the great Poet – who first blew the epic trumpet, and since the Jewish trumpetJoseph Cottle, Alfred, an Epic Poem, in Twenty Four Books (1800) and A New Version of the Psalms of David (1801). – at present is printing in his own press a new poem on a subject which is not so new, & has already been treated – it is a sermon <in verse> preached by John the BaptistJoseph Cottle, John the Baptist: a Poem (1802). An earlier version had appeared in Cottle’s Poems (1795). – it will be a desirable study when you are not able to sleep, because it is really soporific, & it is the most agreeable way to take one’s medicine by the eyes than [MS obscured] the mouth.

I am hoping in a little while to write passably in French – this was written without effort, with the same disregard of the laws of grammar that the first ConsulNapoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821, First Consul 1799-1804, Emperor of the French 1804-1814). has demonstrated for all the other laws –

I have the honour to be – that is to say I am truly & with regard your friend Robert Southey.

Here I have received a letter from our good friend Danvers – to which I will reply the day after tomorrow.