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 rce780 letterEEd.26.771 Romantic Circles, http://www.rc.umd.edu, University of Maryland College Park, MD August 15, 2011

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Huntington Library, RS 34. Previously published: Kenneth Curry (ed.), New Letters of Robert Southey, 2 vols (London and New York, 1965), I, pp. 310-311.

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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771. Robert Southey to John Rickman, [8 April 1803] Endorsement: Apr 8 1803MS: Huntington Library, RS 34Previously published: Kenneth Curry (ed.), New Letters of Robert Southey, 2 vols (London and New York, 1965), I, pp. 310-311. Dear Rickman

We are all bustle & business & brown paper & cords & packages. Tom has been appointed to the GalateaHMS Galatea, a 32-gun Royal Navy frigate, bound for the West Indies. (not the MercuryHMS Mercury, a 28-gun Royal Navy frigate, serving in the Eastern Atlantic. as the newspapers have it) & is this day setting off. he is probably first Lieutenant – & if we must go to loggerheads will start with a fair chance of mending his fortunes.

You will not see me in London so soon as I had at first resolved. I can come up to better advantage in the autumn. this is a good reason, & moreover I wish that cursed La GripeThe influenza epidemic of 1803, which had been especially virulent in England and France. to be completely extirpated before lest I should fall into his clutches again.

SeptuagintsA Greek version of the Old Testament, written in Alexandria (3rd-1st centuries BC). ought to be more common, for the reason you have given. but you misreckon upon the possible price at which they could be sold. Unless School masters sanction them & adopt them, school boys would not buy them, & nothing but a great school sale could cover the expences. all printing is of course dear in proportion to its closeness, & crowded Greek would be God knows what per sheet, treble – or six fold the English price. I have let my Greek sleep so long that perhaps it may never be awakened – yet I must read Homer again & again. I mean to hunt the Byzantine historians for facts of manners & such corollaries as may be gleaned – & there must be something in NonnusNonnus (4th-5th centuries AD), Greek poet and author of the epic Dionysiaca. which might be useful in writing upon Hindostan – to all this, bless the old Editors! their Latin will help me, & I have yet Greek enough to verify all that concerns me. – Elmsley whom you saw at my rooms, is editing Sophocles at Edinburgh.In later life, Elmsley edited several of Sophocles’ (c. 497-406 BC) plays, including Oedipus Tyrannus (1811) and Oedipus Coloneus (1823). I am glad he is doing any thing, tho the stock of human knowledge will be but little increased by any corrections of the metre of a Greek chorus. Elmsleys very complete knowledge of the language will one day be applied to some better purpose. it is a great thing to break the ice. facilis descensus!Publius Vergilius Maro (70-19 BC), Aeneid, Book 6, line 126: ‘descent is easy’. – printers ink has a bird-lime quality of sticking to the fingers.

Danvers is much obliged to you for putting his letter in so fair a way of reaching its mark. – I have not written to Lamb – & am sorry for it – but in fact I know not how to mention his sister, & cannot write without mentioning her. in all cases madness is a dreadful affliction – & in this instance it is peculiarly dreadful.Mary Lamb had been taken to an asylum in Hoxton on 29 March. She was back home with her brother by May 1803.

You are going to Lewes – I wish it were to Portsmouth. the Lt of H. M. S. Galatea would be very glad to see you on board.

God bless you – RS. Good Friday.