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 rce819 letterEEd.26.810 Romantic Circles, http://www.rc.umd.edu, University of Maryland College Park, MD August 15, 2011

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Huntington Library, RS 37. 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.

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810. Robert Southey to John Rickman, 20 July [1803] Endorsement: 1803MS: Huntington Library, RS 37Unpublished. July, 20.

Thank you for what you say about my scape-grace brother. Tom could get him into his own ship, but that would be a very bad thing for both. by a very circuitous route I could perhaps get at Captain Markham,John Markham (1761-1827; DNB), naval officer. Member of the Board of Admiralty 1801-1804, 1806-1807, MP for Portsmouth 1801-1818, 1820-1826. but I already have made use of that interest to appoint Tom, & to ask a second favour thro persons with whom I have no intimacy from a man whom I know not would be neither right nor agreable. the upshot of all this is that if you can get him rated I shall be very glad & feel myself debtor for one service more. moreover there is a great fitness in sending a lad to sea who is good for nothing ashore.

You will have seen by my letter which crossed yours how puzzled I am about George the Second, & what I think of the possibility of making him understrap – by the by a most excellent verb of yours.Rickman had asked if Burnett might serve as an ‘understrap’ to Southey in the ‘Bibliotheca Britannica’; John Rickman to Southey, 18 July 1803, Huntington Library, Rickman MSS. it is a hopeless case. the three GeorgesIn the Southey-Rickman correspondence, the first two George’s were Dyer and Burnett. The identity of the third George is unclear. One possibility is Southey’s brother-in-law George Fricker. make a grand triad of the three unbelievable men – in spite of vexation I cannot help laughing at his freaks & resolution to attempt some literary work which shall neither require trouble or exertion.Rickman had reported Burnett’s wish to undertake ‘writing literary things; such as may take no trouble or attention’; John Rickman to Southey, 18 July 1803, Huntington Library, Rickman MSS. as if he could go on as doubtless he begun by eating gingerbread alphabets. The Renowned History of Giles Gingerbread (1764), a chapbook that taught children how to read through the story of a boy who was fed letters made of gingerbread.

RS.