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 rce866 letterEEd.26.857 Romantic Circles, http://www.rc.umd.edu, University of Maryland College Park, MD August 15, 2011

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MS untraced; text is taken from Robert Galloway Kirkpatrick Jnr, ‘The Letters of Robert Southey to Mary Barker From 1800 to 1826’ (unpublished PhD, Harvard, 1967), pp. 71-75 [dated late November 1803]. Previously published: John Wood Warter (ed.), Selections from the Letters of Robert Southey, 4 vols (London, 1856), I, pp. 253–256 [in part; dated Keswick 1804].Dating note: Dated from internal evidence; Sunday was 27 November in 1803.

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.

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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.

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 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
857. Robert Southey to Mary Barker, [27 November 1803] Address: To/ Miss Barker/ Congreve/ Penkridge/ Staffordshire. Stamped: KESWICK/ 298MS: MS untraced; text is taken from Robert Galloway Kirkpatrick Jnr, ‘The Letters of Robert Southey to Mary Barker From 1800 to 1826’ (unpublished PhD, Harvard, 1967), pp. 71-75 [dated late November 1803]Previously published: John Wood Warter (ed.), Selections from the Letters of Robert Southey, 4 vols (London, 1856), I, pp. 253–256 [in part; dated Keswick 1804].Dating note: Dated from internal evidence; Sunday was 27 November in 1803.

[Fifteen words crossed out] Senhora & thats all I have to say [five words crossed out] & for the impropriety of your song, either Mr. [ten words crossed out] seriously expects BonaparteNapoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821, First Consul 1799-1804, Emperor of the French 1804-1814). to conquer England & you to be hung upon the same principle that Edward the firstEdward I (1239-1307, King of England 1272-1307; DNB). executed the old Bards – or else the Mans a fool. by the by that execution is finely narrated by old Sir John Wynne – ‘he caused them all to be hanged by martial law, as stirrers of the people to sedition.’Sir John Wynn (1553-1627; DNB), The History of the Gwedir Family (London, 1770), p. 62.

We go on pretty much as usual. Edith but ailing – Coleridge quacking himself for complaints that would teaze any body into quackery – I myself pretty well I thank ye, bating eyes that like Bonaparte are always threatening mischief. Coleridge & I are the best companions possible in almost all moods of mind – for all kinds of wisdom & all kinds of nonsense to the very heights & depths thereof. I have a large room as a study – so large that God help me I look in it like a Cock Robin in a Church. the walls have only their first coat of plaister on (dont be frightened tis quite dry & has been so these two years.) the ceiling has all the cross lines of the trowel. my furniture is about as much as a poor fellow has in the Fleet Prison.A prison for debtors and bankrupts off Farringdon St, in London. two chairs & a little round table. the wind comes in so diabolically that I could sometimes fancy myself in the cold provinces of Lucifer-land – if it were not that the view from the window is as heavenly as these on earth can be – so that from the mixture you may set it down to be my Purgatory – a state of torment with heaven in view. But I am going as we used to do at Westminster to string curtains across & so partition my self up into a corner with the fire place. here I sit alone. Piggarell only being permitted to enter. she passes about half her time here, I – all, but at meal times or when we walk. Here I have worked like a negro. One cargo of the “killed & wounded” i-e- the reviewed books – is sent away. A damned regiment are still to be killed off – all the trash that disgraces the English press – which is indeed at a miserable ebb. & I expect every day another batch to include Gobwins Life of Chaucer.William Godwin, Life of Chaucer, the Early English Poet (1803), reviewed in Annual Review for 1803, 2 (1804), 462-473. Oh! do you know who is the man who has published a volume of Poems under the assumed name of Peter Bayley Junr Esqr.Peter Bayley (1778-1823; DNB), Poems (1803). ‘Bayley’ was not an assumed name. The first poem in his collection, ‘An Apology for Writing’, lines 46-55 and Note, attacked Southey’s Joan of Arc (1796) and (1798). The penultimate poem, ‘The Fisherman’s Wife’, could be read as a parody of Wordsworth and lines 115-119 had a Note, ‘The simplicity of that most simple of all poets, Mr Wordsworth himself, is scarcely more simple than the language of this stanza. Absit invidia dicto [let ill will be absent from these words].’ Southey contributed a coruscating review of Bayley’s book to the Annual Review for 1803, 2 (1804), 546-552. he talks of his native WeverThe River Weaver in Cheshire. Bayley was from Nantwich, on the banks of the Weaver. – which may be a sham – but that you know is in your part of the world. The Lord in Heaven have mercy upon that Gentleman – Scoundrel whosoever he be! for I have got him upon my thumbnail & shall – crack him Senhora, for a fidalgo.The Portuguese for ‘gentleman’. He hath committed high treason against me in the first place, but what he is to be damned for is – first having stolen by wholesale from the Lyrical Ballads Lyrical Ballads, With Other Poems, first published in 1798, with new, expanded editions in 1800 and 1802. – & then abusing Wordsworth by name. I will break him upon the wheel & then hook him up alive in terroremThe Latin translates as ‘To cause terror’. & make his memory stink in the noses of all readers of English present & to come. I wish he could know that his book has been sent to me to be reviewed & that Wordsworth has now got it to claim his own whenever he finds it. Every peacocks feather shall be plucked out & then his tail will be left – in a very fit & inviting condition for a cat-o-nine-tails.

I believe Coleridge has made up his mind to go to Malta for a change of climate & will set out by the first ship.Coleridge left for Malta in April 1804. Remember you that this not being a country of fine trees summer & winter make a less difference to the painter than in the West of England. & as soon as the Spring begins to make every thing alive you must please to come & make us alive. do – do – draw figures instead of kickmanjiggery that you may make me some de[signs] for Madoc – which in good earnest I do mean to publish as soon as ever I can get a decent number of subscribers – I have got on bravely with it – & if my paper were larger could find in my heart to send you a delicate morsel. I will try to publish it myself for it is damned hard to spin out the very guts of ones brain & after all get less than a fellow in Paternoster Row,Southey’s publishers, Longman and Rees, had offices in Paternoster Row, near St Paul’s Cathedral. because his breeches pocket is as full as my head, – heigh ho! Senhora! & my breeches pocket as empty as his numscull.

Will you not rejoice to hear that I am going to blow the Trumpet of alarm Zephaniah 1: 16, ‘A day of the trumpet and alarm against the fenced cities, and against high towers’. against the Evangelicals? having got a History of the MethodistsWilliam Myles (1756-1828), A Chronological History of the People Called Methodists (1803), Annual Review for 1803, 2 (1804), 201-213. to review. I will point up with precious effect of their Bands & Classes – the utter ignorance of human passions on which they are founded, & the utter destruction of all morals to which they tend. Is it not a happy hit to call them the Ecclesiastical Corresponding Society? indeed it is an alarming evil. the Wesleyans have in 30 years increased more than five fold – they are by their own statements 110,000 persons – & certainly the WhitfieldGeorge Whitefield (1714–1770; DNB), inspirer of Calvinistic Methodism. – the Calvinistic Branch must be more numerous. I write no more verses for the M. PostSouthey’s ‘Epigram. Gallus et Taurus’, Morning Post, 15 December 1803, was his final publication in the newspaper, though it had probably been submitted much earlier. – too much disgusted with its cant & folly & abominable proposal of giving no quarter These paragraphs appeared in the Morning Post, 6-7 October 1803 – since Stuart – has sold it & given up the management. My fraternal remembrances to Peter with a piece of the next pineapple.Peter was the name of Mary Barker’s pet pig.

Harry is gone to Edinburgh to commence his studies there.– John ThelwallJohn Thelwall (1764–1834: DNB), radical, writer and elocutionist. is expected to dinner here to day on his Lecturing Tour. John is thriving by Lecturing upon Elocution, & his name is in high odour – in spite of all old stories and prepossessions. he is a very honest-hearted man. a very excellent husband & fond father & I am heartily glad he is doing well. What news more? Only that Miss Bengay or Benjay or Bunjay or BungyThe dramatist and novelist Elizabeth Benger (c. 1775-1827; DNB). tells everywhere the story of my playing at Pope JoanA board game played with cards and counters. & how she was disappointedIn 1802, Charles and Mary Lamb had talked George Dyer into believing he was in love with Elizabeth Benger. − there Miss Malice− that’s a sugar-plumb for you.

God bless you yrs very truly RS. Sunday.