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 rce869 letterEEd.26.860 Romantic Circles, http://www.rc.umd.edu, University of Maryland College Park, MD August 15, 2011

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British Library, Add MS 30927. Previously published: Kenneth Curry (ed.), New Letters of Robert Southey, 2 vols (London and New York, 1965), I, pp. 338-340.

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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860. Robert Southey to Thomas Southey, 2 December 1803 Address: To/ Lieutenant Southey/ H. M. S. Galatea./ Cove of Cork./ Single.Stamped: KESWICK/ 298Postmark: [illegible]MS: British Library, Add MS 30927Previously published: Kenneth Curry (ed.), New Letters of Robert Southey, 2 vols (London and New York, 1965), I, pp. 338-340.

Friday Dec. 2. 1803

There Tom is a true story for you – or else Dom Pedro who was the Bastard son of King Diniz tells lies.The poem enclosed with this letter has not survived, but it was probably ‘King Ramiro’, Morning Post, 9 September 1803, as Southey derived this from the source he names here, Juan Bautista Lavana (c. 1550-1624), Nobiliario de D. Pedro, Conde de Bracelos (1640), no. 3571 in the sale catalogue of Southey’s library. Pedro, Count of Barcelos (1287-1357), was the illegitimate son of Diniz (1261-1325, King of Portugal 1279-1325). you shall have another as fast as it can be copied.

Yesterday I received a most provoking letter from Edward. his Aunt he says has persuaded him to quit the Suffisante,The brig-sloop HMS Suffisante, on which Edward Southey had been found a place. where he had been very kindly treated. he keeps her letters to justify himself. since then she has abused & beat him, & he knows not what he should have done if he had not found a friend in Mr BarhamJohn Barham Foster-Barham (1763-1822), a wealthy merchant in the West India trade and partner in Plummer, Barham & Co. How Edward Southey had made his acquaintance is unclear. of Exeter who has invited him to pass his Xmas there. he now writes to me (mark you the first letter since he went aboard!) to tell me this pretty story – to say he will do what I chuse – & to ask for money. Of course I have said he must go to sea again – to which he says he has no objection, tho he should prefer the army – & I have written to Rickman & John May to set him afloat once more – if you have any friends at Plymouth who can do it the more applicants the better – his address is with John Forster Barham Esqr Exeter. Is not this cruelly vexatious! it is enough to fret ones very guts to fiddlestrings to be so pestered.

I wish I had seen your storms & your northern lights. streamers we call them here & the name is a good one. I saw some two nights ago very vivid & exquisitely beautiful. they spread like a fan from a dark cloud, now brightening & now fading, the colour a pale glow-worm green but these are nothing to what you must have seen – Iceland is a very interesting place – I would actually go there if the voyage were not so terrible.

I must hasten to finish this that there may be no post lost – for your letter arrived this evening. we go on as usual – & I am still reviewing – historifyingSouthey’s unfinished ‘History of Portugal’. & proceeding with Madoc.Southey had completed a version of Madoc in 1797-1799 and was revising it for publication. It did not appear until 1805. I will send you off as much as we can contrive to copy beginning after Madocs arrival at his resting place – as you saw all that precedes at Bristol – the former books may be sent when there is nothing newer. you shall hear again in a few days. Ediths love –

God bless you – RS.

Our house is pretty near in as much danger in this high wind as ever the Galatea can have been in the Northern Seas.

My Uncle says he wishes you were at Lisbon to take your charts of Spanish America.

In my review of Capt Burneys BookJames Burney, A Chronological History of the Voyages and Discoveries in the South Sea or Pacific Ocean (1803). Southey reviewed this in the Annual Review for 1803, 2 (1804), 3-12. I have inserted this vile epigram upon Francis Drake,Francis Drake (c. 1540-1596; DNB), explorer and sailor. wondering that it should have escaped his notice – tho it would have been xxx xxxx wonderful indeed if it had not – for I made it upon the occasion –

O Nature to Old England still Continue these mistakes! Give us for Kings such QueensElizabeth I (1533-1603; reigned 1558-1603; DNB). And for our Dux such Drakes.

Dux is Latin for a Commander. – I have 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. a matter-of-fact book by one of the breed. I shall sketch out from it the Rise & Progress of the “United Methodists,” point out the mischievous tendency of their institutions & blow the trumpet of alarm Zephaniah 1: 16, ‘A day of the trumpet and alarm against the fenced cities, and against high towers’. as loud as I can blow it.