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 rce876 letterEEd.26.867 Romantic Circles, http://www.rc.umd.edu, University of Maryland College Park, MD August 15, 2011

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Huntington Library, HM 4841 . Previously published: J. W. Robberds (ed.), A Memoir of the Life and Writings of the Late William Taylor of Norwich, 2 vols (London, 1843), I, pp. 474-476 [in part].

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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 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
867. Robert Southey to William Taylor, 11 December 1803 Address: To/ Wm Taylor Junr/ Surry Street/ Norwich./ SingleStamped: KESWICK/ 298Endorsement: Ansd 5MS: Huntington Library, HM 4841 Previously published: J. W. Robberds (ed.), A Memoir of the Life and Writings of the Late William Taylor of Norwich, 2 vols (London, 1843), I, pp. 474-476 [in part]. My dear friend

I have delayed writing to you far overlong. & somewhat ungratefully after all the trouble you have taken, the services you have rendered & the kindnesses you have bestowed upon Harry. I was vexed at his removalHenry Herbert Southey had enrolled at the University of Edinburgh in November 1803. – sadly vexed that his own conduct should have rendered inevitable a step which I knew would produce considerable uneasiness & embarrasment to my Uncle as well as myself. There is a want of feeling in his conduct which I cannot easily pardon, for he knew how difficultly I live, & how his Uncle has always been beggared by his family. but it was always in his nature – & I fear will never get out of it. he writes now as if he felt his situation & of course I say nothing to him of the past – nor shall I think of it except only as it does make me fearful for the future. – Meantime a far worse business has taken place with respect to my younger brother. I placed him in the navy, by his own choice & against my opinion & advice. his mad Aunt has persuaded him to leave him it, & he after most inexcusably taking this step has quarrelled with her, got into some gentlemansJohn 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. house at Exeter, & there is buying clothes, a fowling piece &c, & drawing upon me for payment – in short actually commencing swindler at fifteen. Bills to the amount of twenty pounds have been sent down to me here – which I have of course protested. that business he & his Aunt & his new friend may settle as they can. I am endeavouring to get him into the navy again if possible, − & if not to send him in some merchantship some long voyage – for if he do not take the sea, he will become a sharper unless he should happily turn strolling player – which would now be the best thing that could happen.

I am fitting MadocSouthey had completed a version of Madoc in 1797-1799 and was revising it for publication. It did not appear until 1805. for publication – hoping by its profit to clear off a debt which I owe May almost wholly on Harrys account. May is an excellent good man & has as sincere a respect for me as I have for him. I am disposed to try whether or no it be practicable to publish it on my own account by subscription, & thus have the whole profits myself – which the booksellers will else share – but I will try this without publishing my intention, <at first,> because a public failure would be lessen unpleasant & perhaps lessen the marketable value of the ware when I should be obliged to carry it to a chapman. If you can get me a few names I am sure you will. a quarto for a guinea – the money on delivery of the book. I shall print it next winter – & then having built my monument – if it were not for this history of mineSouthey’s unfinished ‘History of Portugal’. – I should feel & think that my work was done.

We are fixed here for some time – indeed I trust till we fix decidedly. Will you be our guest in the summer? you will see Coleridge (who much desires to see you) & Wordsworth, − & if Harry should not come here to meet you, & you should like to advance to Edinburgh I will accompany you there. It is a long way truly – but the place deserves a second visit, & would reclaim you from some of your Netherlandish heresies.

The IrisThe Norwich newspaper which Taylor edited 1803-1804. is not only a very interesting paper, but is now the only interesting one. Your ballad of the Old WomanWilliam Taylor’s ‘A Tale of Wonder’ (his version of the story of ‘The Old Woman of Berkeley’) appeared in The Iris, 29 October 1803. had some excellent parts in it. the conception has far more power of fancy than mine, mine‘A Ballad, Shewing How An Old Woman Rode Double, and Who Rode Before Her’, Poems, 2 vols (Bristol, 1799), II, pp. [143]-160. indeed is the mere narration of the ‘true story.’ but your language wants ease & perspicuity, & there is a mixture of the ludicrous & the shocking, which instead of amalgamating into the grotesque has curdled – each remaining seperate & yet polluted. Still it is a fine poem, & most evidently the work of an extraordinary man. I regret that the poor Anthology Annual Anthology (1799) and (1800). is discontinued, for it would have given me great pleasure to have seen it in those types & on that paper.

Coleridge is going into Devonshire to winter for his health. I know not when any of his works will appear – & tremble lest an untimely death should leave me the task of putting together the fragments of his materials – which in sober truth I do believe would be a <more> serious loss to the world of literature than it ever sufferd from the wreck of antient science.

God bless you – yrs very affectionately Robert Southey. Sunday. Dec 11. 1803.