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MS untraced; text is taken from Robert Galloway Kirkpatrick, ‘The Letters of Robert Southey to Mary Barker From 1800 to 1826’ (unpublished PhD, Harvard, 1967), pp. 326–331.. Previously published: John Wood Warter (ed.), Selections from the Letters of Robert Southey, 4 vols (London, 1856), II, pp. 171–175.
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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It is saying little – that I would pay some deference to your opinion when Mr. Pratts
When a young Poet is cut off, Senhora, it appears to me like the death of a young Hero, – a new & permanent
interest is thrown over all that he has done, & he escapes the chance of disappointing the expectations built upon the
promises which he had given. There is plenty of genius in the world, – I am sure you will not suspect me of undervaluing it, in
any particular instance, for saying so. – there is plenty of it, – but God knows it is a melancholy consideration to think how
very little comes to maturity. – What would have been Henry Whites fate if
Heaven had not mercifully taken him? – he would either have let his fanaticism extinguish the light that was in him, & have
become a mere Evangelical, – or that light would have occasioned a struggle which must have overset either his worldly fortunes,
if he had followed it; – or his moral principles if he had shut it up within the dark Lanthorn of expediency, & gone on
praying & preaching when it would have been only lip-worship. – And death is no evil to the Dead; – they are at their
journey’s end, – rather to be envied than lamented for having got there. Of all other disagreeable things we say ‘I wish it was
over’ – When you have heard me say Senhora that I wished the year 1900 were come – the same feeling was implied. – Yet that I am a
very happy man you know. That good Lady who as you remember, physiognomised me so luckily for ‘a man of sorrow & acquainted
with woe,’rs Fletcher in Edinburgh – (Miss Smiths friend) said of me? – that xxx I was “all that
was intellectual, but that it was plain from every feature in his face that he was a man acquainted with woe.” This tickled me
not a little’; see Southey to Charles Danvers, 25 May 1807, Letter 1326.
This has led me from the matter. What I should have said is that Henry White excites more love & admiration now
than he could have done under any other circumstances. You feel more from his fragments than you would have done had they been
finished, – his heart & his hopes have all been laid open to the world, – which had he lived never would have been the case, –
& every body is ready to praise & regret him, because he is no longer an object of envy. His history poor fellow shows
what death will do for a poet! He published a little volume while he lived, & it was neglected or abused.
I incline to think that if poor Blacket dies, as I suppose he will ere long, more laurels will grow about his
grave, than he could ever have earned for his brow. For look you Senhora, Genius is not all that is required to make a man a poet.
The best poets have been always the most learned & the wisest men of their time. Shakespeare alone excepted as to learning, –
but intuition in him, & in his peculiar walk, supplied its place, – as there has been but one Shakespeare since the Creation
it is not altogether absurd to suppose that there may not be another till the day of Judgment. All that Blacket hitherto has done
I conceive to be imitation, produced indeed by genuine feeling, – but still such close imitation, as to render it doubtful whether
he be capable of anything original. He can have no learning, no store of knowledge of his own, – & I am afraid with more
powers than Robert Bloomfield, & an intellect of higher pitch, he will yet
rank below him, because Bloomfield is after all a writer of a distinct character, formed by himself. As for the drama which Pratt
talks of,
Let me talk of something else. I would lend one of my ears to any person who wants such a
quick little moveable for the rest of the evening, – if I could have you here, & read Kehama to you. It is all but
finished
Poor Jackson is gone. In my own mind I always look on to
having you for our next door inhabitant hereafter.
You wrote to me about the Scudamore Pedigree:assassinated me.