The Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey
Robert Southey to John Rickman, 6 June 1804
“Here I am at length, at least all that remains of
me,—the skin and bones of Robert
Southey. Being now at rest, and, moreover, egregiously hungry,
the flesh which has been expended in stage-coaches and in London streets, will
soon be replaced. Dulce est actorum
meminisse—laborum will not so fully conclude the
line as my meaning wishes. Labour enough I had; but there are other things
besides my labour in London to be remembered,—more pleasurable in
themselves, but not making such pleasurable recollections, because they are to
be wished for again.
“However, I found excellent society awaiting me at
home;—Florian de Ocampo and
Ambrosio Novales,—thirteen of
the little quartos, bringing down Spanish history to the point where Prudencio
de ![]()
| Ætat. 29. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 289 |
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Sandoval takes it up, and where I also
begin the full tide of my narration. Novales was the
correspondent of Keserdius, into whose work you once
looked, and was, like him, an excellent Latinist, and a patient, cautious,
martyr-murdering antiquary, an excellent weeder of lies wherever they were to
be found. In company with these came the four folios of the Bibliotheca Hispanica; there is affixed a portrait of the late King, so exquisitely engraved and so
exquisitely ugly, that I know not whether it be most honourable to Spain to
have advanced so far in the arts, or disgraceful to have exercised them upon
such a fool’s pate. I am sure Duppa will laugh at his Catholic Majesty, but whether an
interjection of admiration at the print, or the laugh (which is the next
auxiliary part of speech to the ohs and ahs, interjections), will come first,
is only to be decided by experiment.
“. . . . . You will read the Mabinogion, concerning which I ought to have talked
to you. In the last, that most odd and Arabian-like story of the Mouse, mention
is made of a begging scholar, that helps to the date; but where did the Kimbri
get the imagination that could produce such a tale! That enchantment of the
bason hanging by the chain from heaven, is in the wildest spirit of the Arabian Nights. I am perfectly
astonished that such fictions should exist in Welsh: they throw no light on the
origin of romance, every thing being utterly dissimilar to what we mean by that
term; but they do open a new world of fiction; and if the date of their
language be fixed about the twelfth or thirteenth century, I cannot but think
the ![]()
| 290 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 29. |
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mythological substance is of far earlier date, very
probably brought from the east by some of the first settlers or conquerors. If
William Owen will go on and publish
them, I have hopes that the world will yet reward him for his labours. Let
Sharon* make his language
grammatical, but not alter their idiom in the slightest point. I will advise
him about this, being about to send him off a parcel of old German or
Theotistic books of Coleridge’s,
which will occasion a letter. . . . .
Charles III, king of Spain (1716-1788)
The son of Philip V of Spain; he succeeded Charles VI. in 1759 and was the father of
Ferdinand IV of Naples and III of Sicily.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834)
English poet and philosopher who projected
Lyrical Ballads (1798)
with William Wordsworth; author of
Biographia Literaria (1817),
On the Constitution of the Church and State (1829) and other
works.
Richard Duppa (1768-1831)
Writer and antiquary; a contributor to the
Literary Gazette; he
published
A Journal of the most remarkable Occurrences that took place in
Rome (1799) and other works.
Ambrosio de Morales (1513-1591)
Spanish historian who wrote a continuation of Florián de Ocampo's
Crónica General de España, 3 vols (1574)
William Owen Pughe (1759-1835)
Welsh poet, translator, antiquary and lexicographer; he was a follower of Joanna
Southcott.
John Rickman (1771-1840)
Educated at Magdalen Hall and Lincoln College, Oxford, he was statistician and clerk to
the House of Commons and an early friend of Charles Lamb and Robert Southey.
Robert Southey (1774-1843)
Poet laureate and man of letters whose contemporary reputation depended upon his prose
works, among them the
Life of Nelson, 2 vols (1813),
History of the Peninsular War, 3 vols (1823-32) and
The Doctor, 7 vols (1834-47).
Sharon Turner (1768-1847)
Attorney, historian, and writer for the
Quarterly Review; he wrote
History of the Anglo-Saxons, 4 vols (1799-1805).
The Arabian Nights. (1705-08 English trans.). Also known as
The Thousand and One Nights. Antoine Galland's
French translation was published 1704-17, from which the original English versions were
taken.
Mabinogion. (1300 c.). A collection of four Welsh tales recorded in fourteenth-century manuscripts first
translated into English by Lady Charlotte Guest.
