The Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey
Robert Southey to Robert Gooch, 30 November 1814
“Your letter reminds me that I have something to ask
of you. You may remember telling me of a sailor in Yarmouth Hospital, after
Nelson’s battle at Copenhagen (if
I recollect rightly), whom you at-![]()
| 88 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 40. |
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tended, and who died in
consequence of neglect after you had ceased to attend him, but expressed his
delight at seeing you before he died. Though I have not forgotten, and could
not forget the circumstances, I have acquired a sort of passion for
authenticity upon all points where it is attainable, and you will oblige me by
relating the particulars. I am about to compose a paper for the Quarterly, the text for which will be taken from
the Reports of the Poor Society, and the object of which
is to show what has been done in this country towards lessening the quantum of
human suffering, and what remains to do. In treating of prevention, correction,
and alleviation, I shall have to treat of schools, prisons, and hospitals; and
respecting hospitals, must quote the saying of a Frenchman whom Louis XVI. sent over to England to inquire into
the manner in which they were conducted. He praised them as they deserved, but
added, Mais il y manque deux choses, nos curés,
et nos hospitalières. And here, with due caution
respecting place, &c., I wish to tell your story.
“I am fully convinced that a gradual improvement is
going on in the world, has been going on from its commencement, and will
continue till the human race shall attain all the perfection of which it is
capable in this mortal state. This belief grows out of knowledge; that is, it
is a corollary deduced from the whole history of mankind. It is no little
pleasure to believe that in no age has this improvement proceeded so rapidly as
in the present, and that there never was so great a disposition to promote it
in those ![]()
| Ætat. 40. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 89 |
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who have the power. The disposition, indeed, is
alloyed with much weakness and much superstition; and God knows there are many
disturbing powers at work. But much has been done, more is doing, and nothing
can be of more importance than giving this disposition a good direction.
Perceval’s death was one of
the severest losses that England has ever sustained. He was a man who not only
desired to act well, but desired it ardently; his heart always strengthened his
understanding, and gave him that power which rose always to the measure of the
occasion. Lord Liverpool is a cold man; you
may convince his understanding, but you can only obtain an inert assent, where
zealous co-operation is wanted. It is, however, enough for us to know what
ought to be done: the how and the when are in the hands of One who knows when
and how it may be done best. Oh! if this world of ours were but well
cultivated, and weeded well, how like the garden of Eden might it be made! Its
evils might almost be reduced to physical suffering and death; the former
continually diminishing, and the latter, always indeed an awful thing, but yet
to be converted into hope and joy.
“I am much better pleased with
——’s choice than if he had made a more ambitious
alliance. Give me neither riches nor poverty, said the Wise Man. Lead us not
into temptation is one of the few petitions of that prayer which comprises all
that we need to ask: riches always lead that way.
“Why have you not been to visit Joanna Southcote? If I had been less occupied,
I should have ![]()
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requested you to go, not for the sake of a
professional opinion (Dr. Simms having
satisfied me upon that score), but that you might have got at some of the
mythology, and ascertained how much was imposture; and how much delusion.
Gregoire has published a Histoire des Sectes, in two
volumes, beginning with the last century. I shall review it as a second part to
the article upon the Dissenters.
“You have in Roderick the best which I have done, and,
probably, the best that I shall do, which is rather a melancholy feeling for
the author. My powers, I hope, are not yet verging upon decay, but I have no
right to expect any increase or improvement, short as they are of what they
might have been, and of what I might have hoped to make them. Perhaps I shall
never venture upon another poem of equal extent, and in so deep a strain. It
will affect you more than Madoc, because it is pitched in a higher key. I am growing old, the
grey hairs thicken upon me, my joints are less supple, and, in mind as well as
body, I am less enterprising than in former years. When the thought of any new
undertaking occurs, the question, shall I live to complete what I have already
undertaken? occurs also. My next poem will be, ‘A Tale of Paraguay,’ about a
thousand lines only in length. Its object will be to plant the grave with
flowers, and wreathe a chaplet for the angel of death. If you suspect, from all
this, that I suffer any diminution of my usual happy spirits, you will be
mistaken. God bless you!
Robert Gooch (1784-1830)
Educated at Edinburgh University, he was obstetric physician and lecturer in midwifery at
St Bartholomew's Hospital, a friend of Robert Southey and contributor to
Blackwood's and the
Quarterly Review.
Louis XVI, king of France (1754-1793)
King of France 1774-1793; the husband of Marie Antoinette, he was guillotined 21 January
1793.
Horatio Nelson, viscount Nelson (1758-1805)
Britain's naval hero who destroyed the French fleet in the Battle of the Nile (1798) and
defeated the combined French and Spanish fleets at Trafalgar (1805) in which action he was
killed.
Spencer Perceval (1762-1812)
English statesman; chancellor of the exchequer (1807), succeeded the Duke of Portland as
prime minister (1809); he was assassinated in the House of Commons.
James Sims (1741-1820)
Irish-born physician educated at Leiden; he was president of the Medical Society of
London and conducted an autopsy on the body of Joanna Southcott.
Joanna Southcott (1750-1814)
English prophet and visionary, originally the daughter of a Devonshire farmer.
The Quarterly Review. (1809-1967). Published by John Murray, the
Quarterly was instigated by Walter
Scott as a Tory rival to the
Edinburgh Review. It was edited by
William Gifford to 1824, and by John Gibson Lockhart from 1826 to 1853.
Robert Southey (1774-1843)
Madoc. (London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme, 1805). A verse romance relating the legendary adventures of a Welsh prince in Wales and
pre-Columbian America.
