The Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey
Robert Southey to John Rickman, 9 November 1824
“Keswick, Nov. 9. 1824.
“My dear R.,
“I see by the papers that Mr. Telford recommends paving roads where there is much heavy
carriage. In some of the Italian cities the streets are paved in stripes. The
wheels run upon two lines of smooth pavement, as over a bowling green, with
little sound and no jolting, and the space between, on which the horses go, is
common pitching. This is the case at Milan and Como, and, probably, in most
other places. Macadamising the streets of London is likely, I think, to prove
Quackadamising. But the failure will lead to something better.
“Lord Byron is
gibbeted by his friends and admirers. Dr.
Stoddart sent me those papers in which he had commented
upon these precious conversations. The extracts there and in the Morning Herald are all that I have seen, and
they are quite enough. I see, too, that Murray has been obliged to come forward. . . . . I am vindictive enough
to wish that he had known how completely he failed of annoying me by any of his
attacks. —— should be called
Lord B.’s blunderbuss. There is something viler
in regrating slander, as he has done, than in originally uttering it.
“If this finds you in town, and you can lay your hand
on the Report on the Salmon Fishery, I should like to have it, as a subject of
some local interest. I am working away steadily, and with good will, ![]()
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making good progress with my second volume, and with the
Colloquies. We are all
well, and Cuthbert in the very honeymoon
of puerile happiness, being just breeched. God bless you!
Thomas Medwin (1788-1869)
Lieutenant of dragoons who was with Byron and Shelley at Pisa; the author of
Conversations of Lord Byron (1824) and
The Life of
Percy Bysshe Shelley, 2 vols (1847).
John Murray II (1778-1843)
The second John Murray began the
Quarterly Review in 1809 and
published works by Scott, Byron, Austen, Crabbe, and other literary notables.
Charles Cuthbert Southey (1819-1888)
Son of Robert Southey whose
Life and Correspondence (1849-1850) he
edited. Educated at Queen's College, Oxford, he was curate of Plumbland in Cumberland,
vicar of Kingsbury Episcopi, Somerset (1855-79) and Askham, near Penrith (1885).
Sir John Stoddart (1773-1856)
Educated at Christ Church, Oxford, he befriended Coleridge and Wordsworth and after
abandoning his early republican principles became a writer for the
Times, and afterwards editor of the Tory newspaper
New
Times in 1817 and a judge in Malta (1826-40). His sister married William Hazlitt
in 1808.
Thomas Telford (1757-1834)
Civil engineer who did innovative work with roads, canals, and bridges; he was a friend
of Archibald Alison, Thomas Campbell, and Robert Southey.
Morning Herald. (1780-1869). Sir Henry Bate Dudley (1745–1824) and Alexander Chalmers (1759–1834) were among the
original editors; Thomas Holcroft (1745–1809) was Paris correspondent.
