The Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey
Robert Southey to Henry Taylor, 10 January 1825
“Keswick, Jan. 10. 1825.
“My dear Sir,
“I thank you for both your letters,—the one in
writing, and the one in print. As laws, judges, and ![]()
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juries
in these days always favour the wrong party, partly from principle, partly from
fashion, and a little in the middle, if not the latter case, from fear, I am
advised not to prosecute the Morning
Chronicle, and as I have no desire ever to put myself in the way of
anxiety, the advice is deferred to, without hesitation or reluctance. A more
atrocious libel was never
admitted into a newspaper, bad as the newspapers have long been. You suspect
something more than the malignity of party-spirit in it; so did I; and that
suspicion has been verified by an anonymous letter from the author, which
reached me this day. The letter is as blackguard as words can make it, and
comes from a red-hot Irish Roman Catholic, who shows himself in every sentence
to be ripe for rebellion and massacre. It is well they have no Prince Hohenlohe among them, who can kill at a
distance as well as cure; for if they had, I should certainly be murdered by
miracle.
“But I thank you heartily for what you have done. The
letter is what it should be,—manly, scornful, and sincere. I am very glad to
have such a friend, and not sorry to have such enemies. They can only stab at
my character, which they may do till they are tired without inflicting a
scratch. The only mournful thing is to think that the newspapers should be in
the hands of men who not only admit such infamous slanders, but lend their
active aid to support them.
“The last review not having reached me, I have not
seen your father’s paper upon Banks. In that upon Landor, I liked every thing that had no
reference to him, and nothing that had. The general ![]()
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tenour
I should, no doubt, have liked better, if Gifford had not struck out the better parts; but nothing could
have reconciled me to anything like an assumption of superiority towards such a
man. Porson and I should not have
conversed as he has exhibited us; but we could neither of us have conversed
better.
“My letter to the Courier* was in all its parts fully justified by the
occasion which called it forth. I am never in the habit of diluting my ink. The
sort of outcry against it is in the spirit of these liberal times. The
gentlemen of the press assert and exercise the most unlimited licence in their
attacks, and allow no liberty of defence.
“I shall publish a vindication of the Book of the Church, in reply to Mr. Butler, with proofs and illustrations. In
this I shall treat him with the respect and courtesy which he so well deserves,
but I will open a battery upon the walls of Babylon. Think of the Acta Sanctorum,—more than fifty ten-pounders brought to
bear in breach.
“God bless you!
Yours affectionately,
Robert Southey.”
Charles Butler (1750-1832)
Of Lincoln's Inn, the first Catholic barrister to practice in more than a century; he
wrote
An Address to the Protestants of Great Britain and Ireland
(1813).
William Gifford (1756-1826)
Poet, scholar, and editor who began as a shoemaker's apprentice; after Oxford he
published
The Baviad (1794),
The Maeviad
(1795), and
The Satires of Juvenal translated (1802) before becoming
the founding editor of the
Quarterly Review (1809-24).
Walter Savage Landor (1775-1864)
English poet and man of letters, author of the epic
Gebir (1798)
and
Imaginary Conversations (1824-29). He resided in Italy from 1815
to 1835.
Richard Porson (1759-1808)
Classical scholar and Regius Professor of Greek at Cambridge (1792); he edited four plays
of Euripides.
George Taylor (1772-1851)
The father of the poet Henry Taylor; he was a country gentleman, classicist, antiquary,
and friend of Wordsworth and Southey who contributed to the
Quarterly
Review.
Morning Chronicle. (1769-1862). James Perry was proprietor of this London daily newspaper from 1789-1821; among its many
notable poetical contributors were Coleridge, Southey, Lamb, Rogers, and Campbell.
