Mr. Southey in The Morning ChronicleThe CourierH. T. Markup and editing by David Hill Radcliffe Completed March 2009 Courier.1824.Southey Center for Applied Technologies in the Humanities Virginia Tech
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Lord Byron and his Times: http://lordbyron.org
Mr. Southey in The Morning ChronicleThe CourierH. T.London18 December 182410,327
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THE COURIER.
No. 10,327.MONDAY EVENING, DECEMBER 18, 1824. Price 7D.
To the EDITOR of the COURIER.december 17, 1824
Sir.—I observe in the Morning Chronicle of this day, a Letter from “A Lover of Consistency,” which is as
consistent in its way, as the most ardent lover of that kind of consistency could desire.
This writer says, that Mr. Southey has brought a charge
against Lord Byron, that “a seditious
publisher had set up his Lordship’s head as a sign to his shop, as if his
Lordship, when in Italy, were responsible,” &c. I doubt, if the writer
understands, what Mr. Southey alludes to; but, at all events,
Mr. Southey neither meant, nor said, more than that Lord
Byron had suffered this disgrace. It was not the act
of setting up the sign, which his Lordship was accused of, but the many acts whereby he had
made his head emblematical of the trade in question. A respectable person would not have
incurred such a disgrace, any more than that of being defended by this writer, in the Morning Chronicle. Further, I find
eight paragraphs, each beginning with “Was Mr.
Southey, or was he not,” or, “Has
Mr. Southey, or has he not,” which is an ordinary
newspaper form of falsification. The first of the eight (was, or was he not, a Republican)
implies a truism: the rest are according to form. Mr. Southey has
eulogised Republicans and Regicides, when they have deserved eulogy. In the year 1816, in the
Quarterly Review, he
took occasion to eulogize a Republican, who was commonly called Spence
the Philanthropist, and of whom he there inserted a remarkable and very
interesting account; for Spence, was (in
Southey’s words, if I recollect them right) a sincere man,
“stoical, persevering, single-minded, and self-approved.” Mr. Southey has
never “denounced all republicans, as monsters of infamy, and imps of the
devil.” There is no doubt, at present, a large class of infamous en, who make a
living of republicanism, which class Mr. Southey has treated as they
deserved. Mr. Southey has not stigmatized the character of Mr. Barry O’Meara. Mr. Southey has
never even mentioned him, or alluded to him, in any publication. Mr.
Southey was not expelled from Baliol College, nor from any other College. He did
not publish the book named in the 7th of these queries, nor any other book, without his name.
Mr. Southey never did any of the things named in
the 8th; and with regard to the last paragraph, consisting chiefly of the epithets
“pensioned bookseller’s hack,” “creeping, cringing,
cameleon,” &c. &c., I cannot consider it as objectionable where
it stands, and am willing to disbelieve that the writer has made the sacrifice of himself
merely to do honour to the Morning
Chronicle, and ensure the insertion of his letter; since he cannot have
meant it to accredit the one stale truism and seven slanderous falsehoods which went
before.