The Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey
Robert Southey to Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 14 March 1804
“Greta Hall, March 14. 1804.
“Your departure hangs upon me with something the same
effect that the heavy atmosphere presses upon you—an unpleasant thought,
that works like yeast, and makes me feel the animal functions going on. As for
the manner of your going, you will be on the whole better off than in a
king’s ship. Now you are your own master; there you would have been a
guest, and, of course, compelled to tolerate the worst of all possible society,
except that of soldier-officers.
“I had hopes of seeing you in London; for almost as
soon as Edith is safe in bed, if safe
she be (for my life has been so made up of sudden changes, that I ![]()
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never even mentally look to what is to happen without
that if, and the optative utinam),—as soon, I say, as that takes place, I shall
hurry to town, principally to put to press this book of Specimens, which can only be finished
there, for you will stare at the catalogue of dead authors whom I shall have to
resurrectionise. This will be a very curious and useful book of mine; how much
the worse it will be for your voyage to Malta, few but myself will feel. If it
sells, I shall probably make a supplementary volume to Ellis’s to include the good pieces which
he has overlooked, for he has not selected well, and, perhaps, to analyse the
epics and didactics, which nobody reads. Had I conceived that you would think
of transcribing any part of Madoc, you should have been spared the trouble; but, in writing to
you, it has always appeared to me better to write than
to copy, the mere babble having the recommendation that
it is exclusively your own, and created for you, and in this the feeling of
exclusive property goes for something. The poem shall be sent out to you, if
there be a chance of its reaching you; but will you not have left Malta by the
time a book to be published about New Year’s Day can arrive there?
“Had you been with me, I should have talked with you
about a preface; as it is, it will be best simply to state, and as briefly as
possible, what I have aimed at in my style, and wherein, in my own judgment, I
have succeeded or failed. Longman has
announced it, in his Cyclopædic List, under the title of an epic poem, which I
assuredly shall not affix to it myself; the name, of which I was once
over-fond, ![]()
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has nauseated me, and, moreover, should seem
to render me amenable to certain laws which I do not acknowledge.
“If I were at Malta, the siege of that illustrious
island should have a poem, and a good one too; and you ought to think about it,
for of all sieges that ever has been, or ever will be, it was the most
glorious, and called forth the noblest heroism. Look after some modern Greek
books, in particular the poem from which the Teseide of Boccaccio and the Knight’s Tale are derived; if, indeed, it be not a
translation from the Italian. Could you lay hand on some of these old books,
and on old Italian poetry, by selling them at Leigh and Sotheby’s you might almost pay your travels.
“More manuscripts of Davis come down to-day. I have run through his Life of Chatterton, which
is flimsy and worthless. I shall not advise Longman to print it, and shall warn the writer to expunge an
insult to you and to myself, which is not to be paid for by his praise. We
formed a just estimate of the man’s moral stamina, most certainly, and as
for man-mending, I have no hopes of it. The proverb of the silk purse and the
sow’s ear, comprises my philosophy upon that subject.
“I write rapidly and unthinkingly, to be in time for
the post. Why have you not made Lamb
declare war upon Mrs. Bare-bald? He
should singe her flaxen wig with squibs, and tie crackers to her petticoats
till she leapt about like a parched pea for very torture. There is not a man in
the world who could so well revenge himself. The Annual Review
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(that is, the first vol.) came down in my parcel today.
My articles are wickedly misprinted, and, in many instances, made completely
nonsensical. If I could write Latin evn as I could once, perhaps I should talk
to Longman of publishing a collection of
the best modern Latin poets; they were dulli
canes many of them, but a poor fellow who has spent
years and years in doing his best to be remembered, does deserve well enough of
posterity to be reprinted once in every millenium, and, in fact, there are
enough good ones to form a collection of some extent.
God bless you! prays your
Old friend and brother,
R. Southey.”
Anna Laetitia Barbauld [née Aikin] (1743-1825)
English poet and essayist, the sister of John Aikin, who married Rochemont Barbauld in
1774 and taught at Palgrave School, a dissenting academy (1774-85).
John Davis (1774-1854)
Born in Salisbury, he was a seaman, biographer, and miscellaneous writer; Robert Southey,
who knew him, commented “that however much adversity had quickened his talents, it had
injured his moral feelings.”
George Ellis (1753-1815)
English antiquary and critic, editor of
Specimens of Early English
Poets (1790), friend of Walter Scott.
Charles Lamb [Elia] (1775-1834)
English essayist and boyhood friend of Coleridge at Christ's Hospital; author of
Essays of Elia published in the
London
Magazine (collected 1823, 1833) and other works.
George Leigh (1742-1816)
London bookseller in partnership with John Sotheby (1740-1807); he was one of the
founders of the auctioneering firm.
Thomas Norton Longman (1771-1842)
A leading London publisher whose authors included Southey, Wordsworth, Scott, and
Moore.
John Sotheby (1740-1807)
The son of John Sotheby (1703–1775); a London bookseller, he was one of the founders of
the auctioneering firm.
Edith Southey [née Fricker] (1774-1837)
The daughter of Stephen Fricker, she was the first wife of Robert Southey and the mother
of his children; they married in secret in 1795.
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.
