The Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey
Robert Southey to C. W. W. Wynne, 25 June 1805
“Madoc is doing well; rather more than half the edition is sold,
which is much for so heavy a volume; the sale, of course, will flag now, till
the world shall have settled what they please to think of the poem, and if the
reviews favour it, the remainder will be in a fair way.* In fact, books are now
so dear, that
* “I think Southey does himself injustice in supposing the
Edinburgh Review,
or any other, could have hurt Madoc, even for a time. But the
size and price of the work, joined to the frivolity of an age which
must be treated as nurses humour children, are sufficient
reasons
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| 330 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 30. |
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they are becoming rather articles of fashionable
furniture than anything else; they who buy them do not read them, and they who
read them do not buy them. I have seen a Wiltshire clothier, who gives his
bookseller no other instructions, than the dimensions of his shelves; and have
just heard of a Liverpool merchant who is fitting up a library, and has told
his bibliopole to send him Shakspeare,
and Milton, and Pope, and if any of those fellows should
publish any thing new, to let him have it immediately. If Madoc obtain any celebrity, its size and cost will recommend it
among these gentry—libros cansumere
nati—born to buy quartos and help the revenue. . . . .
You were right in your suspicious dislike of the introductory lines. The
ille ego is thought arrogant,
as my self-accusing preface would have been thought mock modesty. For this I
care little: it is saying no more, in fact, than if I had said, Author of
so-and-so in the title-page; and, moreover, it is not amiss that critics who
will find fault with something, should have these straws to catch at. I learn
from Sharpe very favourable reports of
its general effect, which is, he says, far greater than I could have supposed.
“. . . . . This London Institution is likely to supply
the place of an Academy. Sharpe has had
most to do with the establishment, and perhaps
why a poem, on so chaste a model, should not have taken immediately.
We know the similar fate of Milton’s immortal work in the witty age of
Charles II., at a time when
poetry was much more fashionable than at
present.”—Letter
from Sir W.
Scott to Miss Seward,
Life, vol iii. p. 21. |
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| Ætat. 30. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 331 |
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remotely I may have had something, having conversed last
year with him, upon the necessity of some association for publishing such
extensive national works as booksellers will not undertake, and individuals
cannot;—such as the Scriptores Rerum Britan., Saxon Archaiologies,
&c. &c. Application will be made to Coleridge to lecture on Belles Lettres. Some such application
will perhaps be made to me one day or other; indeed, a hint to that effect was
given me from the Royal Institution last year. My mind is made up to reject any
such invitation, because I have neither the acquirements nor the wish to be a
public orator. . . . .
“Your letter has got the start of mine. I believe I
told you that both Lord and Lady Holland had left invitations for me with my
uncle to Holland House, and that he had offered me the use of his Spanish
collection. Did Fox mention to you that I
had sent him a copy of Madoc?
I did so because Sharpe desired me to do
so, who knows Fox; and I prefaced it with a note, as short
as could be, and as respectful as ought to be. I am much gratified by what you
tell me of the poem’s reception; there was a strong and long fit of
dejection upon me about the time of its coming out. I suspected a want of
interest in the first part, and a want everywhere of such ornament as the
public have been taught to admire. And still I cannot help feeling that the
poem looks like the work of an older man—that all its lights are evening
sunshine. This would be ominous if it did not proceed from the nature of the
story, and the key in which it is pitched, which ![]()
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was done
many years since, before Thalaba was written or thought of. . . . .
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834)
English poet and philosopher who projected
Lyrical Ballads (1798)
with William Wordsworth; author of
Biographia Literaria (1817),
On the Constitution of the Church and State (1829) and other
works.
Charles James Fox (1749-1806)
Whig statesman and the leader of the Whig opposition in Parliament after his falling-out
with Edmund Burke.
Elizabeth Fox, Lady Holland [née Vassall] (1771 c.-1845)
In 1797 married Henry Richard Fox, Lord Holland, following her divorce from Sir Godfrey
Webster; as mistress of Holland House she became a pillar of Whig society.
Henry Richard Fox, third baron Holland (1773-1840)
Whig politician and literary patron; Holland House was for many years the meeting place
for reform-minded politicians and writers. He also published translations from the Spanish
and Italian;
Memoirs of the Whig Party was published in 1852.
John Milton (1608-1674)
English poet and controversialist; author of
Comus (1634),
Lycidas (1638),
Areopagitica (1644),
Paradise Lost (1667), and other works.
Alexander Pope (1688-1744)
English poet and satirist; author of
The Rape of the Lock (1714)
and
The Dunciad (1728).
Anna Seward [the Swan of Lichfield] (1742-1809)
English poet, patron, and letter-writer; she was the center of a literary circle at
Lichfield. Her
Poetical Works, 3 vols (1810) were edited by Walter
Scott.
Richard Sharp [Conversation Sharp] (1759-1835)
English merchant, Whig MP, and member of the Holland House set; he published
Letters and Essays in Poetry and Prose (1834).
Robert Southey (1774-1843)
Poet laureate and man of letters whose contemporary reputation depended upon his prose
works, among them the
Life of Nelson, 2 vols (1813),
History of the Peninsular War, 3 vols (1823-32) and
The Doctor, 7 vols (1834-47).
Charles Watkin Williams Wynn (1775-1850)
The son of Sir Watkin Williams Wynn, fourth baronet; educated at Westminster and Christ
Church, Oxford, Robert Southey's friend and benefactor was a Whig MP for Old Sarum (1797)
and Montgomeryshire (1799-1850). He was president of the Board of Control (1822-28).
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.
