The Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey
Robert Southey to John Rickman, 11 February 1806
“. . . . . It seems to me that the Grenvilles ![]()
| 24 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 32. |
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get into power just as they could wish, but that it is
otherwise with Fox and Grey. They are pledged to parliamentary reform,
and in this their other colleagues will not support them. It will be put off at
first with sufficient plausibility, under the plea of existing circumstances;
but my good old friend Major Cartwright
(who is as noble an old Englishman as ever was made of extra best superfine
flesh and blood) will find that existing circumstances have no end; there must
come a time when it will appear, that if the question be not honestly brought
forward, it has been given up as the price of their admission to power; and in
that case, Fox had better for himself have died, instead
of the other minister who had nothing to
lose in the opinion of wise men. So that. I am not sure that
Fox’s friends ought to rejoice at his success.
“But quoad
Robert Southey, things are different. I have a chance of getting an appointment
at Lisbon (this, of course, is said to yourself only); either the Secretaryship
of Legation, or the Consulship,—whichever falls vacant first,—has
been asked for me, and Lord Holland has
promised to back the application. . . . . I shall follow my own
plans,—relying upon nobody but myself, and shall go to Lisbon in the
autumn: if Fortune finds me there, so much the better, but she shall never
catch me on the wild goose chase after her.
“I want Tom to
be an admiral, that when he is fourscore he may be killed in a great victory
and get a monument in St. Paul’s; for this reason, I have some sort of
notion that one day or other I may have one ![]()
| Ætat. 32. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 25 |
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there myself,
and it would be rather awkward to get among so many sea captains, unless one
had a friend among them to introduce one to the mess-room. It is ridiculous
giving the captains these honours,—a colonel in the army has the same
claim; better build a pyramid at once, and insert their names as they fall in
this marble gazette. . . . .
John Cartwright (1740-1824)
Political reformer who advocated the abolition of slavery and the emancipation of Greece;
he was the brother of the poet and inventor Edmund Cartwright.
Charles James Fox (1749-1806)
Whig statesman and the leader of the Whig opposition in Parliament after his falling-out
with Edmund Burke.
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.
Charles Grey, second earl Grey (1764-1845)
Whig statesman and lover of the Duchess of Devonshire; the second son of the first earl
(d. 1807), he was prime minister (1831-34).
William Pitt the younger (1759-1806)
The second son of William Pitt, earl of Chatham (1708-1778); he was Tory prime minister
1783-1801.
John Rickman (1771-1840)
Educated at Magdalen Hall and Lincoln College, Oxford, he was statistician and clerk to
the House of Commons and an early friend of Charles Lamb and Robert Southey.
Thomas Southey (1777-1838)
The younger brother of Robert Southey; he was a naval captain (1811) and afterwards a
Customs officer. He published
A Chronological History of the West
Indies (1828).
