The Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey
Robert Southey to William Gifford, 6 March 1809
“Keswick, March 6. 1809.
“Sir,
“Your letter, and its enclosed draft, reached me this
afternoon. I have to acknowledge the one, and thank you for the other. It
gratifies me that you approve my defence of the missionaries, because I am desirous of such
approbation; and it will gratify me if it should be generally approved, because
I wrote from a deep and strong conviction of the importance of the subject.
With respect to any alterations in this or any future communication, I am ![]()
| 222 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 35. |
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perfectly sensible that absolute authority must always
be vested in the editor. The printer has done some mischief by misplacing a
paragraph in p. 225., which ought to have followed the quotation in the
preceding page. The beginning of the last paragraph is made unintelligible by
this dislocation; and indeed you have omitted the sarcasm, which it was
designed to justify. I could have wished that this Review had less resembled the Edinburgh in the tone and temper of its
criticisms. That book of
Miss Owenson’s is, I dare say,
very bad both in manners and morals; yet, had it fallen into my hands, I think
I could have told her so in such a spirit, that she herself would have believed
me, and might have profited by the censure. The same quantity of rain which would clear a flower of
its blights, will, if it falls heavier and harder, wash the roots bare, and
beat the blossoms to the ground. I have been in the habit of reviewing more
than eleven years, for the lucre of gain, and not, God knows, from any liking
to the occupation; and of all my literary misdeeds, the only ones of which I
have repented have been those reviewals which were written with undue asperity,
so as to give unnecessary pain. I propose to continue the subject of the
Missions through two other articles, neither of which will probably be half so
long as the first; one respecting the South Sea Islands, the other South
Africa. Lord Valentia’s book I shall be glad to receive,
and any others which you may think proper to entrust to me. Two things I can
promise,—perfect sincerity in what I write without the slightest
assumption of knowledge which ![]()
| Ætat. 35. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 223 |
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I do not possess; and a
punctuality not to be exceeded by that of Mr.
Murray’s opposite neighbours at St. Dunstan’s.
I am, Sir,
Yours very respectfully,
Robert Southey.”
George Annesley, second earl of Mountnorris (1769-1844)
The son of Arthur Annesley, first earl of Mountnorris whom he succeeded in 1816. In 1795
he sued John B. Gawler, Esq. for criminal conversation with his wife, Lady Anne
Courtenay.
John Murray II (1778-1843)
The second John Murray began the
Quarterly Review in 1809 and
published works by Scott, Byron, Austen, Crabbe, and other literary notables.
The Quarterly Review. (1809-1967). Published by John Murray, the
Quarterly was instigated by Walter
Scott as a Tory rival to the
Edinburgh Review. It was edited by
William Gifford to 1824, and by John Gibson Lockhart from 1826 to 1853.
George Annesley, second earl of Mountnorris (1769-1844)
Voyages and Travels in India, Ceylon, the Red Sea, Abyssinia, and Egypt, in
the years 1802, 1803, 1804, 1805, and 1806. 3 vols (London: W. Miller, 1809).
