The Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey
Robert Southey to Herbert Hill, 24 February 1822
“Keswick, Feb. 24. 1822.
“My dear Uncle,
“. . . . . With regard to Lord
Byron, I have suffered him to attack me with impunity for
several years. My remarks upon the Satanic School were general remarks upon a
set of public offenders; and it was only in reply to the foulest personalities
that I attacked him personally in return. The sort of insane and rabid hatred
which he has long entertained towards me, cannot be increased; and it is
sometimes necessary to show that forbearance proceeds neither from weakness nor
from fear.
“Your copy of Landor’s book was franked up through the
Admiralty to Gifford. His Latin, I
believe, is of the best kind; but it is, like his English, remarkably
difficult: the prose, however, much less so than the verse. The cause of this
obscurity it is very difficult to discover.
“My correspondence with Frere has been very brisk. Something, also, I have had from
Whittingham, and am every day
expecting answers to further ![]()
| 114 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 48. |
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questions which I have sent;
but the most valuable papers which I have yet had, are from Sir Hew Dalrymple, relating to his first
communications with the Spaniards, and the whole proceedings in the south of
Spain, while the junta of Seville ruled the roast. They will cause me to cancel
a few pages, and replace them with fuller details. Luckily the greater part
comes in time to be introduced in its place, without any inconvenience of this
kind. These papers have given me a clear insight into many points with which I
was imperfectly acquainted before. They contain also proof of scandalous
neglect on the part of Ministers, or something worse than neglect—a practice of
leaving their agents without instructions for the sake of shifting the
responsibility from themselves. At the commencement of the troubles in Spain,
out of thirty-four despatches,—certainly the most important that any governor
of Gibraltar ever had occasion to send home,—Lord
Castlereagh never acknowledged more than two. I have heard our
Government complained of for this sort of conduct, which, in fact, is practised
in every department of state; but this is the most glaring proof of it that has
ever fallen in my way.
“God bless you!
John Hookham Frere (1769-1846)
English diplomat and poet; educated at Eton and Cambridge, he was envoy to Lisbon
(1800-02) and Madrid (1802-04, 1808-09); with Canning conducted the
The
Anti-Jacobin (1797-98); author of
Prospectus and Specimen of an
intended National Work, by William and Robert Whistlecraft (1817, 1818).
William Gifford (1756-1826)
Poet, scholar, and editor who began as a shoemaker's apprentice; after Oxford he
published
The Baviad (1794),
The Maeviad
(1795), and
The Satires of Juvenal translated (1802) before becoming
the founding editor of the
Quarterly Review (1809-24).
Walter Savage Landor (1775-1864)
English poet and man of letters, author of the epic
Gebir (1798)
and
Imaginary Conversations (1824-29). He resided in Italy from 1815
to 1835.
Sir Samuel Ford Whittingham [Samford] (1772-1841)
English military officer and author; after serving as a volunteer in Spain he attended
the military College at High Wycombe and fought in the Peninsular Ware.
