The Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey
Robert Southey to John May, 15 September 1827
“Keswick, Sept. 15. 1827.
“My dear Friend,
“. . . . . I can very well enter into the melancholy
part of your feelings upon this transplantation to a strange city, though that
city is to ![]()
| 310 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 53. |
![]()
me the place in the world, as far as mere place
can go, where I should feel myself most at home. Where is your bank, and where
your dwelling-house? Tell me, that I may see them in my mind’s eye, when
I think of you. I never thought to have seen Bristol again; but now that you
are there I may find in my heart to revisit it, and show you the houses where
my childhood and youth were past.
“You ought to become acquainted with my old friend
Joseph Cottle, the best-hearted of
men, with whom my biographical letters will one day have much to do. It would
give him great pleasure to see any one with whom he could talk about me. Make
an hour’s leisure some day and call upon him, and announce yourself to
him and his sisters as my friend. You will see a notable portrait of me before
my name was shorn, and become acquainted with one who has a larger portion of
original goodness than falls to the lot of most men.
“I would have you know King, the surgeon, also, with whom I lived in great intimacy,
and for whom I have great and a sincere regard. His wife is sister to Miss
Edgeworth. A more remarkable man is rarely to be found, and his
professional skill is very great.
“These are the only friends in Bristol who are left to
me, and perhaps I can say nothing that will recommend them more to you than
when I add that they are both warmly attached to me.
“Now for my household and personal concerns. The
Harrogate expedition answered its purpose in some degree for us all. . . . .
Your god-daughter ![]()
| Ætat. 53. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 311 |
![]()
has been living a most active life
between this place and Rydal Mount, with which a constant interchange of visits
has been going on since our return, not to speak of occasional meetings half
way; and for a mountain excursion with the Bishop
of Chester, who went up Saddleback with us last week. My hay
asthma was not prevented by the journey, but it was shortened. I escaped with a
visit of one month instead of a visitation of three, and am willing to think
that the last two years, by cutting the disease short, have weakened its habit,
and shaken its hold. The Harrogate waters have also materially benefited my
digestion, so that on the whole, though far from a sound man, I am in better
condition than for some time past.
“The Quarterly
Review and I have made up our differences, and my paper, which had
been unceremoniously postponed since January last, leads the van in the new
number. I learn from John Coleridge that
his mind is made up in favour of what is called Catholic Emancipation, and
therefore I am very glad the Review is in other bands; for, if it had taken
that side, I should certainly have withdrawn from it, and have done everything
in my power to support a journal upon my own principles, which as certainly
would have been started; and which, in fact, has been prevented from starting
by my refusal to conduct it, on the ground that the Quarterly Review will keep its course. I am reviewing Hallam’s Constitutional History for the
Christmas number, and have engaged to review Barantes’ History of the Dukes of Burgundy for
the Foreign Quarterly. ![]()
| 312 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 53. |
![]()
Gillies, a nephew of the historian, is the projector of this, and edits
it conjointly with a Mr. Frazer, whom I
know only by letter. Scott writes in it. . .
. .
“God bless you!
Yours most affectionately,
R. S.”
Sir John Taylor Coleridge (1790-1876)
Barrister, nephew of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and writer for the
Quarterly Review, of which he was briefly editor in 1824, succeeding William
Gifford.
Joseph Cottle (1770-1853)
Bristol bookseller and poet; he published the
Lyrical Ballads,
several heroic poems that attracted Byron's derision, and
Early
Recollections, chiefly relating to the late Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 2 vols
(1837).
Maria Edgeworth (1768-1849)
Irish novelist; author of
Castle Rackrent (1800)
Belinda (1801),
The Absentee (1812) and
Ormond (1817).
William Fraser (1805 c.-1852)
The brother of James Fraser of
Fraser's Magazine; a friend of
Thomas Carlyle, he edited
The Bijou and
Foreign Review and
Critical Miscellany. R. S. Mackenzie described him as a dandy.
John Gillies (1747-1836)
Scottish historian and classical scholar; author of
The History of
Ancient Greece (1786) and
The History of the World, from the
Reign of Alexander to that of Augustus (1807).
Robert Pearse Gillies (1789-1858)
Scottish poet and man of letters; he contributed translations of German literature to
Blackwood's Magazine and left a valuable autobiography.
Henry Hallam (1777-1859)
English historian and contributor to the
Edinburgh Review, author
of
Introduction to the Literature of Europe, 4 vols (1837-39) and
other works. He was the father of Tennyson's Arthur Hallam.
Emmeline King [née Edgeworth] (1770-1847)
The daughter of Richard Lovell Edgeworth and his first wife, Anna Maria Elers; in 1802
she married the physician John King of Clifton.
John King (1766 c.-1846)
A native of Berne, Switzerland, he practised medicine at Clifton near Bristol for half a
century; he married Emmeline Edgeworth (1770-1847), sister of Maria Edgeworth.
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.
