The Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey
Robert Southey to Margaret Holford Hodson, 20 January 1830
“My poor brother Henry is left with seven young children, happily so young that
five of them will not feel their loss, another soon cease to feel it, and only
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| Ætat. 56. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 85 |
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the eldest feel it long and lastingly; for he (poor
boy) has some malformation about the heart which must keep him always at home,
and his understanding and affections have acquired strength and intensity as if
in compensation for the incurable malady of his frame. I had known my sister-in-law from her infancy, and loved her
dearly, both for her own sake and her mother’s, who, take her for all in
all, was the sweetest woman I have ever been acquainted with.
Louisa herself was one of the violets of the world;
nothing could be gentler or kinder. She seemed never to think of herself, and
was wholly devoted to her family. . . . .
“Norwich, Mrs.
Opie tells me, is in a state of civil war; and infidelity is
said to prevail there extensively among the weavers. I believe very few people
who are not serving under its banners are aware how widely it has spread among
all ranks, and of the imminent danger that threatens us from that cause. I am
busy upon the Peninsular
War and in finishing a life of John Bunyan for a handsome edition of the Pilgrim’s Progress, a
task not of lucre but of love. The moment it is done I must no longer delay the
introduction of John Jones’s
verses. The Quarterly Review has
only a short paper of mine
upon Capt. Head’s book. The after number will
have one on Maw’s Journal, and I must forthwith
begin for it an account
of the mission to Tahiti, which, however, you may read to more advantage in my
textbook, Ellis’s Polynesian Researches. I
have engaged to compose a volume
of Naval History in bio-![]()
| 86 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 56. |
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graphical form for the
Cabinet Cyclopædia, not for love but for lucre,
though it will be done lovingly when in hand. And thus my life passes; little
employments elbowing worthier and greater undertakings and shouldering them
aside; and the necessity for providing ways and means preventing me from
executing half of what I could and would have done for other generations. And
yet, how much better is this than pleading causes, feeling pulses, working in a
public office; or being a bishop with all the secular cares which a bishopric
brings with it, not to speak of its heavier responsibilities.
“Believe me, my dear Mrs.
Hodson,
Yours very truly,
Robert Southey.”
William Ellis (1794-1872)
Originally a gardener, he was an Independent minister, missionary to Tahiti and
Madagascar, and writer; he edited the
Christian Keepsake.
Sir George Head (1782-1855)
The elder brother of Francis Bond Head; he was assistant commissary-general in the
Peninsular War and deputy knight-marshal to Queen Victoria; he published several books and
was a contributor to the
Quarterly Review.
Margaret Hodson [née Holford] (1778-1852)
English poet popular in the interval between Anna Seward and Felicia Hemans; she
published
Wallace, or, The Fight of Falkirk (1809) and
Margaret of Anjou (1816). She married Septimus Hodson in
1826.
John Jones (1774-1836 fl.)
English poet and autodidact; the son of a gardener, he sent poems to Robert Southey in
1827, leading to the publication of
Attempts in Verse by John Jones, an
old Servant (1831).
Henry Lister Maw (1801-1874)
English seaman who enlisted in the Navy in 1818 and explored the Amazon to its source in
1827; he retired in 1861. He published
Journal of a Passage from the
Pacific to the Atlantic (1829).
Amelia Opie [née Alderson] (1769-1853)
Quaker poet and novelist; in 1798 she married the painter John Opie (1761-1807); author
of
Father and Daughter (1801) and other novels and moral
fables.
Henry Herbert Southey (1783-1865)
The younger brother of Robert Southey; educated at Edinburgh University, he was physician
to George IV, Gresham Professor of Medicine, and friend of Sir Walter Scott.
Louisa Southey [née Gonne] (d. 1830)
In 1815 she married Henry Herbert Southey, younger brother of the poet. Confusingly,
Robert Southey speaks of Henry's “new bride” in 1809.
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.
