The Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey
Robert Southey to Andrew Bell, 25 November 1830
“London, Nov. 25. 1830.
“My dear Sir,
“I came home at twelve this morning*, that I might
write to you fully by this post, and found on my table a handbill of such a
nature that I deemed it my duty to lose no time in sending it to the Home
Office; it invites a subscription for arming the people against the police.
Before this could be done, in came a caller, then another; and it is now three
o’clock. Would that it were possible for me to convince you of what it is
so desirable for you to be convinced of,—not merely that your system must
make its way universally (for you have never doubted that), nor that your own
just claims will one day be universally acknowledged (for this also you cannot
doubt), but that such efforts as you now weary and vex yourself with making,
and as you wish me to assist in, cannot possibly promote the extension of the
system. . . . .
“The best thing that I can do, after touching upon the
necessity of national education in the Christmas number (of the Quarterly Review), will
Ætat. 57. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 123 |
be to prepare a paper upon the subject as early as
possible; a task the more necessary, because many persons, I perceive, are
beginning to apprehend that the progress of education among the lower classes
has done more harm than good. It is, you know, not a matter of opinion with me,
but of feeling and religious belief, that the greater the diffusion of
knowledge the better will it be for mankind, provided that the foundation be
built upon the rock, and that, above all things, the rising generation be
instructed in their duties. I shall be well employed, therefore, in showing,
that where any harm has been done by education, it is because that education
has been imperfect, or because its proper object has been perverted by untoward
circumstances. And the present state of the nation is such, that I shall be
enabled to do this with better hope.
“I am entering far more into general society than in
any of my former visits to London, for the purpose of seeing and hearing all
within my reach. The Duchess of Kent sent for
me to dinner on Wednesday last; there was a large party, not one of whom I had
ever seen before. With the Duchess, who seems a very amiable person, I had a
very little conversation, though quite as much as she could possibly bestow
upon me; but with Prince Leopold, the only
person to whom I was introduced, I had a great deal. I see men who are going
into office, and men who are going out, and I am familiar enough with some of
them to congratulate the latter, and condole with and commiserate the former. I
meet with men of all persuasions and all grades of opinion, and
124 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 57. |
hear their hopes and their fears, and have opportunities
(which I do not let slip) of seeing the mechanism of government, and observing
how the machine works. I was to have dined with the Archbishop on Wednesday, when the Duchess made me put off my
engagement. . . . .
“My table is now covered with notes, pamphlets, and
piles of seditious papers. You may imagine how I long to be at home and at
rest. To-day I dine with Mr. Croker, who
is likely to be prominent in opposition. The Duke will not; neither, by what I hear, will Sir R. Peel. But I do not think it possible
that the present administration can hold together long; and
Peel, who is now without an equal in the Commons, has
only to wait patiently till he is made minister by common consent of the
nation.
“Farewell, my dear Sir; and believe me always,
Sincerely and affectionately yours,
Robert Southey.”
John Wilson Croker (1780-1857)
Secretary of the Admiralty (1810) and writer for the
Quarterly
Review; he edited an elaborate edition of Boswell's
Life of
Johnson (1831).
William Howley, archbishop of Canterbury (1766-1848)
Educated at Winchester and New College, Oxford, he was regius professor of Divinity
(1809-13), bishop of London (1813-28), and archbishop of Canterbury (1828-48).
Leopold I King of Belgium (1790-1865)
The son of Prince Francis Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld; after serving in the Russian
army he married Princess Charlotte in May 1816; in 1831 he was inaugurated as the first
king of the Belgians.
Victoria Mary Louise, duchess of Kent (1786-1861)
The daughter of Francis, duke of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, in 1803 she married Emich Charles,
prince of Leiningen, and in 1818 the Duke of Kent. She was the mother of Queen
Victoria
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.