The Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey
Robert Southey to Henry Taylor, 15 July 1831
“Keswick, July 15. 1831.
“My dear H. T.,
“This day being Friday, when no letters go for London,
I intended to have sent you a note of introduction to Sir Walter; but this day’s newspaper brings account that
he has had another attack, and is in extreme danger. I fear this is true,
because I ![]()
| Ætat. 57. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 155 |
![]()
wrote to him last week*, and should most likely
have heard from him in reply if he had been well. His make is apoplectic, and I
dare say he has overworked himself, with much wear and tear of anxiety to boot,
which is even more injurious. Latterly his spirits have failed him, a good deal
owing to the prospect of public affairs: that indeed can exhilarate such
persons only as ——, and those who hope to fish in troubled
waters.
“The sort of statesman that we want is a man who
yields nothing that he ought not to yield, who would dispute all the way from
London to Witton-le-Weir, taking Oxford on the road: who will summon cabmen
when it is proper so to do, and engage with a whole quarterly meeting of
Quakers in argument. . . . .
“Wordsworth in
all likelihood will be at home at the time you wish. I saw him last week; he is
more desponding than I am, and I perhaps despond less than I should do if I saw
more clearly before me. After seeing the reign (I cannot call it the
government) of Louis Philippe’s
last twelve months, Poland resisting Russia, and Italy not resisting Austria,
William IV. dissolving Parliament in
order to effect parliamentary reform, and Prince
Leopold willing to become king of the Belgians,—who can
tell what to expect, or who would be surprised at anything that was most
unexpected, most insane, or most absurd! Certainly what seems least to be
expected is that we should escape a revolution, and yet I go to sleep at night
as if there were no danger of one.
|
* The later letters to Sir W.
Scott have not come into my hands.—Ed.
|
![]()
![]()
| 156 |
LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE |
Ætat. 57. |
![]()
“. . . . . Have you seen the strange book which Anastasius Hope left for publication, and which his
representatives, in spite of all dissuasion, have published? His notion of
immortality and heaven is, that at the consummation of all things he, and you,
and I, and John Murray, and
Nebuchadnezzar, and Lambert the fat man, and the living skeleton, and Queen Elizabeth, and the Hottentot Venus, and Thurtell, and Probert, and the twelve Apostles, and the noble army of
martyrs, and Genghis Khan, and all his
armies, and Noah with all his ancestors and all his
posterity,—yea, all men and all women, and all children that have ever
been or ever shall be, saints and sinners alike,—are all to be put
together, and made into one great celestial eternal human being. He does not
seem to have known how nearly this approaches to Swedenborg’s fancy. I do not like the scheme. I
don’t like the notion of being mixed up with Hume, and Hunt, and
Whittle Harvey, and Philpotts, and Lord
Althorpe, and the Huns, and the Hottentots, and the Jews, and
the Philistines, and the Scotch, and the Irish. God forbid! I hope to be I
myself; I, in an English heaven, with you yourself—you, and some others,
without whom heaven would be no heaven to me.
“God bless you!
Sara Baartman [Hottentot Venus] (1791-1815)
A South African woman put on display in London in 1810 as the Hottentot Venus, leading to
protests and a chancery case; she died in Paris.
Genghis Khan (1162-1227)
The founder and leader of the Mongol Empire.
Daniel Whittle Harvey (1786-1863)
Educated at the Inner Temple, he was a radical MP for Colchester (1818-1820, 1826-35) and
Southward (1835-1840), and was the proprietor of the
Sunday Times
and other newspapers.
Thomas Hope (1769-1831)
Art collector and connoisseur, the son of a wealthy Amsterdam merchant and author of the
novel
Anastasius (1819) which some thought to be a work by Byron.
His literary executor was William Harness.
Joseph Hume (1777-1855)
After service in India he became a radical MP for Weymouth (1812), Aberdeen (1818-30,
1842-55), Middlesex (1830-37), and Kilkenny (1837-41); he was an associate of John Cam
Hobhouse and a member of the London Greek Committee. Maria Edgeworth: “Don't like him
much; attacks all things and persons, never listens, has no judgment.”
Henry Hunt [Orator Hunt] (1773-1835)
Political radical and popular agitator who took part in the Spa Fields meeting of 1816;
he was MP for Preston (1830-33).
Daniel Lambert (1770-1809)
The most corpulent man of his time; he was keeper of Leicester gaol (1791-1805).
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.
Louis Philippe, king of the French (1773-1850)
The son of Louis Philippe II, Duke of Orléans; he was King of France 1830-48; he
abdicated following the February Revolution of 1848 and fled to England.
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.
John Phillpotts (1775-1849)
The elder brother of Henry Phillpotts, bishop of Exeter; educated at the Inner Temple, he
was a barrister and whig MP for Gloucester (1830-31, 1832-34, 1837-47).
William Probert (d. 1825)
The accomplice of John Thurtell who brutally murdered the gambler William Weare; he was
condemned to death for theft in April 1825.
John Charles Spencer, third earl Spencer (1782-1845)
English politician, son of the second earl (d. 1834); educated at Harrow and Trinity
College, Cambridge, he was Whig MP for Northamptonshire (1806-34) and chancellor of the
exchequer and leader of the lower house under Lord Grey (1830).
John Thurtell (1794-1824)
Amateur pugilist who brutally murdered the gambler William Weare; the lurid crime
attracted national attention and figured in broadsides and later fiction.
William Wordsworth (1770-1850)
With Coleridge, author of
Lyrical Ballads (1798), Wordsworth
survived his early unpopularity to succeed Robert Southey as poet laureate in 1843.
