The Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey
Robert Southey to John Rickman, 20 November 1801
“The chancellor
and the scribe go on in the same way. The scribe has made out a catalogue of
all books published since the commencement of ’97 upon finance and
scarcity; he hath also copied a paper written by J. R.,
containing some Irish alderman’s hints about oak bark; and nothing more
hath the scribe done in his vocation. Duly he calls at the chancellor’s
door;
![]()
![]()
| Ætat. 27. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 175 |
![]()
sometimes he is admitted to immediate audience; sometimes
kicketh his heels in the antechamber (once he kicked them for cold, but now
there is a fire); sometimes a gracious message emancipates him for the day.
Secrecy hath been enjoined him as to these state proceedings. On three subjects
he is directed to read and research—corn-laws, finance, tythes, according
to their written order. Alas! they are heathen Greek to the scribe! He hath,
indeed, in days of old, read Adam Smith,
and remembereth the general principle established; he presupposeth that about
corn, as about everything else, the fewer laws the better: of finance he is
even more ignorant: concerning the tythes, something knoweth he of the
Levitical law, somewhat approveth he of a commutation for land, something
suspecteth he why they are to be altered; gladly would the people buy off the
burthen, gladly would the government receive the purchase money,—the
scribe seeth objections thereunto. Meantime, sundry are the paragraphs that
have been imprinted respecting the chancellor and the scribe; they have been
compared (in defiance of the Butleraboo statute) to Empson and Dudley; and
Peter Porcupine hath civilly
expressed a hope that the poet will make no false numbers in his new work:
sometimes the poet is called a Jacobin; at others it is said that his opinions
are revolutionised: the chancellor asked him if he would enter a reply in that
independent paper whose lying name is the True Briton, a paper over which the chancellor implied he had some
influence; the poet replied ‘No, that those flea-bites itched only if
they were scratched:’ the scribe hath been ![]()
| 176 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 27. |
![]()
courteously treated, and introduced to a Mr.
Ormsby; and this is all he knoweth of the home politics. . . . . ![]()
You remember your heretical proposition de
Cambro-Britannis—that the Principality had never
produced, and never could produce, a great man; that I opposed Owen Glendower and Sir Henry Morgan to the assertion in vain. But I have found the
great man, and not merely the great man, but the maximus homo, the μεγιστος
άνθρωπος the μεγιστοτατος—we must create a super-superlative to reach the
idea of his magnitude. I found him in the Strand, in a shopwindow, laudably
therein exhibited by a Cambro-Briton; the engraver represents him sitting in a
room, that seems to be a cottage, or, at best, a farm, pen in hand, eyes
uplifted, and underneath is inscribed— ‘The Cambrian
Shakespear.’ |
![]()
But woe is me for my ignorance! the motto that followed surpassed my skill
in language, though it doubtless was a delectable morsel from that great
Welshman’s poems. You must, however, allow the justice of the name for
him, for all his writings are in Welsh; and the Welshmen say that he is as
great a man as Shakspeare, and they must
know, because they can understand him. I inquired what might be the trivial
name of this light and lustre of our dark age, but it hath escaped me; but that
it meant, being ![]()
| Ætat. 27. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 177 |
![]()
interpreted, either Thomas
Denbigh, or some such every-day baptismal denomination. And now
am I no prophet if you have not, before you have arrived thus far, uttered a
three-worded sentence of malediction. . . . . To-day I dine with Lord Holland; Wynn is intimate with him, and my invitation is for the sake of
Thalaba. The sale of
Thalaba is slow—about 300 only gone. . . .
.
Yours truly,
R. Southey.”
Isaac Corry (1753-1813)
Educated at Trinity College, Dublin, he sat in the Irish and British parliaments and was
Irish Chancellor of the Exchequer (1799-1802).
Edmund Dudley (1462 c.-1510)
A financial agent of King Henry VII, he was accused of treason and beheaded with his
colleague Sir Richard Empson in the reign of Henry VIII.
Sir Richard Empson (1450 c.-1510)
As speaker of the House of Commons he instituted an unpopular system of taxation; he was
accused of treason and beheaded early in the reign of Henry VIII.
Henry Richard Fox, third baron Holland (1773-1840)
Whig politician and literary patron; Holland House was for many years the meeting place
for reform-minded politicians and writers. He also published translations from the Spanish
and Italian;
Memoirs of the Whig Party was published in 1852.
Owen Glendower (1359 c.-1416 c.)
Welsh leader who as Prince of Wales led a revolt against Henry IV, as related by
Shakespeare.
Sir Henry Morgan (1635 c.-1688)
Ruthless Welsh privateer who worked the Spanish Main and was governor of Jamaica.
Adam Smith (1723-1790)
Friend of David Hume and professor of logic at Glasgow University (1751); he wrote
Theory of the Moral Sentiments (1759) and
The
Wealth of Nations (1776).
Charles Watkin Williams Wynn (1775-1850)
The son of Sir Watkin Williams Wynn, fourth baronet; educated at Westminster and Christ
Church, Oxford, Robert Southey's friend and benefactor was a Whig MP for Old Sarum (1797)
and Montgomeryshire (1799-1850). He was president of the Board of Control (1822-28).
The True Briton. (1793-1803). A London daily newspaper edited by John Heriot, 1793-1803.
