The Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey
Robert Southey, “Memoir: School at Bristol,” 20 August 1823
August 20th, 1823.
My memory strengthens as I proceed in this task of
retrospection; and yet while some circumstances,—a look, a sound, a
gesture, though utterly unimportant, recur to me more vividly than the
transactions of yesterday, others, which I would fain call to mind, are
irrevocably gone. I have sometimes fancied, when dreaming upon what may be our
future state, that in the next world we may recover a perfect recollection of
all that has occurred to us in this, and in the prior stages of progressive
existence, through which it is not improbable that our living principle has
ascended. And yet the best and happiest of us must have something or other,
altâ mente repostum, for
which a draught of Lethe would be desired.
The pleasantest of my school years were those which I past
at Williams’s, especially after I took up my abode
at Terril Street, for I then went home to dinner, and found much more
satisfaction there in my own pursuits from twelve o’clock till two, than
in his contracted play-ground. What I learnt there, ![]()
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indeed,
was worth little; it was just such a knowledge of Latin as a boy of quick parts
and not without diligence will acquire under bad teaching. When I had gone
through the Metamorphoses,
Williams declared his intention of taking me from the
usher and instructing me in Virgil himself,
no other of his pupils having proceeded so far. But the old man, I suppose,
discovered that the little classical knowledge which he ever possessed had
passed away as irrevocably as his youth, and I continued under the
usher’s care, who kept me in the Eclogues so long, that I was heartily sick of
them, and I believe have never looked in them from that time. Over and over
again did that fellow make me read them; probably because he thought the book
was to be gone through in order, and was afraid to expose himself in the Georgics. No attempt was made to
ground me in prosody; and as this defect in my education was never remedied
(for when I went to Westminster I was too forward in other things to be placed
low enough in the school for regular training in this), I am at this day as
liable to make a false quantity as any Scotchman. I was fond of arithmetic, and
have no doubt that, at that time, I should have proceeded with pleasure through
its higher branches, and might have been led on to mathematics, of which my
mind afterwards became impatient, if not actually incapable.
Sometimes, when Williams was in good
humour, he suspended the usual business of the school and exercised the boys in
some uncommon manner. For example, he would bid them all take their slates, and
write as he should dictate. This was to try their ![]()
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spelling,
and I remember he once began with this sentence: “As I walked out to
take the air, I met a man with red hair, who was heir to a good estate, and
was carrying a hare in his hand.” Another time he called upon all
of a certain standing to write a letter, each upon any subject that he pleased.
You will perhaps wonder to hear that no task ever perplexed me so woefully as
this. I had never in my life written a letter, except a formal one at Corston
before the holydays, every word of which was of the master’s dictation,
and which used to begin “Honoured Parents.” Some of the boys
produced compositions of this stamp; others, who were a little older and more
ambitious, wrote in a tradesman-like style, soliciting orders, or acknowledging
them, or sending in an account. For my part I actually cried for perplexity and
vexation. Had I been a blockhead this would have provoked
Williams; but he always looked upon me with a
favourable eye, and, expressing surprise rather than anger, he endeavoured both
to encourage and shame me to the attempt. To work I fell at last, and presently
presented him with a description of Stonehenge, in the form of a letter, which
completely filled the slate. I had laid hands not long before upon the
Salisbury Guide, and Stonehenge had appeared to me one of the greatest wonders
in the world. The old man was exceedingly surprised, and not less delighted,
and I well remember how much his astonishment surprised me, and how much I was
gratified by his praise. I was not conscious of having done anything odd or
extraordinary, but the boys made me so; and to the sort of envy which it
excited ![]()
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among them, I was indebted for a wholesome
mortification. One morning, upon entering the school a few minutes before the
master made his appearance, some half-dozen of them beset me, and demanded
whether I, with all my learning, could tell what the letters i.e, stood for. The question was proposed in the taunting tone of
expected triumph, which I should well have liked to disappoint. But when I
answered that I supposed it was for John the Evangelist,
the unlucky guess taught me never again to be ashamed of acknowledging myself
ignorant of what I really did not know. It was an useful lesson, especially as
I was fortunate enough to perceive, early in life, that there were very many
subjects of which I must of necessity be so.
Of all my schoolmasters Williams is
the one whom I remember with the kindliest feelings. His Welsh blood was too
easily roused; and his spirit was soured by the great decline of his school.
His numbers in its best days had been from seventy to an hundred; now they did
not reach forty, when the times were dearer by all the difference which the
American War had occasioned, and his terms could not be raised in proportion to
the increased price of everything, because schools had multiplied. When his ill
circumstances pressed upon him, he gave way, perhaps more readily, to impulses
of anger; because anger, like drunkenness, suspends the sense of care, and an
irascible emotion is felt as a relief from painful thoughts. His old wig, like
a bank of morning clouds in the east, used to indicate a stormy day. At better
times both the wig and the countenance would have beseemed a higher ![]()
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station; and his anger was the more frightful, because at
those better times there was an expression of good humour and animation in his
features which was singularly pleasing, and I believe denoted his genuine
character. He would strike with a ruler sometimes when his patience was greatly
provoked by that incorrigible stupidity, which of all things perhaps puts
patience to the severest trial. There was a hulking fellow (a Creole with Negro
features and a shade of African colour in him), who possessed this stupidity in
the highest degree; and Williams, after flogging him one
day, made him pay a halfpenny for the use of the rod, because he required it so
much oftener than any other boy in the school. Whether G——
was most sensible of the mulct or the mockery, I know not, but he felt it as
the severest part of the punishment. This was certainly a tyrannical act; but
it was the only one of which I ever saw Williams guilty.
There were a good many Creoles at this school, as indeed
at all the Bristol schools. Cassava bread was among the things which were
frequently sent over to them by their parents, so that I well knew the taste of
Mandioc long before I heard its name. These Creoles were neither better nor
worse than so many other boys in any respect. Indeed, though they had a
stronger national cast of countenance, they were, I think, less marked by any
national features of mind or disposition than the Welsh, certainly much less
than the Irish. One of them (evidently by his name of French extraction) was
however the most thoroughly fiendish human being that I have ever known. There
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is an image in Kehama drawn from my recollection of the
devilish malignity which used sometimes to glow in his dark eyes; though I
could not there give the likeness in its whole force, for his countenance used
to darken with the blackness of his passion. Happily for the slaves on the
family estate, he, though a second brother, was wealthy enough to settle in
England; and an anecdote which I heard of him when he was about thirty years of
age, will show that I have not spoken of his character too strongly. When he
was shooting one day, his dog committed some fault. He would have shot him for
this upon the spot, if his companion had not turned the gun aside, and, as he
supposed, succeeded in appeasing him: but when the sport was over, to the
horror of that companion (who related the story to me), he took up a large
stone and knocked out the dog’s brains. I have mentioned this wretch, who
might otherwise have better been forgotten, for a charitable reason; because I
verily believe that his wickedness was truly an original, innate,
constitutional sin, and just as much a family disease as gout or scrofula. I
think so, because he had a nephew who was placed as a pupil with
King, the surgeon at Clifton, and in whom at first
sight I recognised a physiognomy which I hope can belong to no other breed. His
nephew answered in all respects to the relationship, and to the character which
nature had written in every lineament of his face. He ran a short career of
knavery, profligacy, and crimes, which led him into a prison, and there he died
by his own hand.
Another of my then schoolfellows, who was also ![]()
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a Creole, came to a like fate, but from very different
circumstances. He was the natural son of a wealthy planter by a woman of
colour; and went through the school with the character of an inoffensive,
gentlemanly, quiet boy, who never quarrelled with anybody, nor ever did an
ill-natured thing. When he became a young man, he was liberally supplied with
money, and launched into expenses which such means tended to create and seemed
to justify. The supplies suddenly ceased, I am not certain whether by an
experiment of rigour, or owing to his father’s dying without providing
for him in his will; the latter I think was the case. Poor
H——, however, was arrested for debt, and put an end to
his hopeless prospects in prison, by suicide.
Colonel Hugh Baillie, who made himself
conspicuous some few months ago, by very properly resenting the unjust
expulsion of his son from Christ Church (an act of the late dean’s miserable misgovernment), was
one of my contemporaries at this school. My old Latin master,
Duplanier, kept a French academy next door; and by an
arrangement between the two masters, his boys came three mornings in the week
to write and cypher with us. Among these intermitting schoolfellows was poor
John Morgan, with whom Coleridge lived for several years;
Gee, whom I have already mentioned; and a certain
H—— O——, with whom I had an adventure in after-life,
well worthy of preservation.
This youth was about three years older than I: of course,
I had no acquaintance with him; nor did I ever exchange a word with him, unless
it were when ![]()
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the whole school were engaged in playing
prison-base, in which he took the lead as the πόδας ώκύς of
his side. His father was a merchant, concerned among other things in the Irish
linen trade: my father had some dealings with him; and in his misfortunes found
him, what I believe is not a common character, an unfeeling creditor. They were
a proud family; and a few years after my father’s failure, failed
themselves, and, as the phrase is, went to the dogs. This H——
O—— was bred to be an attorney, but wanted either brains or
business to succeed in his calling—I dare say both. I had forgotten his
person: and should never have thought of him again (except when the game of
prison-base was brought to my mind), if, in the year 1798, I had not been
surprised by hearing one day at Cottle’s shop, that he had been there twice or thrice to
inquire for me, and had left a message requesting that, if I came into Bristol
that day (it was during the year of my abode at Westbury), I would call on him
at an attorney’s office, at a certain hour. Accordingly, thither I went,
rung at the bell, inquired for Mr. O——, gave my name, and
was ushered into a private room. Nothing could be more gracious than his
recognition of a person, whom he must have past twenty times in the street
during the last three months: “we had been schoolfellows at such a
place, at such a time,” &c. &c., all which I knew very
well, but how we came to be acquaintances now was what I had to learn; and to
explain this cost him a good deal of humming and hawing, plentifully intermixed
with that figure of speech which the Irish call blarney,
and which is a ![]()
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much more usual as well as useful figure
than any of those, with the hard names of which poor boys used to be tormented
in the Latin grammar. From the use which he made of this figure he appeared to
know that I was an author of some notoriety, and that one of my books was
called Joan of Arc. The
compliments which he laid on, were intermingled with expressions of great
regret for the deficiencies of his own education: he learnt a little Latin, a
little French, but there it had stopt; in short, I knew what must be the extent
of his acquirements—“for you and I, Mr. Southey, you know, were schoolfellows.” At
last it came out that, from a consciousness of these deficiencies, he had been
led to think that a glossary of the English language was a work very much
wanted, and that no one could be more competent to supply such a desideratum, than the gentleman whom he had the honour
of addressing. I was as little able to guess what his deficiencies had to do
with a glossary as you can be; and not feeling any curiosity to get at a
blockhead’s meaning, endeavoured to put an end to the interview, by
declaring at once my utter inability to execute such a work, for the very
sufficient reason that I was wholly ignorant of several languages, the thorough
knowledge of which was indispensable in such researches. This produced more blarney, and an explanation that my answer did not
exactly apply to what his proposal intended. What he meant was
this,—there were a great many elegant words, which persons like himself,
whose education had been neglected, would often like to use in conversation (he
said this ![]()
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feelingly, it had often been his own case, he
felt it, indeed, every day of his life); they would be glad to use these words
if they only knew their meaning; and what he wanted was a glossary or
dictionary of such words, a little book which might be carried in the pocket.
It would certainly command an extensive sale: I could make the book; he had a
large acquaintance, and could procure subscribers for it; and we might make a
thriving partnership concern in this literary undertaking. Before he arrived at
this point, the scene had become far too comical to leave any room in my
feelings for anger. I kept my countenance (which has often been put to much
harder trials than my temper, and is moreover a much more difficult thing to
keep), declined his proposal decidedly but civilly, took my leave in perfect
good humour, and hastened back to Cottle’s, to
relieve myself by telling him the adventure.
Hugh Duncan Baillie (1777-1866)
Of Red Castle, Inverness-shire and St. Augustine's, Bristol; he was a military officer in
the Royal Horse Guards and MP for Rye (1830-31) and Honiton (1835-47). He was a schoolmate
of Robert Southey.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834)
English poet and philosopher who projected
Lyrical Ballads (1798)
with William Wordsworth; author of
Biographia Literaria (1817),
On the Constitution of the Church and State (1829) and other
works.
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).
Charles Henry Hall (1763-1827)
After winning prizes for Latin poetry and English essay he succeeded Cyril Jackson as
dean of Christ Church College, Oxford in 1809. Francis Hodgson was married to his niece
Susanna Tayler in 1815.
John James Morgan (d. 1820)
Bristol businessman and classmate of Robert Southey; Coleridge lived with the Morgans in
Hammersmith 1810-16; after losing his fortune late in life Morgan retired to Calne.
Robert Southey (1774-1843)
Poet laureate and man of letters whose contemporary reputation depended upon his prose
works, among them the
Life of Nelson, 2 vols (1813),
History of the Peninsular War, 3 vols (1823-32) and
The Doctor, 7 vols (1834-47).
Virgil (70 BC-19 BC)
Roman epic poet; author of
Eclogues,
Georgics, and the
Aenead.
