The Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey
Robert Southey, “Memoir: Miss Tyler,” 7 April 1821
April 7th, 1821.
On her return from Lisbon Miss Tyler took a house in Bath, and there my
earliest recollections begin, great part of my earliest childhood having been
passed there.
The house was in Walcot parish, in which, five and forty
years ago, were the skirts of the city. It stood alone, in a walled garden, and
the entrance was from a lane. The situation was thought a bad one, because of
the approach, and because the nearest houses were of a mean description; in
other respects it was a very desirable residence. The house had been quite in
the country when it was built. One of its fronts looked into the garden, the
other into a lower garden, and over other garden grounds to the river, Bath
Wick Fields (which are now covered with streets), and Claverton Hill, with a
grove of firs along its brow, and a sham castle in the midst of their long dark
line. I have not a stronger desire to see the Pyramids, than I had to visit
that sham castle during the first years of my life. There was a sort of rural
freshness about the place. The dead wall of a dwelling-house (the front of
which was in Walcot Street) formed one side of the garden enclosure, and was
covered with fine fruit trees: the way from the garden door to the house was
between ![]()
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that long house-wall, and a row of espaliers,
behind which was a grass plat, interspersed with standard trees and flower
beds, and having one of those green rotatory garden-seats shaped like a tub,
where the contemplative person within may, like Diogenes, be as much in the sun as he likes. There was a
descent by a few steps to another garden, which was chiefly filled with
fragrant herbs, and with a long bed of lilies of the valley. Ground rent had
been of little value when the house was built. The kitchen looked into the
garden, and opened into it; and near the kitchen door was a pipe, supplied from
one of the fine springs with which the country about Bath abounds, and a little
stone cistern beneath. The parlour door also opened into the garden; it was
bowered with jessamine, and there I often took my seat upon the stone steps.
My aunt, who had an unlucky taste for such things, fitted
up the house at a much greater expense than she was well able to afford. She
threw two small rooms into one, and thus made a good parlour, and built a
drawing-room over the kitchen. The walls of that drawing-room were covered with
a plain green paper, the floor with a Turkey carpet: there hung her own
portrait by Gainsborough, with a curtain
to preserve the frame from flies and the colours from the sun; and there stood
one of the most beautiful pieces of old furniture I ever saw,—a cabinet
of ivory, ebony, and tortoise-shell, in an ebony frame. It had been left her by
a lady of the Spenser family, and was said to have
belonged to the great Marlborough. I may
mention as part of the parlour furniture a square ![]()
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screen
with a foot-board and a little shelf, because I have always had one of the same
fashion myself, for its convenience; a French writing-table, because of its
peculiar shape, which was that of a Cajou nut or a kidney,—the writer sat
in the concave, and had a drawer on each side; an arm chair made of fine cherry
wood, which had been Mr.
Bradford’s, and in which she always
sat,—mentionable, because if any visitor who was not in her especial
favour sat therein, the leathern cushion was always sent into the garden to be
aired and purified before she would use it again; a mezzotinto print of
Pope’s Eloisa, in an oval black frame, because of its
supposed likeness to herself; two prints in the same kind of engraving from
pictures by Angelica Kauffman, one of
Hector and Andromache, the other of Telemachus at the court of Menelaus, these I notice because they were in frames of
Brazilian wood; and the great print of Pombal, o grande
Marquez, in a similar frame, because this was the first
portrait of any illustrious man with which I became familiar. The establishment
consisted of an old man servant, and a maid, both from Shobdon. The old man
used every night to feed the crickets. He died at Bath in her service.
Here my time was chiefly passed from the age of two till
six. I had many indulgences, but more privations, and those of an injurious
kind; want of playmates, want of exercise, never being allowed to do anything
in which by possibility I might dirt myself; late hours in company, that is to
say, late hours for a child, which I reckon among the privations (having always
had the healthiest propensity for going to bed betimes); ![]()
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late hours of rising, which were less painful perhaps, but in other respects
worse. My aunt chose that I should sleep with her, and this subjected me to a
double evil. She used to have her bed warmed, and during the months while this
practice was in season I was always put into Molly’s
bed first, for fear of an accident from the warming-pan, and removed when my
aunt went to bed, so that I was regularly wakened out of a sound sleep. This,
however, was not half so bad as being obliged to lie till nine, and not
unfrequently till ten in the morning, and not daring to make the slightest
movement which could disturb her during the hours that I lay awake, and longing
to be set free. These were, indeed, early and severe lessons of patience. My
poor little wits were upon the alert at those tedious hours of compulsory
idleness, fancying figures and combinations of form in the curtains, wondering
at the motes in the slant sunbeam, and watching the light from the crevices of
the window-shutters, till it served me at last by its progressive motion to
measure the lapse of time. Thoroughly injudicious as my education under
Miss Tyler was, no part of it was so
irksome as this.
I was inoculated at Bath at two years old, and most
certainly believe that I have a distinct recollection of it as an insulated
fact, and the precise place where it was performed. My mother sometimes fancied
that my constitution received permanent injury from the long preparatory
lowering regimen upon which I was kept. Before that time, she used to say, I
had always been plump and fat, but afterwards became the lean, lank,
greyhound-like creature ![]()
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that I have ever since continued.
She came to Bath to be with me during the eruption. Except the spots upon the
arm, I had only one pustule; afraid that this might not be enough, she gave me
a single mouthful of meat at dinner, and, before night, above a hundred made
their appearance, with fever enough to frighten her severely. The disease,
however, was very favourable. A year or two afterwards, I was brought to the
brink of death by a fever, and still I remember the taste of one of my
medicines (what it was I know not), and the cup in which it was administered. I
remember, also, the doses of bark which followed. Dr. Schomberg attended me on both occasions. One of Schomberg’s sons was the midshipman who
was much talked of some forty years ago for having fought Prince William Henry, then one of his shipmates.
I think he is the author of a history of our naval achievements. Alexander, another son, was a fellow of
Corpus, and died in 1790 or 1791, having lost the use of his lower parts by a
stroke of the palsy. I had the mournful office of going often to sit by him as
he lay upon his back in bed, when he was vainly seeking relief at Bath. Boy as
I was, and till then a stranger to him, he, who had no friend or relation with
him, was glad of the relief which even my presence afforded to his deplorable
solitude.
Miss Tyler had a numerous acquaintance,
such as her person and talents (which were of no ordinary kind) were likely to
attract. The circle of her Herefordshire acquaintance, extending as far as the
sphere of the three music meetings in the three ![]()
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dioceses of
Hereford, Worcester, and Gloucester, she became intimate with the family of
Mr. Raikes, printer and proprietor
of the Gloucester Journal. One
of his sons introduced Sunday Schools* into this kingdom; others became India
Directors, Bank Directors, &c., in the career of mercantile prosperity. His
daughter, who was my aunt’s
friend, married Francis Newberry of St.
Paul’s Churchyard, son of that Francis
Newberry who published Goody Two-shoes, Giles
Gingerbread, and other such delectable histories in sixpenny books
for children, splendidly bound in the flowered and gilt Dutch paper of former
days. As soon as I could read, which was very early, Mr.
Newberry presented me with a whole set of these books, more than
twenty in number: I dare say they were in Miss
Tyler’s possession at her death, and in perfect
preservation, for she taught me (and I thank her for it) never to spoil nor
injure anything. This was a rich present, and may have been more instrumental
than I am aware of in giving me that love of books, and that decided
determination to literature, as the one thing desirable, which manifested
itself from my childhood, and which no circumstances in after life ever
slackened or abated.
I can trace with certainty the rise and direction of my
poetical pursuits. They grew out of my aunt’s intimacy with
Miss ——. Her father had acquired a
* I know not where or when they were first instituted;
but they are noticed in an ordinance of Albert and
Isabel, in the year 1608, as then existing in
the Catholic Netherlands, the magistrates being enjoined to see to
their establishment and support in all places where they were not yet
set on foot. |
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considerable property as a wax and tallow-chandler at Bath,
and vested great part of it in a very curious manner for an illiterate
tradesman. He had a passion for the stage, which he indulged by speculating in
theatres; one he built at Birmingham, one at Bristol, and one at Bath. Poor
man, he outlived his reasonable faculties, and was, when I knew him, a pitiable
spectacle of human weakness and decay, hideously ugly, his nose grown out in
knobs and bulbs, like an underground artichoke, his fingers crooked and knotted
with the gout, filthy, irascible, helpless as an infant, and feebler than one
in mind. In one respect this was happy for him. His wife was a kind,
plain-mannered domestic woman; her clothes caught fire one day, she ran into
the street in flames, and was burnt to death. Mrs.
Coleridge, who was then a girl of eight or nine years old, and
lived in the same street, saw her in flames, and remembers how frightfully the
dogs barked at the sight. Her husband, though in the house at the time, never
knew what had befallen her. He survived her many years, and would frequently
say, she had been gone more than a week to Devizes, and it was time for her to
come back. After this dreadful event, he lived with his two daughters.
Miss —— and Mrs.
—— (a widow), in Galloway’s Buildings, in a house at which
I often visited with my aunt, during fifteen or sixteen years of my life,
occasionally for weeks together. Sometimes I was taken to see this deplorable
old man, whose sight always excited in me a mingled feeling of horror and
disgust, not to be recalled without some degree of pain. In consequence of his
incapacity, the property of the Bath and Bristol theatres devolved upon ![]()
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his children, and was administered by his son, who was in truth, a remarkable and
rememberable person.
Mr. —— must have been about five-and-thirty when I first
remember him, a man of great talents and fine person, with a commanding air and
countenance, kind in his manners and in his nature; yet there was an expression
in his eyes which I felt, before I had ever heard of physiognomy, or could have
understood the meaning of the word. It was a wild unquiet look, a sort of
inward emanating light, as if all was not as it ought to be within. I should
pronounce now that it was the eye of one predisposed to insanity; and this I
believe to have been the fact, though the disease manifested itself not in him,
but in his children. They, indeed, had the double reason to apprehend such an
inheritance, for their mother was plainly crazed with hypochondriacism and
fantasticalness. She was a widow and an actress when he married her, and her
humours soon made any place more agreeable to him than home. The children were
my playmates at those rare times when I had any. The eldest son was taken from
the Charter House, because he was literally almost killed there by the devilish
cruelty of the boys; they used to lay him before the fire till he was scorched,
and shut him in a trunk with sawdust till he had nearly expired with
suffocation. The Charter House at that time was a sort of hell upon earth for
the under boys. He was of weak understanding and feeble frame, very like his
mother in person; he lived, however, to take orders, and I think I have heard
that he died insane, as did one of his sisters, who perfectly resembled him.
Two ![]()
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other sons were at Eton; the elder of the two had one
of the most beautiful countenances I ever remember to have seen, only that it
had his father’s eyes, and a more fearful light in them. He was a fine,
generous, overflowing creature; but you could not look at him without feeling
that some disastrous fate would befal one so rash, so inconsiderate, and withal
so keenly susceptible. When he was at Cambridge he used to give orders to his
gyp by blowing a French horn, and he had a tune for every specific command,
which the gyp was trained to understand, till so noisy and unacademical a
practice was forbidden. There he ran wild, and contracted debts in all
imaginable ways, which his father, the most indulgent of fathers, again and
again discharged. These habits clung to him after he had left college. On the
last occasion, where his conduct had been deeply culpable, and a large sum had
been paid for him, Mr. —— did not utter a single reproach,
but in the most affectionate manner entreated him to put away all painful
thoughts of the past, and look upon himself as if he were only now beginning
life. The poor fellow could not bear his father’s kindness, and knowing,
perhaps, too surely, that he could not trust his own resolutions to amend his
life, he blew out his own brains.
I had not seen him for several years before his death. When
we were boys I admired him for his wit, his hilarity, his open generous temper,
and his countenance, which might better be called radiant than described by any
other epithet: but there was something which precluded all desire of intimacy.
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If we had been thrown together in youth, there would
have been an intellectual attraction between us; but intellect alone has never
been the basis of my friendships, except in a single instance, and that
instance proved the sandiness of such a foundation. Yet we liked each other;
and I never think of him without a hope, or rather a belief, an inward and sure
persuasion, that there is more mercy in store for human frailty than even the
most liberal creed has authorized us to assert.
The next letter will explain in what way my acquaintance
with this family was the means of leading
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My favoured footsteps to the Muses’ hill,
Whose arduous paths I have not ceased to tread,
From good to better persevering still.
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Elizabeth Bartlett [née Palmer] (1790 fl.)
The sister of the theater-owner and postal reformer John Palmer; she resided with her
sister, Robert Southey's Miss Palmer, in 1 Galloway's Buildings in Bath.
Herbert Bradford (1708 c.-1778)
Educated at Trinity College, Oxford, he was curate of Shobdon and vicar of Aylminster (or
Aymestrey) in Herefordshire (1762). After the death of his wife, Robert Southey's Aunt
Tyler was his housekeeper and afterwards his heir.
Diogenes (412 BC c.-323 BC)
Athenian cynic philosopher who demonstrated his preference for simplicity by living in a
tub.
Thomas Gainsborough (1727-1788)
English portrait and landscape painter whose popularity rivalled that of Joshua
Reynolds.
Angelica Kauffmann (1740-1807)
Swiss painter of portraits and histories; she was a protégée of Joshua Reynolds.
Francis Newbery (1743-1818)
The son of John Newbury; educated at Merchant Taylors' School, Trinity College, Oxford,
and Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, he carried on the family book-selling business, wrote
poems, and pursued music.
John Newbery (1713-1767)
The London publisher of books for children, vendor of Fever Powder, friend of Samuel
Johnson, and oppressor of Oliver Goldsmith.
Mary Newbery [née Raikes] (1748 c.-1829)
The daughter of Robert Raikes (d. 1757), printer of the
Gloucester
Journal; in 1770 she married the bookseller Francis Newbery, son of John
Newbery.
John Palmer (1703-1788)
The father of the theatre proprietor and postal reformer; he was a Bath merchant who
founded the Orchard Theater in Bath in 1750.
John Palmer (1742-1818)
Theater manager in Bath and Bristol; he devised a system of mail-coaches adopted by
William Pitt to great effect.
Alexander Pope (1688-1744)
English poet and satirist; author of
The Rape of the Lock (1714)
and
The Dunciad (1728).
Thomas Raikes (1736-1811)
The son of Robert Raikes, he succeeded his father as editor of the
Gloucester Journal, promoted charitable causes, and founded Sunday
Schools.
Alexander Crowcher Schomberg (1756-1792)
The son of the Bath physician Ralph Schomberg; educated at Winchester and Queen's
College, Oxford, he was a member of Lady Miller's literary circle at Bath Easton, wrote
poetry, and published translations.
Isaac Schomberg (1753-1813)
The son of the Bath physician Ralph Schomberg; after a contentious career as a naval
officer he published
Naval Chronology, or, an Historical Summary of Naval
and Maritime Events, 5 vols (1802).
Ralph Schomberg (1714-1792)
The twin brother of the poet and physician Isaac Schomberg, he practised medicine at Bath
and published essays and plays.
Elizabeth Tyler (1739-1821)
Robert Southey's aunt, his mother's elder half-sister, with whom he spent much time as a
child.
Prince William Henry, first duke of Gloucester (1743-1805)
The younger brother of George III; in 1766 he secretly married Maria Walpole, the
illegitimate granddaughter of Sir Robert Walpole, an event resulting in the passage of the
Royal Marriages Act of 1772.
