Memoir of John Murray
Robert Southey to John Murray, 21 July 1817
Keswick, July 21st, 1818.
My dear Sir,
I have made good way in a letter to Brougham in consequence of a false and slanderous attack which
he made upon me from the hustings,—with the amicable intention, I
believe, of setting my neighbours upon stoning me,—this being the fashion
with the rabble of his party. As I was not present to give him the lie in the
face of the multitude (as assuredly I would have done), I have given him such a
castigation as such a thorough-paced scoundrel deserves—a William Smithiad. But I should hardly have
taken the trouble for mere personal motives if I had not hoped to do some good
by a full and complete exposure of his system of slander.
For this purpose in the body of the letter I want to give in
order a clear, succinct and strong statement of all the calumnies in the House
of Commons of which he has been convicted, with the documents in the Appendix
(between ![]()
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ourselves this is a
suggestion of Croker’s). Send me,
therefore, the Debates of the last Parliament, from the time Brougham came in for Winchelsea—I forget
whether in 1814, ’15, or ’16. The first part I shall very shortly
send you through Bedford’s hands,
and you will let Pople print it.
By-the-bye, this printer has requested me to speak a good word for him to you,
and if in the plenitude of your power you could sometimes employ him, you would
confer a favour upon me, serving a very deserving man.
Jeffery and Sir E.
K. come in for some tremendous blows in this letter. I expect
also to have a letter from Wordsworth to
append to it, addressed to myself. He was included in the attack.
You can have no conception of the Devilish spirit which
Brougham has raised and left behind him
in Westmorland. It has shocked many of his own party.
You want some German in the =Review, and I can help
you to some. There is a neighbour of mine perfectly competent to give you an
able and philosophical criticism upon Schiller’s works, if you will send the collected edition
to Thomas De Quincey, Esquire, Grasmere,
near Ambleside. I have been talking to him this day upon the subject.* He is a
man of singular acuteness and ability.
‘Evelyn’s Memoirs’ would assist in furnishing materials
for an essay of great pith and moment upon the reign of Charles II. and the spirit of that age. But my
next paper must be ‘The
New Churches and the Catacombs,’ easily and naturally
connected.
There is a book upon Nonconformity lying for me at your house,
written by Conder, the bookseller. Let
it come in the next parcel,—I shall have occasion to touch upon it in my
Life of Wesley.
What if I were to make a Life of Marlborough for the Review from Coxe’s book?
Believe me, my dear Sir,
Yours most truly,
I shall not fail in the copyright question.
Grosvenor Charles Bedford (1773-1839)
The son of Horace Walpole's correspondent Charles Bedford; he was auditor of the
Exchequer and a friend of Robert Southey who contributed to several of Southey's
publications.
Henry Peter Brougham, first baron Brougham and Vaux (1778-1868)
Educated at Edinburgh University, he was a founder of the
Edinburgh
Review in which he chastised Byron's
Hours of Idleness; he
defended Queen Caroline in her trial for adultery (1820), established the London University
(1828), and was appointed lord chancellor (1830).
Josiah Conder (1789-1855)
Poet, bookseller, and proprietor of the
Eclectic Review
(1814-1837).
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).
Thomas De Quincey (1785-1859)
English essayist and man of letters; he wrote for the
London
Magazine and
Blackwood's, and was author of
Confessions of an English Opium-Eater (1821).
Francis Jeffrey, Lord Jeffrey (1773-1850)
Scottish barrister, Whig MP, and co-founder and editor of the
Edinburgh
Review (1802-29). As a reviewer he was the implacable foe of the Lake School of
poetry.
William Pople (1837 fl.)
A London printer from 1806; he printed works by Coleridge and Southey and the
Literary Gazette.
Sir William Sidney Smith (1764-1840)
Naval commander; he made his reputation by raising the French siege of Acre (1799); he
was MP for Rochester (1801) and promoted to admiral (1821). He spent his later years on the
Continent avoiding creditors.
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).
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.
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.
