Complete Poetical Works of Robert Southey

by Robert Southey

  Just as George Dyer had begun voraciously to feast on the steaks, his young nephews and nieces entered the room crying. “Good bye, my dears,” said George, taking a deep draught of the porter. “You wont see me much longer.” After a few mouthfuls of the savoury steak, he further said, “be good children, when I am gone.” Taking another draught of the porter, he continued, “mind your books, and don’t forget your hymns.” “We wont,” answered a little shrill silvery voice, from among the group, “we wont, dear Uncle.” He now gave them all a parting kiss; when the children retired in a state of wonderment, that “sick Uncle” should be able to eat and drink so heartily. “And so,” said Lamb, in his own peculiar phraseology “at night, I packed up his little nipped carcass snug in bed, and, after stuffing him for a week, sent him home as plump as a partridge.”

  “April, 26, 1797.

  “… I have finished Necker this morning, and return again to my regular train of occupation. Would that digging potatoes were amongst them! and if I live a dozen years, you shall eat potatoes of my digging: but I must think now of the present.

  Some Mr. —— sent me a volume of his poems, last week. I read his book: it was not above mediocrity. He seems very fond of poetry and even to a superstitious reverence of Thompson’s ‘old table,’ and even of Miss Seward, whose MS. he rescued from the printer. I called on him to thank him, and was not sorry to find him not at home. But the next day a note arrived with more praise. He wished my personal acquaintance, and ‘trusts I shall excuse the frankness which avows, that it would gratify his feelings to receive a copy of ‘Joan of Arc, from the author.’ I thought this, to speak tenderly, not a very modest request, but there is a something in my nature which prevents me from silently displaying my sentiments, if that display can give pain, and so I answered his note, and sent him the book. He writes sonnets to Miss Seward, and Mr. Hayley; enough to stamp him ‘blockhead.’

  Carlisle and I, instead of our neighbours’ ‘Revolutionary Tribunal,’ mean to erect a physiognomical one, and as transportation is to be the punishment, instead of guillotining, we shall put the whole navy in requisition to carry off all ill-looking fellows, and then we may walk London streets without being jostled. You are to be one of the Jury, and we must get some good limner to take down the evidence. Witnesses will be needless. The features of a man’s face will rise up in judgment against him; and the very voice that pleads ‘Not Guilty,’ will be enough to convict the raven-toned criminal.

  I sapped last night with Ben. Flower, of Cambridge, at Mr. P.’s, and never saw so much coarse strength in a countenance. He repeated to me an epigram on the dollars which perhaps you may not have seen.

  To make Spanish dollars with Englishmen pass,

  Stamp the head of a fool, on the tail of an ass.

  This has a coarse strength rather than a point. Danvers tells me that you have written to Herbert Croft. Give me some account of your letter. Let me hear from you, and tell me how you all are, and what is going on in the little world of Bristol. God bless you.

  Yours affectionately,

  Robert Southey.

  “… We dine with Mary Wolstoncroft (now Godwin) to-morrow. Oh! he has a foul nose! I never see it without longing to cut it off. By the by, Dr. Hunter (the murderer of St. Pierre) told me that I had exactly Lavater’s nose, to my no small satisfaction, for I did not know what to make of that protuberance, or promontory of mine. I could not compliment him. He has a very red drinking face: little good humoured eyes, with the skin drawn up under them, like cunning and short-sightedness united. I saw Dr. Hunter again yesterday. I neither like him, nor his wife, nor his son, nor his daughter, nor any thing that is his. To night I am to meet Opie. God bless you. Edith’s love.

  Yours affectionately,

  Robert Southey.”

  “May, 1797.

  My dear Cottle,

  … Opie indeed is a very extraordinary man. I have now twice seen him. Without any thing of politeness, his manners are pleasing, though their freedom is out of the common; and his conversation, though in a half-uttered, half-Cornish, half-croak, is interesting. There is a strange contrast between his genius, which is not confined to painting, and the vulgarity of his appearance, — his manners, and sometimes of his language. You will however easily conceive that a man who can paint like Opie, must display the same taste on other subjects. He is very fond of Spenser. No author furnishes so many pictures, he says. You may have seen his ‘Britomart delivering Amoret.’ He has begun a picture from Spenser, — which he himself thinks his best design, but it has remained untouched for three years. The outline is wonderfully fine. It is the delivery of Serena from the Salvages, by Calepine. You will find the story in the 6th book of the ‘Fairy Queen.’ The subject has often struck me as being fit for the painter.

  I saw Dr. Gregory (Biographer of Chatterton) to-day; a very brown-looking man, of most pinquescent, and full-moon cheeks. There is much tallow in him. I like his wife, and perhaps him too, but his Christianity is of an intolerant order, and he affects a solemnity when talking of it, which savours of the high priest. When he comes before the physiognomical tribunal, we must melt him down. He is too portly. God bless you….

  Yours truly,

  Robert Southey.”

  May, 1797.

  “… I fancy you see no hand-writing so often as mine. I have been much pleased with your letter to Herbert Croft. I was at Dr. Gregory’s last night. He has a nasal twang, right priestly in its note. He said he would gladly abridge his life of Chatterton, if I required it. But it is a bad work, and Coleridge should write a new one, or if he declines it, let it devolve on me. They knew Miss Wesley, daughter of Charles Wesley, with whom I once dined at your house. She told them, had he not prematurely died, that she was going to be married to John Henderson. Is this true?

  I have a treasure for you. A ‘Treatise on Miracles,’ written by John Henderson, your old tutor, for Coleridge’s brother George, and given to me by a pupil of his, John May, a Lisbon acquaintance, and a very valuable one. John May is anxious for a full life of John Henderson. You should get Agutter’s papers. You ought also to commit to paper all you know concerning him, and all you can collect, that the documents may remain, if you decline it. If the opportunity pass, he will die without his fame.

  I have lost myself in the bottomless profundity of Gilbert’s papers. Fire, and water, and cubes, and sybils, and Mother Church, &c. &c. Poor fellow. I have been introduced to a man, not unlike him in his ideas, — Taylor the Pagan, a most devout Heathen! who seems to have some hopes of me. He is equally unintelligible, but his eye has not that inexpressible wildness, which sometimes half-terrified us in Gilbert.”

  “Christ Church, June 14, 1797.

  “… I am in a place I like: the awkwardness of introduction over, and the acquaintance I have made here pleasant…. Your letter to Herbert Croft has made him some enemies here. I wish much to see you on that business. Bad as these times are for literature, a subscription might be opened now with great success, for Mrs. Newton (Chatterton’s sister) and the whole statement of facts ought to be published in the prospectus.

  Time gallops with me. I am at work now for the Monthly Magazine, upon Spanish poetry. If we are unsuccessful here (in suiting ourselves with a house) I purpose writing to Wordsworth, and asking him if we can get a place in his neighbourhood. If not, down we go to Dorsetshire. Oh, for a snug island in the farthest of all seas, surrounded by the highest of all rocks, where I and some ten or twelve more might lead the happiest of all possible lives, totally secluded from the worst of all possible monsters, man….”

  “Christ Church, June 18, 1797.

  “… The main purport of my writing is to tell you that we have found a house for the next half year. If I had a mind to affect the pastoral style, I might call it a cottage; but, in plain English, it is exactly what it expresses. We have got a sitting-room, and two bed-rooms, in a house which you may call a cottage if you like it, and that one of these bed-rooms is ready for you,
and the sooner you take possession of it the better. You must let me know when you come that I may meet you.

  So you have had Kosciusco with you, (in Bristol) and bitterly do I regret not having seen him. If he had remained one week longer in London, I should have seen him; and to have seen Kosciusco would have been something to talk of all the rest of one’s life.

  We have a congregation of rivers here, the clearest you ever saw: plenty of private boats too. We went down to the harbour on Friday, in Mr. Rickman’s; a sensible young man, of rough, but mild manners, and very seditious. He and I rowed, and Edith was pilot.

  God bless you.

  Yours affectionately.

  Robert Southey.”

  Mr. Rickman afterwards acquired some celebrity. He became private secretary to the prime minister, Mr. Perceval, and afterwards for many years, was one of the clerks of the House of Commons. He published also, in 4to, a creditable Life of Telford, the great engineer, and officially conducted the first census, (1800) a most laborious undertaking. The second census, (1810) was conducted in a very efficient way, by Mr. Thomas Poole, whose name often appears in this work, appointed through the influence of Mr. Rickman.

  “London, Dec. 14, 1797.

  My dear Cottle,

  I found your parcel on my return from a library belonging to the Dissenters, (Dr. Williams’s Library) in Redcross-street, from which, by permission of Dr. Towers, I brought back books of great importance for my ‘Maid of Orleans.’ A hackney coach horse turned into a field of grass, falls not more eagerly to a breakfast which lasts the whole day, than I attacked the old folios, so respectably covered with dust. I begin to like dirty rotten binding, and whenever I get among books, pass by the gilt coxcombs, and disturb the spiders. But you shall hear what I have got. A latin poem in four long books; on ‘Joan of Arc;’ very bad, but it gives me a quaint note or two, and Valerandus Valerius is a fine name for a quotation. A small 4to, of the ‘Life of the Maid’, chiefly extracts from forgotten authors, printed at Paris, 1712, with a print of her on horseback. A sketch of her life by Jacobus Philippus Bergomensis, — bless the length of his erudite name.

  John May, and Carlisle, (surgeon) were with me last night, and we struck out a plan, which, if we can effect it, will be of great use. It is to be called the ‘Convalescent Asylum’; and intended to receive persons who are sent from the hospitals; as the immediate return to unwholesome air, bad diet, and all the loathsomeness of poverty, destroys a very great number. The plan is to employ them in a large garden, and it is supposed in about three years, the institution would pay itself, on a small scale for forty persons. The success of one, would give birth to many others. C. W. W. Wynn enters heartily into it. We meet on Saturday again, and as soon as the plan is at all digested, Carlisle means to send it to Dr. Beddoes, for his inspection. We were led to this by the circumstance of finding a poor woman, almost dying for want, who is now rapidly recovering in the hospital, under Carlisle.

  Yours affectionately,

  Robert Southey.”

  “1798.

  My dear Cottle,

  In the list of the killed and wounded of the ‘Mars,’ you saw the name of Bligh, a midshipman. I remember rejoicing at the time, that it was not a name I knew. Will you be surprised that the object of this letter is to require your assistance in raising some little sum for the widow of this man.

  I cannot express to you how deep and painful an interest I take in the history of this man. My brother Tom, an officer in the same ship, loved him; and well he might, for poor Bligh was a man, who, out of his midshipman’s pay, allowed his wife and children thirteen pounds a year. He wished to be made master’s mate, that he might make the sum twenty pounds, and then he said they would be happy. He was a man about thirty-five years of age; an unlettered man, of strong natural powers, and of a heart, of which a purer, and a better, never lived. I could tell you anecdotes of him that would make your eyes overflow, like mine. Surely, Cottle, there will be no difficulty in sending his poor wife some little sum. Five guineas would be much to her. We will give one, and I will lay friends in London under contribution. God bless you.

  Yours truly,

  Robert Southey.”

  “Hereford, 1798.

  My dear Cottle,

  My time here has been completely occupied in riding about the country. I have contrived to manufacture one eclogue, and that is all; but the exercise of riding has jostled a good many ideas into my brain, and I have plans enough for long leisure. You know my tale of the ‘Adite’ in the garden of Irem. I have tacked it on to an old plan of mine upon the destruction of the Domdanyel, and made the beginning, middle, and end. There is a tolerable skeleton formed. It will extend to ten or twelve books, and they appear to me to possess much strong conception in the Arabian manner. It will at least prove that I did not reject machinery in my Epics, because I could not wield it. This only forms part of a magnificent project, which I do not despair of one day completing, in the destruction of the ‘Domdanyel.’ My intention is, to show off all the splendor of the Mohammedan belief. I intend to do the same to the Runic, and Oriental systems; to preserve the costume of place as well as of religion.

  I have been thinking that though we have been disappointed of our Welsh journey, a very delightful pilgrimage is still within our reach. Suppose you were to meet me at Boss. We go thence down the Wye to Monmouth. On the way are Goodrich castle, the place where Henry V. was nursed; and Arthur’s cavern. Then there is Ragland Castle somewhere thereabout, and we might look again at Tintern. I should like this much. The Welsh mail from Bristol, comes every day through Boss; we can meet there. Let me hear from you, and then I will fix the day, and we will see the rocks and woods in all their beauty. God bless you.

  Yours affectionately,

  Robert Southey.”

  “Exeter, Sept. 22, 1799.

  My dear Cottle,

  … You will, I hope, soon have a cargo to send me of your own, for the second volume of the ‘Anthology’ and some from Davy. If poor Mrs. Yearsley were living I should like much to have her name there. As yet I have only Coleridge’s pieces, and my own, amounting to eighty or one hundred pages. ‘Thalaba, the Destroyer’ is progressing.

  There is a poem called ‘Geber’ of which I know not whether my review of it, in the Critical’ be yet printed, but in that review you will find some of the most exquisite poetry in the language. The poem is such as Gilbert, if he were only half as mad as he is, could have written. I would go a hundred miles to see the (anonymous) author.

  There are some worthies in Exeter, with whom I have passed some pleasant days, but the place is miserably bigoted. Would you believe that there are persons here who still call the Americans ‘the Rebels’ Exeter is the filthiest town in England; a gutter running down the middle of every street and lane. We leave on Monday week. I shall rejoice to breathe fresh air. Exeter, however, has the best collection of old books for sale, of any town out of London.

  I have lately made up my mind to undertake one great historical work, the ‘History of Portugal,’ but for this, and for many other noble plans, I want uninterrupted leisure; time wholly my own, and not frittered away by little periodical employments. My working at such work is Columbus serving before the mast. God bless you.

  Yours affectionately,

  Robert Southey.”

  “Falmouth, 1800.

  My dear Cottle,

  Our journey here was safe, but not without accidents. We found the packet, by which we were to sail, detained by the wind, and we are watching it with daily anxiety.

  A voyage is a serious thing, and particularly an outward-bound voyage. The hope of departure is never an exhilarating hope. Inns are always comfortless, and the wet weather that detains us at Falmouth, imprisons us. Dirt, noise, restlessness, expectation, impatience, — fine cordials for the spirits!

  Devonshire is an ugly county. I have no patience with the cant of travellers, who so bepraise it. They have surely slept all the way through Somersetshire. Its
rivers are beautiful, very beautiful, but nothing else. High hills, all angled over with hedges, and no trees. Wide views, and no object. I have heard a good story of our friend, Charles Fox. When his house, at this place, was on fire, he found all effort to save it useless, and being a good draughtsman, he went up the next hill to make a drawing of the fire! the best instance of philosophy I ever heard.

  I have received letters from Rickman and Coleridge. Coleridge talks of flaying Sir Herbert Croft. This may not be amiss. God bless you. I shake you mentally by the hand, and when we shake hands bodily, trust that you will find me a repaired animal, with a head fuller of knowledge, and a trunk full of manuscripts. Tell Davy this Cornwall is such a vile county, that nothing but its merit, as his birth-place, redeems it from utter execration. I have found in it nothing but rogues, restive horses, and wet weather; and neither Pilchards, White-ale, or Squab-pie, were to be obtained! Last night I dreamt that Davy had killed himself by an explosion. Once more, God bless you.

  Yours affectionately,

  Robert Southey.

  Mr. Southey, in this second visit to Lisbon, sent me the following poetical letter, which, for ease, vivacity, and vigorous description, stands at the head of that class of compositions. A friendly vessel, mistaken for a French privateer, adds to the interest. In one part, the poet conspicuously bursts forth.

  “Lisbon, May 9th, 1800.

  Dear Cottle, d’ye see,

  In writing to thee,

  I do it in rhyme,

  That I may save time,

  Determin’d to say,

  Without any delay,

  Whatever comes first,

  Whether best or worst.

  Alack for me!

  When I was at sea,

  For I lay like a log,

  As sick as a dog,

  And whoever this readeth,

  Will pity poor Edith: