4194. Robert Southey to John May, 28 May 1824

Address: To/ John May Esq^re./ Richmond/ Surry
Stamped: [partial] T.P./ Bridge St West
Postmarks: 2. A.NOON. 2/ 1. JU/ 1824; 2. A.NOON. 2/ JU. 1/ 1824
Watermark: Kingsford/ 1814
Endorsement: N^o. 237. 1824/ Robert Southey/ Keswick 28^th May/ recd. 2^d June/ ans^d. 11 d^o.
MS: Robert Southey Collection, Harry Ransom Center, The University of Texas at Austin. ALS; 2p.
Previously published: Charles Ramos (ed.), The Letters of Robert Southey to John May: 1797–1838 (Austin, Texas, 1976), pp. 206–207.
Note on MS: This contained an enclosure, Southey’s autobiographical letter to John May of 27 May 1824, Letter 4191.

Keswick 28 May. 1824

My dear friend

The inclosed biographical letter

⁽¹⁾

may serve to remind you that I am in the land of the living, which I am sorry to say, some of my correspondents seem to have forgotten. That you are so, I happen to know from your god-daughter. – I know very little of what is going on in London; three lines from Murray telling me about three weeks ago that he had sent a second edition of the B. of the Church

⁽²⁾

to press are all that I have heard from him since my return. There is I suspect a little intentional slight in this to make me understand that booksellers are greater personages than authors. –

I have been busy upon a review of Hayleys Memoirs which I expect to finish tomorrow.

⁽³⁾

that done my second volume

⁽⁴⁾

goes forthwith to press, all hope of obtaining the book from Spain

⁽⁵⁾

being at an end.

My annual catarrh announced itself on Wednesday last. I have suspended it by keeping in a darkened room, – for while it is upon me no photometer can be more sensible of light. The evil is that by keeping house I bring on a general relaxation, which & this frame of mine is not easily braced again. – I miss the two girls

⁽⁶⁾

– & shall miss them more as the season advances – With best remembrances to your fireside believe me my dear friend your most affectionately RS.

Notes

1. Southey to John May, 20 August 1823–27 May 1824, Letter 4055.[back]

2. Southey’s The Book of the Church (1824). It went into three editions in 1824.[back]

3. Southey’s review of John Johnson (1769–1833; DNB), Memoirs of the Life and Writings of William Hayley, Esq. the Friend and Biographer of Cowper, Written by Himself; with Extracts from his Private Correspondence, and Unpublished Poetry; and Memoirs of his Son Thomas Alphonso Hayley, the Young Sculptor (1823), Quarterly Review, 31 (March 1825), 263–311.[back]

4. The second volume of Southey’s History of the Peninsular War (1823–1832).[back]

5. Southey had read John Mitford’s ‘On Spanish Literature, with some Account of Francisco de Olivarez’, New Monthly Magazine, 10 (October 1818), 221–223. It mentioned Olivarez’s Account of the War in Catalonia, published in four volumes at Seville in 1815; Anecdotes of Chiefs Employed in the Catalan War (1816); and Memoirs of the Spanish Monarchy to the Abdication of Charles 4 & the Usurpation of Joseph Bonaparte (1816). However, none of these works seem to exist. Southey had already asked Murray to try and acquire them; see Southey to John Murray: 10 July 1820, The Collected Letters of Robert Southey. Part Six, Letter 3509; 27 February 1821, The Collected Letters of Robert Southey. Part Six, Letter 3641; 11 June 1821, The Collected Letters of Robert Southey. Part Six, Letter 3693; and 27 July 1822, Letter 3877 and 1 November [1822], Letter 3911. Murray had then written to Spain to try and obtain these books for Southey’s History of the Peninsular War (1823–1832), and Herbert Hill had also offered to help. Southey had then sought the assistance of George Canning. Finally, Southey had written to John Mitford, 12 April 1824, Letter 4171.[back]

6. Edith May and Bertha Southey.[back]

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4194. Robert Southey to John May, 28 May 1824

4194. Robert Southey to John May, 28 May 1824

Notes

The Collected Letters of Robert Southey: Part Seven

Lynda Pratt, Ian Packer