2933. Robert Southey to Thomas Southey, 3 March [1817]
2933. Robert Southey to Thomas Southey, 3 March [1817] *
My dear Tom
I sent a parcel of books to you some fortnight ago, by carrier, to Tinklers. [1] You do not mention them, so I apprehend they have not arrived, – make enquiry therefore.
Hobhouse [2] & Koster [3] came safe.
Do you remember my red-hot Wat Tyler, which I wrote in 1794? Ridgeway & Symonds [4] had it at that time to publish anonymously, which they undertook to do, & did not – From that time to this I never thought of it, – & now it is published, [5] – & Brougham has attacked me about it in the H of Commons. [6] – How little harm this can do me, & how little it can annoy me you may easily conceive. Wynn & Turner & Harry are to settle among themselves whether to sue for an Injunction for which the previous steps have been taken. [7] But most likely it will be thought best to let the matter alone, as utterly unworthy notice.
My article has been grievously mutilated ‘in compassion to the terror of ministers.’ [8] They intreat that they may not be called upon by their friends for expenditure, for they have no money. The Sinking Fund they look to as a resource in case of war whenever it may come. Meantime things are mending every where, & perhaps next year may give a surplus revenue.
The Champion has been sold by Scott, [9] & is got into the hands of a mere oppositionist. [10] If you get a daily paper let it be the New Times, – which the former editor of the Old Times conducts. [11]
I shall certainly be with you in April, & not later than the second week.
God bless you. Love to Sarah, – in haste, – & in a tremendous gale of wind
RS.
3 March.
Notes
* Address: To/ Capt. Southey/ Warcop Hall/ near/ Brough
Stamped: KESWICK/ 298
MS: British Library, Add MS 30927. ALS; 3p.
Unpublished.
Dating note:
Dating from content, this was written at the time of the publication of Wat
Tyler. BACK
[1] Thomas Tinkler (c. 1754–1824) of Brough; landlord of the Wheatsheaf Inn, Warcop, where deliveries for Thomas Southey could be left because the mail coach stopped there. BACK
[2] John Cam Hobhouse, 1st Baron Broughton (1786–1869; DNB), A Journey Through Albania, and Other Provinces of Turkey in Europe and Asia, to Constantinople During the Years 1809 and 1810 (1813). BACK
[3] Koster’s Travels in Brazil (1816) was reviewed by Southey in Quarterly Review, 16 (January 1817), 344–387. BACK
[4] James Ridgway (1755–1838) and Henry Symonds (1741–1816), radical booksellers to whom Southey sent the manuscript of Wat Tyler in 1794; see Robert Southey to Edith Fricker, [c. 12 January 1795], The Collected Letters of Robert Southey. Part One, Letter 123. BACK
[5] Southey learned of the publication through a piece in the Morning Chronicle, 12 February 1817. BACK
[6] On 24 February 1817, in the debate on the Seditious Meetings Bill, Brougham had contrasted the government’s prosecution of radical writers with its refusal to take action against Southey’s Wat Tyler. BACK
[7] Southey did apply for an injunction against the publication of Wat Tyler; he lost his case on 18–19 March 1817. BACK
[8] Southey’s ‘Parliamentary Reform’, Quarterly Review, 16 (October 1816), 225–278 (published 11 February 1817). Southey’s quotation is from a letter he received from William Gifford. BACK
[9] John Scott (1783–1821; DNB), author and journalist; The Champion (1814–1822) was a weekly paper of liberal views, which Scott had founded. BACK
