229.1 Robert Southey to Samuel Taylor Coleridge [fragment], [late June 1797?]
229.1 Robert Southey to Samuel Taylor Coleridge [fragment], [late June 1797?] *
Christ Church [No date]
. . . . . . . . I went to the Chapter Coffee-house Club. [1] A man read an essay upon the comparative evils of savage and civilised society; and he preferred the first because it had not the curses of government and religion! [2] He had never read Rousseau. What amused me was to find him mistaken in every fact he adduced respecting savage manners. I was going to attack him, but perceived that a visitor was expected to be silent. They elected me a member of one of these meetings, which I declined.
. . . A friend of Wordsworth’s has been uncommonly kind to me – Basil Montague. He offered me his assistance as a special pleader, [3] and said, if he could save me 100 guineas, it would give him more than 100 guineas’ worth of pleasure. I did thank him, which was no easy matter; but I have been told that I never thank anybody for a civility, and there are very few in this world who can understand silence. However, I do not expect to use his offer: his papers which he offered me to copy will be of high service. Tell Wordsworth this.
I commit wilful murder on my own intellect by drudging at law; but trust the guilt is partly expiated by the candle-light hours allotted to Madoc. [4] That poem advances very slowly. I am convinced that the best way of writing is, to write rapidly, and correct at leisure. Madoc would be a better poem if written in six months, than if six years were devoted to it. However, I am satisfied with what is done, and my outline for the whole is good. . . . .
God bless you.
R.S.
Notes
* MS: MS untraced; text is taken from Charles Cuthbert Southey (ed.), Life
and Correspondence of Robert Southey, 6 vols (London, 1849–1850)
Previously published: Charles Cuthbert
Southey (ed.), Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey, 6 vols (London, 1849–1850), II, pp.
29–30.
Dating note: the letter was probably written in late June 1797, shortly after Southey left London for
Hampshire on 22 June. BACK
[1] Chapter Coffee-house in Paternoster Row, near St Paul’s Cathedral in London. As Paternoster Row was the site of many publishers and booksellers, the Coffee-house became a meeting place for writers and all those involved in the book trade. Visitors could make use of the wide collection of books and newspapers held at the Coffee-house for a small subscription. A small Club was meeting in the Coffee-house at this time to discuss literary and scientific topics. George Dyer was a prominent member. Southey accompanied Thomas William Carr (1770–1829), solicitor to the Board of Excise, and the Nonconformist Minister, Rochemont Barbauld (1749–1808), there on 9 February 1797; see Common-Place Book, ed. John Wood Warter, 4 series (London, 1849–1850), IV, p. 39. BACK
[2] The man was Morgan (otherwise unidentified) and his story was intended ‘to prove that the old age of the American savage is not destitute and miserable’, Common-Place Book, ed. John Wood Warter, 4 series (London, 1849–1850), IV, p. 39. BACK
