1676. Robert Southey to Charles Watkin Williams Wynn, 4 September 1809 ⁠* 

My dear Wynn

My quest of the Derwentwater stewardship is at an end. I effectually secured Lord Lonsdales interest, but it appears from Lord Mulgraves [1]  letters that the place required experience which I do not possess, & application which I would not for any possible emolument bestow. You perhaps may suppose as Ellis & Canning seem to do, & as Lord Lonsdale does, that this reply of Lord Mulgrave means only that that he wants the place for somebody else, – but it tallies precisely with the result of Bedfords enquiries, & thereupon I am satisfied. I am told that if Canning has any influence in disposing of Dutens’s situation when he dies that I shall certainly succeed him. [2]  – there is no harm in having got thus far.

Meantime I have found out a place of Historiographer elsewhere with an exact salary, & that too not liable to the same unmerciful deductions. Ballantyne offers me 400£ a year to write the historical part of his Edinb. Ann. Register, in execution of which the person xx whom he had originally engaged has woefully disappointed him. [3]  I have engaged <undertaken> for the first volume., – after which he will see how my style of thinking & writing suit his purpose, & I shall better be able to calculate the expence of time. The very little which I have yet done interests me enough in doing it to induce a belief that sweet remuneration will tempt me to continue it hereafter. I write with thorough freedom, equally aloof from all parties, – & I suppose the manner in which I shall speak of some of the ministerial measures would hardly go down with xx my Scotch employers, [4]  were it not rendered delectable by the heavier censure past upon the Foxites, [5]  & the peace-party. Of this I am sure that the perfect fairness & right English spirit in which it is written will do more for the book in the way of establishing its reputation & thereby its sale than any other course which could be pursued. How far it may be prudent in me is another question, but – blessed be God for it, I have never yet weighed consequences in the balance with conscience.

Frere will be defended in the Quarterly by Ellis. – I assuredly could & would have justified him had it been entrusted to me. As for Sir J Moore there needs no censure upon him, – part of the history of his retreat I have written [6]  – while waiting for other materials, – & the plain narrative itself is the severest condemnation which could be declared pronounced. It was well for him that he died in battle.

See how literature is managed as a trade in this country. Ballantyne – & I suppose Scott is his main adviser – project this Register, – they circulate a prospectus, & some thousand copies are xxx bespoken. He offers ten guineas a sheet to authors; – goes to somebody for the historical part on which he is aware that the character of the book must rest, gets a bad script, – & in the middle of August has to look for another writer – when the work is to appear in January! – It is in vain to represent to him that the person to whom he applies next is utterly unprepared for the task, & has all his materials to seek, – his answer is that every body would be in the same predicament, so here am I at four months notice to furnish what he estimates at 30 close octavo sheets! – but I have protested against being compelled to consider the subject matter beyond what it will bear, & this is left at my discretion. And I am to receive more for this than for all the poems which I have written! –

My first volume of Brazil draws near its close. [7]  432 pages are printed, & I have only one more chapter to transcribe, – to arrange the additional notes, & put together the Bibliographical Appendix. – I am very far from feeling any dislike to other xxx employments, – on the contrary they amuse & interest me sufficiently, – so much so, – that had I no greater subject, I should xxxx write more of this nature for mere pleasure than I now do for mere money. Still there is a far greater satisfaction in working upon a worthy subject, & if ever I step into the shoes of that old Frenchman with a salary adequate to my expenditure I shall take leave of the Trade.

Duppa is in these regions of the North, he is at Durham today – dining I suppose with my brother, & when he has made his visit to Sir J Swinburne [8]  we hope he will find his way here. Rickman would have been here at this time, but his fathers death has delayed & may possibly prevent his coming. I wish for him much, as there is no man living in whose company I take more pleasure nor from whom I derive more improvement.

The third Quarterly has two articles of mine – that on the S Sea Missions – & Ld Valentia. [9]  A reviewal of Holmes’s American Annals has been postponed, [10]  – it is a good book. I am to review Joel Barlow’s refaccionamiento of his Vision of Columbus [11]  – about which I can make an amusing article – & also to write upon Methodism. [12] 

God bless you

RS

Sept.4.1809.