920. Robert Southey to Mary Barker, 3 April 1804 ⁠* 

Perhaps you may be anxious to hear of our goings on & therefore, having nothing to say, I take up a very short & ugly pen to tell you so. In a fortnights time, by Gods good will I may have better occasion to write. [1] 

I have within this last week received a pleasure of the highest possible terrestial nature – the arrival of some Portuguese & Spanish books. no monk ever contemplated with more devotion a chest of relics piping hot, than I did the happy deal box that contained the long expected treasures. but let us leave the books alone & talk of my manufactory. Did you ever see Ellis’s Specimens of the early English Poets? [2]  It is a very useful collection, tho not to my judgement made with due knowledge or taste, but still a good book, & which has sold wonderously well, George Ellis being a parliament man & of fashionable fame. [3]  Heber helped him in the business. Well, he ends with the reign of Charles 2^d. [4]  now am I going to begin where he ends, & give Specimens of all the Poets & Rhymesters from that time to the present, exclusive of the living jockeys. [5]  whereby I expect to get some money – for be it known to you in due confidence, that tho this will really be a pleasant & useful book I have undertaken it purely for the lucre of gain. for if this should sell as a Sequel & Companion to Ellis’s book, for which I design it, & shall advertise it, the profits will be considerable. [6]  Some little notice of each author is to be prefixed to his pieces, sometimes being only a List of his works, sometimes a brief biography, if he be at all an odd fish, & sometimes such odd things as may flow from the quaintness of my heart. This costs me a journey to London, as at least half these Gentlemen are not included in the common Collections of the Poets – & must be resurrectionized at Stationers Hall, [7]  where they have long since been consigned to the Spiders. A journey will stir my stumps & perhaps do me good – yet I do’nt like it. it disturbs me & puts me out of my way. however I shall be very glad to see Rickman whom Coleridge calls a sterling man – & with whom I shall guest. & then there half a score whom I regard more than acquaintance – Carlisle – Duppa – &c &c – not to mention all the oddities in my knowledge whom I love to shake hands with now & then & hug myself at the consciousness of knowing such an unequalled assortment. Oh if some Boswell [8]  would but save me the trouble of recording the unbelievable anecdotes I could tell – stories which would be worth their weight in gold – when gold will be of no use to me!

Coleridge is gone for Malta – & his departure affects me more than I let be seen. Let what will trouble me I bear a calm face – & if the boiling Well could be drawn (which however it heaves & is agitated below presents a smooth undisturbed surface) that should be my emblem. [9]  It is now almost ten years since he & I first met, in my rooms at Oxford, [10]  which meeting decided the destiny of both, & now when after so many ups & downs I am, for a time, settled under his roof, he is driven abroad in search of health. Ill he is, certainly & sorely ill, yet I believe if his mind were as well regulated as mine the body would be quite as manageable. I am perpetually pained & mortified by thinking what he ought to be, for mine is an eye of microscopic discernment to the faults of my friends, but the tidings of his death would come upon me more like a stroke of lightning than any evil I have ever yet endured. almost it would make me superstitious, for we were two ships that left port in company.

He has been sitting to Northcote for Sir George Beaumont. [11]  there is a finely painted, but dismal picture of him here, with a companion of Wordsworth. I enjoy the thought of your emotion when you will see that portrait of Wordsworth. [12]  It looks as if he had been a month in the condemned hole, dieted upon bread & water, & disbarred the use of soap, water, razor, & comb, then taken out of prison, placed in a cart, carried to the usual place of execution, & had just suffered Jack Ketch to take off his cravat. [13]  The best of this good joke is that the Wordsworths are proud of the picture & that his face is the painters ideal of excellence. how the Devil the painter has contrived to make a likeness of so well-looking a man so ridiculously ugly poozles every body.

I am expecting with pleasurable anticipation the bevers back. [14] 

farewell.

yrs

R Southey.

April 3. 1804.