3786. Robert Southey to Bernard Barton, 27 January 1822

MS: British Library, Add MS 47891. ALS; 2p.
Previously published: John Wood Warter (ed.), Selections from the Letters of Robert Southey, 4 vols (London, 1856), III, pp. 297–298; Lucy Barton, Poems and Letters by Bernard Barton (London, 1849), pp. xvii–xviii [in part].

Keswick. 27 Jan^y 1822

My dear Sir

I should have answered your letter yesterday, if it had not found me with six proof sheets on the table, three of Kirke Whites,

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& three of my own.

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Both your Dedications are very good, – the second very beautiful, tho a little hurt by the alteration, – the alteration however is advisable, – not that it would give offence, but that it is right to avoid any thing which might maliciously be pointed out as offensive.

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The volume cannot be presented more fitly than by Sir Aug. Frazer.

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I have no doubt but that the King will be gratified by it.

I was much pleased with the Poets Lot, – no, – not with his lot, – but with the verses in which he describes it. But let me ask you, – are you not pursuing your studies intemperately, & to the danger of your health?? To be writing “long after midnight”, & “with a miserable headache” xxx is what no man can do with impunity; & what no pressure of business, no ardour of composition, has ever made me do.

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I beseech you remember the fate of Kirke White; – & remember that if you sacrifice your health (not to say your life) in the same manner, you will be held up in your own community as a Warning, – not as an example for imitation. The spirit which disturbed poor Scott of Amwell

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in his last illness will fasten xx upon your name; & your fate will be instanced to prove the in cxxxxxxx inconsistency of your pursuits with that sobriety & evenness of mind which Quakerism requires & is intended to produce.

You will take this as it is meant, I am sure.

My friend, go early to bed: – & if you eat suppers, read afterwards but never compose, that you may lie down xx with a quiet intellect. There is an intellectual, as well as a religious peace of mind; – & without the former, be assured there can be no health for a poet.

God bless you – Yrs very truly

RSouthey

Notes

1. Proofs of the ‘Preface’ to the 9th edition of Southey’s The Remains of Henry Kirke White, 3 vols (London, 1822), III, pp. [iii]–xvi. The third, ‘supplementary volume’ was newly added in 1822 and contained additional letters and poems by Kirke White. [back]

2. Proofs of the first volume of Southey’s History of the Peninsular War (1823–1832). [back]

3. Bernard Barton, Napoleon and Other Poems (London, 1822), p. [v], was dedicated to George IV. Barton had asked Southey’s advice about the dedication; see Southey to Bernard Barton, 18 August 1821, The Collected Letters of Robert Southey. Part Six, Letter 3713. [back]

4. Sir Augustus Simon Frazer (1776–1835, DNB), commander of horse artillery in the Peninsular War. Frazer was a brother-in-law of Barton’s friend Edward Moor and had offered his papers to help with Southey’s History of the Peninsular War (1823–1832). [back]

5. ‘The Poet’s Lot’ was not published until Poetic Vigils (London, 1824), pp. 111–117; it did not include the lines to which Southey objected. [back]

6. John Scott of Amwell (1731–1782; DNB), Quaker, poet and expert on turnpike trusts and the Poor Law. In Quarterly Review, 11 (July 1814), 480–504 (500–501), Southey had drawn attention to the account of Scott’s death in Alexander Chalmers (1759–1834; DNB), The Works of the English Poets, from Chaucer to Cowper, 21 vols (London, 1810), XVII, pp. 445–452. Scott had been troubled by fears about his own worth. [back]

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Notes

The Collected Letters of Robert Southey: Part Seven