MS: Department of Rare Books, Special Collections and Preservation, River Campus Libraries, University of Rochester, Robert Southey Papers A.S727. ALS; 2p.
Unpublished.
Note on correspondent: Identified by subject matter. The content makes it likely that this letter is to Richard Garnett. Southey’s correspondent had been researching the life of Simon Ockley, who was a family connection of Richard Garnett’s first wife, Margaret Heathcote (1795–1828). The letter also displays an interest in many of Garnett’s enthusiasms, including writings published in Germany and medieval literature.
I am truly obliged to you for the interesting communications contained in your letter. Ockleys narrative
(1)
‘An account of a spirit in Cambridge Castle, 1717, by S. Ockley’, contained in the Lansdowne manuscripts in the British Museum. The author was the orientalist, Simon Ockley (1678–1720; DNB), at that time imprisoned in Cambridge Castle for debt. His account of being haunted by a poltergeist later became a famous instance of an allegedly supernatural event.
is certainly well worth preserving as one of the many stories for which no satisfactory solution can be offered. It is a case in which imposture is clearly possible, but highly improbable: – the question cui bono
X applying with more force to it if considered as a trick, than as the freak of some superhuman agent of Jefferys family.
(3)
Robert Southey, The Life of Wesley; and the Rise and Progress of Methodism, 2 vols (London, 1820), I, p. 442. John Wesley’s (1703–1791; DNB) sister, Emelia (1693–1779), recounted how the Wesley family’s home was haunted by a ghost, ‘Jeffrey’, but her mother, Susanna Wesley (1669–1742), was convinced the noises in the house were caused by rats. She used a horn to try and drive the rats out of the house.
The paper upon Astrology & Alchemy
(4)
A review by Francis Palgrave of ‘Francis Moore’, Vox Stellarum, a Loyal Almanack for the Year of Human Redemption 1821 (1821) and William Thomas Brande (1788–1866; DNB), ‘History of Chemistry’ in A Manual of Chemistry, 2 vols (London, 1821), I, pp. 1–188, in Quarterly Review, 26 (October 1821), 180–209, published 21 December 1821.
I believe to have been written by Mr Cohen, a young man of German-Jewish extraction, of extraordinary industry & attainments, especially in such out-of-the-way subjects. The only Astrologer whom I happen to have known was a Gentleman x a scholar, & <a man of genius> but decidedly insane, – the son of that Mr Gilbert
(5)
Nathaniel Gilbert (c. 1721–1774), a lawyer, planter in Antigua and Speaker of the Antiguan House of Assembly 1763–1769. He converted to Methodism in 1758 and after inheriting an estate in Antigua in 1761 began to evangelise his slaves.
who first introduced Methodism into the island of Antigua. He learnt it from John Henderson,
(6)
John Henderson (1757–1788; DNB), an eccentric polymath. He helped his father, Richard Henderson (1736/7–1792), to run an asylum at Hanham near Bristol at the time that William Gilbert was an inmate in 1788–1789.
who sported with his own powerful intellect almost as much as he delighted to do with the weaker minds of others. Gilbert cast my nativity about five & twenty years ago, & the scheme with a long rhapsodical explication is somewhere among my papers.
(7)
Gilbert’s horoscope for Southey does not survive, but see Southey to Grosvenor Charles Bedford, 30 September 1797, The Collected Letters of Robert Southey. Part One, Letter 259.
It promises me great prosperity where I shall never go to seek it, – at Berlin, or Algiers. – Cohen is wrong when he supposes Astrology to be extinct, – there are certain minds upon which it will always retain its hold
The Spanish ballads, like our own, have undergone all sorts of alterations; – every reciter, while they were orally preserved, adding & omitting at pleasure, & frequently supplying parts which he had forgotten, or imperfectly remembered. The German Collection I have not seen.
(8)
It is not clear which collection of Spanish ballads Southey is referring to here, as a number had been published in Germany, including: Jacob Grimm (1785–1863), Silva de Romances Viejos (1815); Georg Bernhard Depping (1784–1853), Sammlung der Besten Alten Spanischen Romanzen (1817); Friedrich Diez (1794–1876), Altspanische Romanzen (1818–1821); and Johann Nikolaus Bohl von Faber (1770–1836), Floresta de Rimas Antiguas Castellanas (1821–1825).
My own version of the two ballads to which you allude (they are two of the best Romances) was made from the Guerras de Granada.
(9)
Gines Perez de Hita (c. 1544–c. 1619), Historia de los Vandos, de los Cegries, y Abencerrages, cavalleros moros de Granada, y los civiles guerras que huvo en ella, hasta que el Rey Don Fernando el Quinto la gano (1731–1733), no. 3403 in the sale catalogue of Southey’s library. It is not clear which two ballads Garnett alluded to, but they might have been Southey’s translations, ‘Thro’ the city of Granada’ and ‘Moor Alcayde, Moor Alcayde’, published in Chronicle of the Cid (London, 1808), pp. 371–374, which were drawn from Perez de Hita’s work.
Farewell Sir. If at any time you should visit the Lakes, it will give me pleasure to have an opportunity of becoming personally acquainted with you
yrs with respect
Robert Southey.
