3891. Robert Southey to Neville White, 1 September 1822

MS: MS untraced; text is taken from John Wood Warter (ed.), Selections from the Letters of Robert Southey, 4 vols (London, 1856)
Previously published: John Wood Warter (ed.), Selections from the Letters of Robert Southey, 4 vols (London, 1856), III, pp. 330–332.

Keswick, Sept. 1. 1822.

My dear Neville,

Taken up as I have been for the last two months by a succession of guests and chance visitors, even to a total suspension of all my customary and necessary employments, I would yet have found time for writing to you if I had known of your father’s decease.

⁽¹⁾

What, however, could I have said more than your own feelings and faith had suggested to you! For the best of us, when our lives are not of essential use to others, death is better than life; and it were weakness, indeed, to desire for our friends a prolonged old age, when, in our sober judgment, we should wish no such lot for ourselves.

This, though a solemn event, is no evil. It was my lot to lose both my parents

⁽²⁾

when they were very little older than I am at present, and, in the ordinary course of nature, might have enjoyed many years of life.

James’s affection of the chest is not necessarily of an alarming nature. I know at this time three instances of persons who have repeatedly discharged large quantities of blood from the lungs; the ailment is of many years’ standing, and yet all three are good lives.

Solomon Pigott

⁽³⁾

has written me a letter of remonstrance upon the printed sheet which contains the circular of his “Case.” I have neither noticed the case, nor the letter. With regard to the matter of his complaint, he has provoked the treatment which he has received. What became of the intended prints for this third volume?

⁽⁴⁾

Let me know in time when it is proposed to distribute these gleanings at their proper places, and I will then alter the Memoir accordingly.

⁽⁵⁾

I congratulate you on your preferment;

⁽⁶⁾

its convenience is its value, and this to you is of the greatest. Moreover, it is a very gratifying proof of the estimation in which you are held by the Dean and Chapter.

My brother told me of your transit through London. You have now accomplished a great work in removing your family, and in doing so it may reasonably be hoped you have performed the last of a long series of most important services. You are a happy man, Neville, and it is delightful to think, as my experience shows me, that the best men are always the happiest.

Cuthbert has just been to wish me good night. He is, I think, just as winning for his age as he was when you and your good friends were so well pleased with him. To–day, for the first time, and by his own earnest desire, he has been to church. His sisters,

⁽⁷⁾

thank God, are well; their mother is better than her usual health, and I myself strengthened almost beyond my expectation by the brisk exercise which I have taken during the last two months. An old college friend, Lightfoot by name (master of Crediton school), whom I had not seen since we parted when we both left Oxford eight and twenty years ago, mustered up resolution to take a longer journey than he had ever before accomplished, for the sake of visiting me. He stayed with me as long as his holidays would allow; and I believe no men ever met more cordially after so long a separation, or enjoyed each other’s society more. I shall never forget the manner in which he first met me, nor the time in which he said that having now seen me, he should return home and die in peace. We took many of the walks which you and I performed together, and which every year become dearer to me, for the recollection of those friends with whom the scenery is now associated.

My old friend John May has also visited me for the first time, and stayed with me three weeks. I am now expecting my brother as soon as he can give himself a fortnight’s holiday from his profession.

A word or two more of my employments. The first volume of the ‘Peninsular War’ is completed.

⁽⁸⁾

Whether Murray will publish it now, or delay it till the winter, rests with him. You will, of course, receive a copy as soon as it appears. I have dedicated it to the King.

⁽⁹⁾

The book of the Church lingers,

⁽¹⁰⁾

and I suspect Murray has mislaid the last portion of manuscript. I shall now take it up, and pursue it to the end.

God bless you, my dear Neville,
Yours affectionately,
ROBERT SOUTHEY.

Notes

1. John White, formerly a butcher in Nottingham, had moved to Norfolk with his family in 1821 in order for them to be near Neville White. John White died at Catton, Norfolk, on 3 July 1822.[back]

2. Robert Southey,Senior, and his wife Margaret.[back]

3. Solomon Piggott (1779–1845), Rector of Dunstable, 1824–1845. Piggott had claimed to be instrumental in Kirke White’s conversion to Christianity. This statement was refuted in Southey’s Preface to the 9th edition of The Remains of Henry Kirke White, 3 vols (London, 1822), III, p. vii, which noted it was ‘groundless’. Piggott was presumably planning to argue his ‘Case’ in a publication.[back]

4. A ninth edition of Southey’s The Remains of Henry Kirke White had been published earlier in 1822. This had an added third volume, which contained a new Preface and previously unpublished poems and letters and poems by Kirke White. The third volume did not include any prints.[back]

5. A tenth edition of the Remains followed in 1823. This compressed the three-volume 1822 edition back into two volumes. As a result, Southey had to combine some of the Preface written for the 1822 ninth edition with his earlier ‘Life’ of Kirke White; see The Remains of Henry Kirke White, 10th edn, 2 vols (London, 1823), pp. [v]–lxviii, and [lxix]–lxxiii.[back]

6. Neville White had just been appointed Perpetual Curate of Great Plumstead, only five miles east of Norwich, where he lived. The Great Plumstead living was not wealthy, but it was White’s first preferment to a benefice. As the post was in the gift of the Dean and Chapter of Norwich Cathedral, White’s appointment was also a sign of his good standing and local connections.[back]

7. Edith May, Bertha, Kate and Isabel Southey.[back]

8. Southey’s History of the Peninsular War (1823–1832).[back]

9. History of the Peninsular War, 3 vols (London, 1823–1832), I, p. [iii]: ‘It is with peculiar fitness, as well as with pleasure, that I inscribe to your Majesty a History of the most glorious war recorded in the British annals./When the Regency devolved into your hands, the fortunes of our allies were at their lowest ebb, and neither arts nor efforts were spared for making the spirit of this country sink with them. At that momentous crisis every thing depended, under Providence, upon your single determination; and to that determination Great Britain is beholden for its triumph, and Europe for its deliverance./To your Majesty, therefore, this faithful History is offered, as a portion of the tribute due to a just, magnanimous, and splendid reign, and as a proof of individual respect and gratitude from/Your Majesty’s/Most dutiful subject and servant,/ROBERT SOUTHEY.’[back]

10. Southey’s The Book of the Church (1824).[back]

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3891. Robert Southey to Neville White, 1 September 1822

3891. Robert Southey to Neville White, 1 September 1822

Notes

The Collected Letters of Robert Southey: Part Seven

Lynda Pratt, Ian Packer