3895. Robert Southey to John Rickman, 9 September 1822

MS: Huntington Library, RS 425. ALS; 4p.
Previously published: John Wood Warter (ed.), Selections from the Letters of Robert Southey, 4 vols (London, 1856), III, pp. 328–329 [in part].

Keswick. 9 Sep^t. 1822.

My dear R.

Such work as that of the Population

⁽¹⁾

in addition to your other labours, is enough to break down any body. The objection to task-work is that it tempts the industrious to work beyond their strength: & in intellectual, over-exertion is worse than in bodily labour.

I have spent a very idle summer, & thereby much to the advantage of my health. A fellow collegian for whom I have a great regard came to pass his Midsummer holy days with me, from Crediton, where he is Master of the Grammar school. I began a course of exercise with him, & persevered in it, much as it cost me for some time, till at length the effect which I looked for was produced; – & my constitution recovering its tone, I became once more a sound man. John May came to me just after Lightfoots departure I walked about an hundred miles more with him, & am now in as good trim for walking as any man of my years need be. This I hope will last till I visit London, which I think of doing as soon as the rigour of the winter shall be over.

My first volume is compleated.

⁽²⁾

I send back by this post two cancels, in each of which insertions to the amount of two pages have been nicely fitted; & with these the printer

⁽³⁾

will finish his part. The time for publication rests with Murray, & I should not think he will delay it till what is called the season, because the demand for such a book cannot depend much upon peoples being in or out of town.

⁽⁴⁾

It is dedicated to the King, briefly, & becomingly.

⁽⁵⁾

The Buonapartists & the Whigs will be thoroughly exasperated; I have only said enough of the latter to show them what they may expect in the progress of the history, where they shall have full justice.

I was invited to meet Canning at M^r Boltons.

⁽⁶⁾

It is the opinion of his friends that if he accepts office, the H of Commons will kill him in two or three years.

⁽⁷⁾

In reality flesh & blood is not equal to such wear & tear as is exacted from an English minister in these times. I told him plainly that the present state of things was a contest between wickedness & weakness, & that there needed no spirit of prophecy to foresee what the event must be. – To my sore vexation when I returned from this short absence I found that Mr Telford whom I had rather have seen than all the statesmen in Europe had past thro Keswick. You may suppose how this mortified me.

Blanco White has written an entertaining account of what Spain was before the year 1808 – under the name of Leucadio Doblado – which I interpreted as soon as I saw it advertised.

⁽⁸⁾

I mean to review his book & take that opportunity of putting the peninsular revolutions in their proper light.

⁽⁹⁾

Ferdinand I think can hardly escape with life.

⁽¹⁰⁾

The King of Portugal has a better chance.

⁽¹¹⁾

But I see no end to the miseries of either country, – except under a strong & vigilant despotism, itself the worst of all evils, anarchy excepted. Who would not rather have lived in the days of Tiberius, or Nero,

⁽¹²⁾

than in those of Marius & Sylla?

⁽¹³⁾

– In Europe the tendency of this time is thro one of these evils to the other.

The volume

⁽¹⁴⁾

may come viâ Longmanni. Tomorrow I shall probably send the commencement of my Tour in the Netherlands.

⁽¹⁵⁾

– I saw lately a M^r Stuart

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who lives somewhere within reach of the Parallel Roads.

⁽¹⁷⁾

He said the local names were in favour of the hunting theory, & promised to send me a list of them, with their significations.

God bless you – remember us to Mrs R.

RS.

Notes

1. Rickman had organised the decennial census since 1801. He was responsible for the publication of Comparative Statement of Population, etc, Great Britain, 1801, 1811, 1821 (1822).[back]

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

3. Thomas Davison (1766–1831).[back]

4. The London ‘season’, when the British elite congregated in the capital, was at its height from Easter to early August.[back]

5. 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]

6. John Bolton (1756–1837; DNB), Liverpool merchant, originally from Ulverston. He was a leading figure in the Tory party in Liverpool and one of Canning’s chief supporters as the city’s MP. His home at Storrs Hall was on the east side of Lake Windermere, two miles south of Bowness.[back]

7. Canning became Foreign Secretary and Leader of the House of Commons on 13 September 1822. He died five years later.[back]

8. Letters from Spain by Don Leucadio Doblado (1822). ‘Leucadio’ was derived from the Greek word for ‘white’ and ‘Doblado’ is Spanish for ‘doubled’, so the pseudonymous author’s name could be translated as ‘white doubled’, as in ‘Blanco White’.[back]

9. Southey did not review this work.[back]

10. Ferdinand VII (1784–1833; King of Spain, 1808, 1813–1833). The liberal revolution of 1820 had limited his absolute power, though this was restored by a French invasion in 1823.[back]

11. John VI (1767–1826; King of Portugal 1816–1826). A revolution in 1820 had compelled him to return from Brazil and he finally agreed to a new liberal constitution in October 1822.[back]

12. Tiberius (42 BC–AD 37; Roman Emperor AD 14–37) and Nero (AD 37–68; Roman Emperor AD 54–68). Both were notorious for their despotic rule.[back]

13. Gaius Marius (157–86 BC) and Lucius Cornelius Sulla (138–78 BC), Roman generals and politicians. Both were central figures in the civil wars that divided the late Roman Republic.[back]

14. The first volume of Southey’s History of the Peninsular Wars (1823–1832).[back]

15. Southey’s Journal of a Tour in the Netherlands in the Autumn of 1815 (1902).[back]

16. Unidentified.[back]

17. Southey sent Rickman the fair copy of the journal he kept during their tour of Scotland in August–September 1819. This had provoked both men to further speculation on the origins of the Parallel Roads of Glen Roy that they had seen on their trip on 20 September 1819, Journal of a Tour in Scotland, ed. Charles Harold Herford (London, 1929), pp. 212–216. The ‘Roads’ are, in fact, lake terraces formed along the shoreline of an ancient ice-dammed lake.[back]

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Lynda Pratt

Ian Packer

3895. Robert Southey to John Rickman, 9 September 1822

3895. Robert Southey to John Rickman, 9 September 1822

Notes

The Collected Letters of Robert Southey: Part Seven

Lynda Pratt, Ian Packer