3789. Robert Southey to Richard York, 28 January 1822

 

Address: To/ Richard York Esqre/ Wighill Park/ near/ Tadcaster
Stamped: KESWICK/ 298
Seal: red wax; arm raising aloft cross of Lorraine
MS: York Family Papers, Box 97. Borthwick Institute for Archives, University of York. ALS; 3p.
Unpublished.

Keswick. 28 Jany. 1822
Sir

I have to thank you for a brace of Pheasants, which reached me this day, & for your obliging note. It is very gratifying to me that my letter in the Courier appears to have been felt as it was intended.

(1)

In the ‘Appendix’ to ‘The Two Foscari’, Sardanapulus, A Tragedy. The Two Foscari, A Tragedy. Cain, A Mystery (London, 1821), p. 328, Byron had cautioned: ‘I am not ignorant of Mr. Southey’s calumnies on a different occasion, knowing them to be such, which he scattered abroad on his return from Switzerland against me and others.’ Southey had visited Switzerland in his continental tour of May–August 1817. The ‘calumnies’ Byron believed Southey to have later spread were rumours that Byron and Shelley had engaged in a ‘League of Incest’ during their residence in Switzerland in 1816. Southey had re…

Had it not been for the sake of again pointing out in strong terms the abominable tendency & purpose of Lord Byrons writings, I should no more have thought of noticing his coarse & insolent charges against me, than of replying to Hone or Cobbett. He has sent over for publication viler things than have yet appeared

(2)

The Vision of Judgment (1822), a parody of Southey’s A Vision of Judgement (1821), was first published in the Liberal, 1 (October 1822), 3–39; and Heaven and Earth; a Mystery in the Liberal, 2 (January 1823), 165–206. Murray had declined to publish them.

& such as no bookseller will venture to touch, unless he be one of the ames damnées

(3)

‘damned souls’.

of the trade. It is however well that he should deal avowedly in poison; for the circulation of those works in which he has covertly administered it with so much success, will certainly be impeded now.

If I should at any time be in your neighbourhood, I shall have great pleasure in paying my respects to you at Wighill Park

(4)

The home of the York family, near Tadcaster, Yorkshire.

I have the honour to remain Sir Your obliged & obedient servant

Robert Southey.

Notes

1. In the ‘Appendix’ to ‘The Two Foscari’, Sardanapulus, A Tragedy. The Two Foscari, A Tragedy. Cain, A Mystery (London, 1821), p. 328, Byron had cautioned: ‘I am not ignorant of Mr. Southey’s calumnies on a different occasion, knowing them to be such, which he scattered abroad on his return from Switzerland against me and others.’ Southey had visited Switzerland in his continental tour of May–August 1817. The ‘calumnies’ Byron believed Southey to have later spread were rumours that Byron and Shelley had engaged in a ‘League of Incest’ during their residence in Switzerland in 1816. Southey had responded by writing to the Editor of the Courier, 5 January 1822, Letter 3776. His letter was published in the Courier on 11 January 1822. [back]
2. The Vision of Judgment (1822), a parody of Southey’s A Vision of Judgement (1821), was first published in the Liberal, 1 (October 1822), 3–39; and Heaven and Earth; a Mystery in the Liberal, 2 (January 1823), 165–206. Murray had declined to publish them. [back]
3. ‘damned souls’. [back]
4. The home of the York family, near Tadcaster, Yorkshire. [back]
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