3799. Robert Southey to Humphrey Senhouse, 11 February 1822

 

Address: To/ Humphrey Senhouse Esqre/ Netherhall/ Maryport
Stamped: KESWICK/ 298
Seal: red wax; design illegible
Watermark: W D & Co/ 1819
MS: Department of Rare Books, Special Collections and Preservation, River Campus Libraries, University of Rochester, Robert Southey Papers A.S727. ALS; 4P.
Unpublished.

Keswick. 11 Feby. 1822
My dear Senhouse

I am sorry to say that the prospect before me is not such as to allow much hope of my seeing Holland this year.

(1)

Southey finally found time to visit the Netherlands in 1825.

Time, the Printers & the Constable

(2)

To ‘outrun the constable’ was to live beyond ones means, so Southey was stating that he needed to continue his writing projects to earn money.

are leagued together to oppose my wishes. I shall overcome the alliance, but not till this season will be too far advanced. Perhaps I could be ready by the vintage,

(3)

The grape harvest season in Europe is August–October, so Southey hoped to be ready to travel in the autumn.

– which would be no unpleasant sight, – but then the days are shortening, & day light is the worst thing which travellers can spare.

My winter has not been idly spent, but it has not carried me so far forward as I had anticipated, chiefly because writing a book is like building a house, – a work of more time & cost than the estimate xx has been taken at. This is the chief reason. But something I confess must be set down to my besetting sin, – a sort of miser-like love of accumulation. Like those persons who frequent sales & fill their own houses with useless purchases, because they may want them some time or other, – so am I for ever making collections & storing up materials which may not come into use till the Greek Calends.

(4)

i.e. a time that will not occur. The Ancient Greeks did not observe the ‘kalends’, which were the first day of the month in the Roman calendar.

And this I have been doing for five & twenty years! It is true that I draw daily upon my hoards & should be poor without them; – but in prudence I ought now to be working up these materials rather than adding to so much dead stock.

I have printed 520 pages of the Peninsular War, – the volume will exceed 700.

(5)

The first volume of Southey’s History of the Peninsular War (1823–1832). It ran to 806 pages.

Half my time is occupied with correspondence upon this subject, eliciting by questions that kind of information which is not to be obtained in any other way. Some of my old friends the Portugueze Chroniclers travelled over their country to find out men who had been actors in the events which it was their business to record, – & thus they collected materials for certainly the best & liveliest chronicles that exist in any language. This I have done & am doing by letter when I can.

This volume when it appears will provoke a great branch of the Satanic Confederacy, the Buonapartists.

(6)

Supporters of Napoleon Bonaparte (1769–1821; Emperor of the French 1804–1814, 1815), who had ordered the French invasion of Spain in 1808.

It is the most damning record of their wickedness that has yet appeared in this country, & in a form to command both attention & belief. – Only yesterday I learnt from General Whittingham

(7)

Lieutenant General Sir Samuel Ford Whittingham (1772–1841; DNB), British soldier who served with Spanish forces in the Peninsular War 1808–1813.

who was in the battle of Medellin, that the French had orders to give no quarter.

(8)

The Battle of Medellín on 28 March 1809 was a crushing victory for French forces over a Spanish Army and marked the beginning of the French conquest of southern Spain. The French soldiers committed a catalogue of war crimes, including refusing quarter to Spanish troops who surrendered and murdering all prisoners. The French commander was Marshal Claude Victor-Perrin (1764–1841).

A wounded Sp. Officer was brought into the room where Victor was at supper, & Victor said to him, ‘If my orders had been obeyed Sir, you would not have been here. Those orders were obeyed so well that the French Dragoons that night rubbed their right arms with soap & spirits, to recover the muscles from the fatigue they had undergone in cutting the fugitives down.

(9)

A version of these sentences appeared in History of the Peninsular War, 2 vols (London, 1823–1832), II, p. 230.

Do you remember three or four years ago being here when I received a letter from a Lady with a mss. poem?

(10)

Caroline Bowles had written to Southey on 25 April 1818, enclosing her manuscript poem, ‘Ellen Fitzarthur’, and seeking his advice as to publication; see Edward Dowden (ed.), The Correspondence of Robert Southey with Caroline Bowles (Dublin and London, 1881), pp. [1]–4.

That Lady (Miss Bowles is her name) has just published a little volume entitled The Widows Tale &c,

(11)

The Widow’s Tale: and Other Poems (1822).

– of very great merit. Her subjects are too tragic, – partly owing perhaps to her own state of health, & the loss of her mother,

(12)

Anne Bowles, née Burrard (1753–1817).

who was her only near relation. But she writes with great power, great sweetness & with real feeling.

I have given the Satanic School a bone to pick, over which they may snarl till they are weary.

(13)

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…

They x can neither injure nor annoy me.

Remember us to all your fireside. Edith May is recovering from a troublesome sore throat. The rest are well, & Cupn still talks of Netherhall & the black-caps, & falling down in the sea

God bless you 
Yours affectionately
Robert Southey.

You took from hence a copy of Landors Idyllia.

(14)

Landor’s Idyllia Heroica Decem Phaleuciorum Unum Partim jam Primo Partim Iterum atq Tertio Edit Savagius Landor (1820), no. 1598 in the sale catalogue of Southey’s library.

Write your own name in it, – he has sent me some books <from> Italy, & there was another copy among them.

Notes

1. Southey finally found time to visit the Netherlands in 1825. [back]
2. To ‘outrun the constable’ was to live beyond ones means, so Southey was stating that he needed to continue his writing projects to earn money. [back]
3. The grape harvest season in Europe is August–October, so Southey hoped to be ready to travel in the autumn. [back]
4. i.e. a time that will not occur. The Ancient Greeks did not observe the ‘kalends’, which were the first day of the month in the Roman calendar. [back]
5. The first volume of Southey’s History of the Peninsular War (1823–1832). It ran to 806 pages. [back]
6. Supporters of Napoleon Bonaparte (1769–1821; Emperor of the French 1804–1814, 1815), who had ordered the French invasion of Spain in 1808. [back]
7. Lieutenant General Sir Samuel Ford Whittingham (1772–1841; DNB), British soldier who served with Spanish forces in the Peninsular War 1808–1813. [back]
8. The Battle of Medellín on 28 March 1809 was a crushing victory for French forces over a Spanish Army and marked the beginning of the French conquest of southern Spain. The French soldiers committed a catalogue of war crimes, including refusing quarter to Spanish troops who surrendered and murdering all prisoners. The French commander was Marshal Claude Victor-Perrin (1764–1841). [back]
9. A version of these sentences appeared in History of the Peninsular War, 2 vols (London, 1823–1832), II, p. 230. [back]
10. Caroline Bowles had written to Southey on 25 April 1818, enclosing her manuscript poem, ‘Ellen Fitzarthur’, and seeking his advice as to publication; see Edward Dowden (ed.), The Correspondence of Robert Southey with Caroline Bowles (Dublin and London, 1881), pp. [1]–4. [back]
11. The Widow’s Tale: and Other Poems (1822). [back]
12. Anne Bowles, née Burrard (1753–1817). [back]
13. 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]
14. Landor’s Idyllia Heroica Decem Phaleuciorum Unum Partim jam Primo Partim Iterum atq Tertio Edit Savagius Landor (1820), no. 1598 in the sale catalogue of Southey’s library. [back]
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