4044. Robert Southey to [George Ticknor], 16 July–2 November 1823

 

Endorsement: R. Southey July 16, 23
MS: Rauner Special Collections Library, Dartmouth College Library, Ticknor 819211.1. ALS; 6p.
Previously published: Charles Cuthbert Southey (ed.), Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey, 6 vols (London, 1849–1850), V, pp. 140–143.

Keswick. 16 July. 1823
My dear Sir

If, as I trust, you have received my first volume of the Peninsular War,

(1)

Southey’s History of the Peninsular War (1823–1832).

& the lithographic views which my friend William Westall has engraved to accompany it,

(2)

William Westall, A Series of Views of Spain and Portugal, to Illustrate Mr. Southey’s History of the Peninsular War; Drawn on Stone by W. Westall, A.R.A., from Sketches by General Hawker, Mr. Locker, Mr. Heaphy, &c. Part I, containing Eight Views, illustrating Vol. I (1823). These could be inserted into the first volume of Southey’s History of the Peninsular War (1823–1832).

you will perceive that negligent as I have been in delaying so long to thank you for the books, & to reply to you your welcome letter, I had not been wholly unmindful of you. Without attempting to excuse a delay for which I have long reproached myself, I may say that it has been chiefly, if not wholly occasioned by an expectation that I might have communicated to you Giffords retirement from the management of the Quarterly Review, & the assumption of that management by a friend of mine, who would have given it a consistent & decorous tone upon all subjects. Poor Gifford was for several months in such a state that his death was continually looked for. His illness has thrown the journal two numbers in arrear;

(3)

Quarterly Review, 28 (January 1823) was only published on 8 July 1823.

he feels & acknowledges his inability to conduct it, – & yet his unwillingness to part with a power which he cannot exercise has hitherto stood in the way of any other arrangement.

I have more than once remonstrated both with him & Murray upon the folly & mischief of their articles respecting xx America:

(4)

See, for instance, Southey to [John Murray], 1 November 1822, Letter 3911.

& should the Journal pass into the hands of any person whom I can influence its temper will most assuredly be changed. The writer of the last obnoxious paper upon that subject is said to have been Matthews, author of the Diary of an Invalid.

(5)

Henry Matthews (1789–1828; DNB), Diary of an Invalid: Being the Journal of a Tour in Pursuit of Health in Portugal, Italy, Switzerland, and France, in the Years 1817, 1818, and 1819 (1820). Matthews reviewed Washington Irving (1783–1859), The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. 4th edition (1821) in Quarterly Review, 25 (April 1821), 50–67, published 28 June 1821. The review was positive about the book, but scathing about the United States’ lack of culture, ‘national vanity’ and ‘overweening self-conceit’, spitefulness towards the United Kingdom, hypocrisy over slavery and its introduction o…

Such papers, the silence of the journal upon certain topics on which it ought manfully to have spoken out,

(6)

Especially, in Southey’s eyes, the immoral qualities of the poetry of Lord Byron, which was published by John Murray, who also owned the Quarterly Review.

& the abominable style of its criticism upon some notorious subjects,

(7)

Southey disliked the Quarterly’s attacks on contemporary poets, for instance, the review of John Keats (1795–1821; DNB), Endymion (1818), Quarterly Review, 19 (April 1818), 204–208, by John Wilson Croker.

have made me more than once think seriously of withdrawing from it: & I have only been withheld by the hope of its amendment, & the certainty that thro this channel I could act with more immediate effect than thro any other. – Inclosed you have a list of all my papers in it. I mean shortly to see whether Murray is willing to reprint such of them as are worth preserving, restoring where I can the passages which Gifford (to the sore mutilation of the part always, & sometimes to the destruction of the sense & arguments) chose to omit, – & beginning with the Moral & Political Essays.

(8)

This project became Southey’s Essays, Moral and Political (1832).

It is Kenyons fault that I am <not> able to give you his specific address, but if you direct to Bath, the letter will surely find him, for he has lately taken a house there. Mrs K. as you apprehended ended her days at Naples. -

(9)

Susan Kenyon (d. 1818), first wife of John Kenyon.

He married most suitably in every respect about a year ago,

(10)

Kenyon married Caroline Curties (d. 1835) on 19 January 1821.

& last month my niece <Xxxx though> & her mother Mrs Coleridge saw him apparently in full enjoyment of health & happiness. By the bye that niece, one of the girls whom you saw here, is the translator of my old friend Dobrizhoffer.

(11)

Sara Coleridge’s An Account of the Abipones, an Equestrian People of Paraguay (1822). The book was a translation of Martin Dobrizhoffer (1717–1791), Historia de Abiponibus Equestri, Bellicosaque Paraquariae Natione (1784), no. 843 in the sale catalogue of Southey’s library.

Your friends & countrymen who come to Keswick make a far shorter tarriance than I could wish. They ‘come like shadows, so depart.’

(12)

Macbeth, Act 4, scene 1, line 111.

Dr Channing

(13)

William Ellery Channing (1780–1842), the Minister of the Federal Street Church in Boston, 1803–1842, and foremost spokesman for Unitarian opinion in the United States.

could give me only part of a short evening. Randolph of Roanoak

(14)

John Randolph (1773–1833), a Virginia tobacco planter and representative or senator almost continuously for his state between 1799 and 1833.

no more, xxxxx he left me with a promise that if he returned from Scotland by the western side of the island, he would become my guest: if he could have been persuaded to this, it would have done him good, for he stood in need of society, & of those comforts which are not to be obtained at an inn. – Mr Elliot

(15)

Possibly Samuel Atkins Eliot (1798–1862), brother-in-law of George Ticknor, a prominent figure in Boston society, philanthropist and Mayor of Boston 1837–1839.

past thro about five weeks ago, – & on Monday last we had a younger traveller here – Mr Gardner.

(16)

Possibly William Howard Gardiner (1797–1882), a son of John Sylvester John Gardiner (1765–1830), Episcopal clergyman in Boston, who had taught Latin and Greek to George Ticknor.

No country can send out better specimens of its sons.

I must <now> thank you for the books, – which owing to a blunder at the Custom House were some months in London before they were sent off to Keswick. And first let me thank you in Isabel’s name, who was not a little flattered by your remembrance of her. Dwights

(17)

Timothy Dwight (1752–1817), Travels in New-England and New-York (1821–1822), no. 881 in the sale catalogue of Southey’s library, reviewed by Southey in Quarterly Review, 30 (October 1823), 1–40, published 17 April 1824. The book had also been published in London in 1823 by William Baynes and Son and Ogle, Duncan and Co.

is an interesting book, of that kind which becomes more valuable from time. This as well as the New England Tale

(18)

Catherine Maria Sedgwick (1789–1867), A New-England Tale; or, Sketches of New-England Character and Manners (1822), no. 2529 in the sale catalogue of Southey’s library. Dwight’s book was published in London by John Miller in 1822.

has lately been reprin published here. That tale is very characteristic & therefore singularly pleasing.

It will not be long before I shall send you the Book of the Church,

(19)

Southey’s The Book of the Church (1824).

– & in the spring I trust the second volume of the Peninsular War will follow it. Of my other undertakings some have grown slowly, & some stood still; & I begin to feel as well as fear that I have planned more than I shall live to perform. Before this letter reaches you I shall have entered upon my fiftieth year; – & when the hourglass is running out you know how rapidly the sands appear to pass.

Coleridge talks of bringing out his work upon Logic,

(20)

Coleridge held a series of Thursday evening discussion classes on the subject of logic in 1822–1823 and various amanuenses took notes. The resulting unfinished text was offered to publishers in the late 1820s, but only appeared as Logic (1981), edited by James Robert de Jager Jackson, number 13 in the Bollingen Coleridge series.

of collecting his poems, & of adapting his translation of Wallenstein for the stage,

(21)

Coleridge did not produce a new edition of his poems at this time, nor get his Wallenstein. A Drama in Two Parts, Translated from the German of Frederick Schiller (1800) staged. The Poetical Works of S.T. Coleridge, Including the Dramas of Wallenstein, Remorse, and Zapolya were published in a three-volume edition by William Pickering in 1828.

Kean

(22)

Edmund Kean (1787–1833; DNB), the celebrated actor.

having taken a fancy to exhibit himself in it. Wordsworth is just returned from a trip to the Netherlands; he loves rambling & has no pursuits which require him to be stationary. I shall probably see him in a few days. Every year shows more & more how deeply <strongly> his poetry has leavened the rising generation. Your Mocking Bird is said to improve the strain which he imitates: this is not the case with ours.

Nov 2. 1823

I conclude this too long delayed letter on the eve of my departure for London. From thence in the course of the next month I shall send you the B of the Church. – Gifford is so far recovered that he hopes to conduct the review to the 60th No.

(23)

Quarterly Review, 30 (January 1824), published 28 August 1824. Gifford’s final editorial duties were on Quarterly Review, 31 (April 1824), published 30 December 1824–1 January 1825.

I have sent him the commencement of a paper upon Dwights book, which I shall finish in town. The first part is a review of its miscellaneous information, – the second will examine the points of difference between an old country & a new one, their advantages & disadvantages, what each has to hope & to fear, & the folly of supposing that the institutions which suit the one must necessarily be equally suitable to the other

The article upon Spain

(24)

Blanco White published a review of Michael Joseph Quin (1796–1843; DNB), A Visit to Spain; Detailing the Transactions which Occurred during a Residence in that Country in the Latter Part of 1822, and the First Four Months of 1823. With an Account of the Removal of the Court from Madrid to Seville; and General Notices of the Manners, Customs, Costume and Music of the Country, in Quarterly Review, 29 (April 1823), 240–276, published 27 or 28 September 1823.

in the last number is by Blanco White (Leucadio Doblado.)

(25)

The pseudonym used by Blanco White in Letters from Spain by Don Leucadio Doblado (1822).

whose history you probably know, a very able & most estimable man. That poor country seems destined to an alternation of evils.

(26)

A military revolt in Spain in 1820 led to an unstable liberal regime 1820–1823, after which a French invasion restored royal absolutism.

There are better prospects for Portugal. The King is tractable & has good intentions.

(27)

John VI (1767–1826; King of Portugal 1816–1826).

His present ministers wish to recur to their own constitutional principles & their own good laws;

(28)

John VI had co-operated with a reactionary coup that had disbanded the elected Cortes and liberal constitution in May–June 1823, but he promised to provide a new ‘Fundamental Law’ for the country. In June 1824 he announced that a new assembly would be called in the form of the old Cortes of Three Estates, which had last met in 1698. Britain actively supported John VI against the more extreme absolutists at his Court.

& whatever influence this country possesses will be directed to that effect. I should augur well of the result if I could see in what manner a revenue can be raised.

Farewell my dear Sir. Remember me to Alston

(29)

Washington Allston lived in Europe 1801–1818 and, after his return to the United States, in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

& my other New England friends, & be assured that to them & to their country I shall always do justice in thought, word & deed 

God bless you
Yours with sincere esteem
Robert Southey.

My poem

(30)

Either A Tale of Paraguay (1825), or Southey’s unfinished ‘Oliver Newman’, set in New England. A fragment was published posthumously in Oliver Newman: a New-England Tale (Unfinished): with Other Poetical Remains by the Late Robert Southey (London, 1845), pp. 1–90.

is once more progressive, & will probably be ready for the press in the course of next year

Notes

1. Southey’s History of the Peninsular War (1823–1832).[back]
2. William Westall, A Series of Views of Spain and Portugal, to Illustrate Mr. Southey’s History of the Peninsular War; Drawn on Stone by W. Westall, A.R.A., from Sketches by General Hawker, Mr. Locker, Mr. Heaphy, &c. Part I, containing Eight Views, illustrating Vol. I (1823). These could be inserted into the first volume of Southey’s History of the Peninsular War (1823–1832).[back]
3. Quarterly Review, 28 (January 1823) was only published on 8 July 1823.[back]
4. See, for instance, Southey to [John Murray], 1 November 1822, Letter 3911.[back]
5. Henry Matthews (1789–1828; DNB), Diary of an Invalid: Being the Journal of a Tour in Pursuit of Health in Portugal, Italy, Switzerland, and France, in the Years 1817, 1818, and 1819 (1820). Matthews reviewed Washington Irving (1783–1859), The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. 4th edition (1821) in Quarterly Review, 25 (April 1821), 50–67, published 28 June 1821. The review was positive about the book, but scathing about the United States’ lack of culture, ‘national vanity’ and ‘overweening self-conceit’, spitefulness towards the United Kingdom, hypocrisy over slavery and its introduction of new words and phrases into the English language.[back]
6. Especially, in Southey’s eyes, the immoral qualities of the poetry of Lord Byron, which was published by John Murray, who also owned the Quarterly Review.[back]
7. Southey disliked the Quarterly’s attacks on contemporary poets, for instance, the review of John Keats (1795–1821; DNB), Endymion (1818), Quarterly Review, 19 (April 1818), 204–208, by John Wilson Croker.[back]
8. This project became Southey’s Essays, Moral and Political (1832).[back]
9. Susan Kenyon (d. 1818), first wife of John Kenyon.[back]
10. Kenyon married Caroline Curties (d. 1835) on 19 January 1821.[back]
11. Sara Coleridge’s An Account of the Abipones, an Equestrian People of Paraguay (1822). The book was a translation of Martin Dobrizhoffer (1717–1791), Historia de Abiponibus Equestri, Bellicosaque Paraquariae Natione (1784), no. 843 in the sale catalogue of Southey’s library.[back]
12. Macbeth, Act 4, scene 1, line 111.[back]
13. William Ellery Channing (1780–1842), the Minister of the Federal Street Church in Boston, 1803–1842, and foremost spokesman for Unitarian opinion in the United States.[back]
14. John Randolph (1773–1833), a Virginia tobacco planter and representative or senator almost continuously for his state between 1799 and 1833.[back]
15. Possibly Samuel Atkins Eliot (1798–1862), brother-in-law of George Ticknor, a prominent figure in Boston society, philanthropist and Mayor of Boston 1837–1839.[back]
16. Possibly William Howard Gardiner (1797–1882), a son of John Sylvester John Gardiner (1765–1830), Episcopal clergyman in Boston, who had taught Latin and Greek to George Ticknor. [back]
17. Timothy Dwight (1752–1817), Travels in New-England and New-York (1821–1822), no. 881 in the sale catalogue of Southey’s library, reviewed by Southey in Quarterly Review, 30 (October 1823), 1–40, published 17 April 1824. Dwight's book had also been published in London in 1823 by William Baynes and Son and Ogle, Duncan and Co.[back]
18. Catherine Maria Sedgwick (1789–1867), A New-England Tale; or, Sketches of New-England Character and Manners (1822), no. 2529 in the sale catalogue of Southey’s library. The book was published in London by John Miller in 1822.[back]
19. Southey’s The Book of the Church (1824).[back]
20. Coleridge held a series of Thursday evening discussion classes on the subject of logic in 1822–1823 and various amanuenses took notes. The resulting unfinished text was offered to publishers in the late 1820s, but only appeared as Logic (1981), edited by James Robert de Jager Jackson, number 13 in the Bollingen Coleridge series.[back]
21. Coleridge did not produce a new edition of his poems at this time, nor get his Wallenstein. A Drama in Two Parts, Translated from the German of Frederick Schiller (1800) staged. The Poetical Works of S.T. Coleridge, Including the Dramas of Wallenstein, Remorse, and Zapolya were published in a three-volume edition by William Pickering in 1828.[back]
22. Edmund Kean (1787–1833; DNB), the celebrated actor.[back]
23. Quarterly Review, 30 (January 1824), published 28 August 1824. Gifford’s final editorial duties were on Quarterly Review, 31 (April 1824), published 30 December 1824–1 January 1825.[back]
24. Blanco White published a review of Michael Joseph Quin (1796–1843; DNB), A Visit to Spain; Detailing the Transactions which Occurred during a Residence in that Country in the Latter Part of 1822, and the First Four Months of 1823. With an Account of the Removal of the Court from Madrid to Seville; and General Notices of the Manners, Customs, Costume and Music of the Country, in Quarterly Review, 29 (April 1823), 240–276, published 27 or 28 September 1823.[back]
25. The pseudonym used by Blanco White in Letters from Spain by Don Leucadio Doblado (1822).[back]
26. A military revolt in Spain in 1820 led to an unstable liberal regime 1820–1823, after which a French invasion restored royal absolutism.[back]
27. John VI (1767–1826; King of Portugal 1816–1826).[back]
28. John VI had co-operated with a reactionary coup that had disbanded the elected Cortes and liberal constitution in May–June 1823, but he promised to provide a new ‘Fundamental Law’ for the country. In June 1824 he announced that a new assembly would be called in the form of the old Cortes of Three Estates, which had last met in 1698. Britain actively supported John VI against the more extreme absolutists at his Court.[back]
29. Washington Allston lived in Europe 1801–1818 and, after his return to the United States, in Cambridge, Massachusetts.[back]
30. Either A Tale of Paraguay (1825), or Southey’s unfinished ‘Oliver Newman’, set in New England. A fragment was published posthumously in Oliver Newman: a New-England Tale (Unfinished): with Other Poetical Remains by the Late Robert Southey (London, 1845), pp. 1–90.[back]
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