4077. Robert Southey to John Taylor, 30 October 1823

 

Address: [deletion and readdress in another hand]: To/ John Taylor Esqre/ <Messr. Johnsons Or> at M rs Taylors/ Market-Place <Bakewell> / Retford <Derbyshire>’
Stamped: KESWICK/ 298; RETFORD
Seal: red wax; design illegible
MS: Beinecke Library, Osborn MSS File ‘S’, Folder 14182. ALS; 3p.
Unpublished.

Keswick. 30 Oct. 1823
Dear Sir

In dealing with a work like this of Landors, it is as safe a rule to expunge the passage when in doubt, as it is to win the trick at whist in a similar predicament. I know not who the persons are that are aimed at in the 8th Conversation; but be they who they may, it cannot be proper to publish such things of them, & may be dangerous. Landor is so incapable of fear, that in his estimate of the character of such men he never recollects how easily they may employ some one to revenge them with a stiletto.

The Dialogue may be made harmless by curtailing it thus.

p. 142. after “subject of notoriety, proceed thus –

Lady Morgan has spoken of our patriots, the Russels of our city. There may formerly

(1)

Dialogue VIII of Imaginary Conversations of Literary Men and Statesmen, 2 vols (London, 1824), II, pp. 131–151, was between ‘Cavaliere Puntomichino’ and ‘Denis Eusebius Talcranagh’. The omission indicated here was made on p. 140.

&c p. 145.

p. 146. Omit from “Allowing to – to – depressed.

148, – said our host, omit from thence to – “under the least vindictive &c.

p. 150. Omit from “I wish – to – lawful Prince

(2)

These three passages were all omitted from pp. 140 and 142 in the published version and referred to Camillo Borghese, 6th Prince of Sulmona’s (1775–1832) high-handedness and the mistreatment of a poor family of thirteen.

You may well wonder at the manner in which Landor resents real or imaginary wrongs. But it is a constitutional malady which he has inherited; nor did I ever see any other case in which a mans errors were so certainly thus to be accounted for. His attachments however are as strong & as permanent as his resentment. And deeply as his insanity of temper is to be regretted, I do not believe that there exists a man of more generous feelings, of a brighter genius or of a nobler heart.

Believe me dear Sir
yours faithfully
Robert Southey.

Notes

1. Dialogue VIII of Imaginary Conversations of Literary Men and Statesmen, 2 vols (London, 1824), II, pp. 131–151, was between ‘Cavaliere Puntomichino’ and ‘Denis Eusebius Talcranagh’. The omission indicated here was made on p. 140.[back]
2. These three passages were all omitted from pp. 140 and 142 in the published version and referred to Camillo Borghese, 6th Prince of Sulmona’s (1775–1832) high-handedness and the mistreatment of a poor family of thirteen.[back]
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