4087. Robert Southey to Caroline Bowles, 19 November 1823

 

Address: To/ Miss Bowles/ Buckland/ Lymington/ Hampshire
Stamped: T. P./ Tooting
Postmark: [illegible]
Endorsement: No 38 To Miss Caroline Bowles
MS: British Library, Add MS 47889. ALS; 4p.
Previously published: Edward Dowden (ed.), The Correspondence of Robert Southey with Caroline Bowles (Dublin and London, 1881), pp. 45–47.

Streatham. 19 Nov. 1823

I should feel more uneasy than I have done under the impossibility of replying sooner to your last most welcome letter, if I had not commissioned Dame Elizabeth

(1)

Elizabeth Charter (1782–1860), sister of William Peachy’s first wife, Emma Peachy, and friend of the poet George Crabbe (1754–1832; DNB).

(so named when we lay side by side in the boat of the Peak Cavern,

(2)

Peak Cavern, also known as the Devil’s Arse, is near Castleton, Derbyshire. At this time it contained a low tunnel that could only be accessed by lying flat in a boat.

like two figures on an old monument) to tell you I would write on the first possible opportunity. The endless round of occupations & engagements in which I am involved in London, you can hardly conceive: they are such as literally not to leave me an interval of rest. Yesterday I got to this quiet Rectory after a most fatiguing morning. To day I have, as a matter not to be delayed, written a short letter to Charles Lamb, which can hardly fail of making him heartily sorry for what he has done, & if he can forgive himself as easily as I forgive him, we shall meet again upon our old terms.

(3)

Southey had commended Lamb’s Essays of Elia (1823) in Quarterly Review, 28 (January 1823), 524, published 8 July 1823, but commented that the book ‘wants only a sounder religious feeling, to be as delightful as it is original’. Lamb took offence and responded with ‘Letter of Elia to Robert Southey, Esquire’, London Magazine, 8 (October 1823), 400–407. Southey wrote to Lamb to try and mend the quarrel, Southey to Charles Lamb, [19 November 1823], Letter 4088.

That This done, I set out with you for the forest of merry Sherwood.

A tale of Robin Hood might without impropriety be as little regular in its structure as he was in his way of life.

(4)

This incomplete collaboration was published as ‘Robin Hood’ in Robin Hood: a Fragment. By the Late Robert Southey, and Caroline Southey. With Other Fragments and Poems By R.S. and C.S. (London, 1847), pp. [1]–36.

I think a xxx striking introduction might be made by the funeral of his mother (dying in childbed of him) the immediate departure of the Earl his father to the Crusades, & the delivery of the infant to a kinsman Sir Ranulph as guardian, & the parental care of Father Hugh, the Earls foster-brother. Twelve years may be allowed to elapse, during which the boy has grown wild, his guardian being always engaged in political turmoils, & the Priest an indulgent man: xxxx xxx The Earls heart is then brought home from the Holy Land to be xxx deposited in the same grave with his wife. And then an interval of seven or eight years more, when the proper story of the poem commences – with a service for the souls of the Earl & his Wife. After the service Father Hugh takes the opportunity of mildly lecturing Robin the young Earl Robert, for his propensities to forest sports, & inferior company, & his utter neglect of knightly accomplishments, – it having previously been shown that this had arisen from his guardians constant absence, & entire neglect. It appears now that Ranulph xxx family intention is to xxx bring about a marriage between Robert, & his only dau child Aveline. – But Aveline has already given her heart to Gilbert with the white hand, a Squire of Low Degree, & Robin as his comrades have from childhood called him declares his determination never to marry any body but Maid Marian the Millers daughter. Marian is a skylark, – & Aveline a turtle dove. Gilbert of a gentle, poetical disposition, & yet Robin & he are bosom friends

Ranulph arrives to effect the marriage, & in his anger at a refusal which disappoints the plan of securing the estates for his own family, sends off Marian (as a villeins daughter) to be directly married, & commits Aveline to the custody of a severe Lady Abbess. Robin collects his comrades, rescues his own love first, then storms the nunnery, carries off Aveline for Gilbert, & away they go to the forest

Then for a rich pastoral book, describing the life of the outlaws

Ranulph is now one of King Johns

(5)

John (1166–1216; King of England 1199–1216; DNB).

favourites, & on the watch to arrest & make away with King Richard

(6)

Richard I (1157–1199; King of England 1189–1199; DNB). He was absent on the Third Crusade 1190–1192 and was held hostage in Austria and Germany 1192–1194.

on his return from captivity. The story is to be wound up by Robin Hood’s delivering Cour de Lion from this danger, being reinstated in his rank &c, but resigning them all to Gilbert & Aveline, & chusing to pass his days always as the King of the forest. It will be easy enough to make out this part of the fable, – which indeed will shape itself while the rest is in progress.

How like you this, my friend & partner dear? Are these not rich capabilities, to be dreamt of now, – to be talked of soon, – & then to be realized.

But I must conclude, – not to lose the post, & for the same reason must do without a frank. You may direct to me under cover to John Rickman Esqr New Palace Yard. – Only one word more, – I hope I have put your books

(7)

Caroline Bowles’s Ellen Fitzarthur; a Metrical Tale, in Five Cantos (1820) and The Widow’s Tale: and Other Poems (1822) were not reviewed in the Quarterly Review.

in a way of being reviewed in the Quarterly.

God bless you
Yours affectionately
RS.

I cannot tell you when I xxx move westward yet. Tell you me what coaches pass near you from the Westward.

Notes

1. Elizabeth Charter (1782–1860), sister of William Peachy’s first wife, Emma Peachy, and friend of the poet George Crabbe (1754–1832; DNB).[back]
2. Peak Cavern, also known as the Devil’s Arse, is near Castleton, Derbyshire. At this time it contained a low tunnel that could only be accessed by lying flat in a boat.[back]
3. Southey had commended Lamb’s Essays of Elia (1823) in Quarterly Review, 28 (January 1823), 524, published 8 July 1823, but commented that the book ‘wants only a sounder religious feeling, to be as delightful as it is original’. Lamb took offence and responded with ‘Letter of Elia to Robert Southey, Esquire’, London Magazine, 8 (October 1823), 400–407. Southey wrote to Lamb to try and mend the quarrel, Southey to Charles Lamb, [19 November 1823], Letter 4088.[back]
4. This incomplete collaboration was published as ‘Robin Hood’ in Robin Hood: a Fragment. By the Late Robert Southey, and Caroline Southey. With Other Fragments and Poems By R.S. and C.S. (London, 1847), pp. [1]–36.[back]
5. John (1166–1216; King of England 1199–1216; DNB).[back]
6. Richard I (1157–1199; King of England 1189–1199; DNB). He was absent on the Third Crusade 1190–1192 and was held hostage in Austria and Germany 1192–1194.[back]
7. Caroline Bowles’s Ellen Fitzarthur; a Metrical Tale, in Five Cantos (1820) and The Widow’s Tale: and Other Poems (1822) were not reviewed in the Quarterly Review.[back]
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