4133. Robert Southey to Caroline Bowles, 13 February 1824

 

Address: [deletion and readdress in another hand] To/ Miss Bowles/ <Honble Mrs Rose’s>’/ Buckland/ <Polygon>/ Lymington/ Southton/ Hants
Endorsement: No 45 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. 51–52.

Friday: 1 o clock <London> (1)

13 Feby. 1824.

A few hurried lines in the midst of all the joy, <dirt>, & discomfort of packing, hammering, cording &c – . Thank you for the purse, – tho it was a dangerous inclosure, & might have been (perhaps ought to have been) stabbed at the Post Office, as coming from a part of the coast noted for smuggling. Remember that Rickmans frank will not cover more than two ounces.

Thank you also for both your little poems; – the sea one I think will suit the poor petitioners purpose well.

(2)

Caroline Bowles had offered to contribute ‘The Mariner’s Hymn’ from Solitary Hours (London, 1826), pp. 22–24, to Alfred Pettet’s Original Sacred Music (London, n.d., but 1827), though it was eventually rejected and replaced by ‘I weep, but not rebellious tears’, later published 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. [227]–228.

The other

(3)

Bowles’s ‘It is not Death’, Solitary Hours (London, 1826), pp. 58–60.

is one of the most striking & original I ever met with in any language & so it has been felt to be by the few persons to whom I have shewn it. There is a single line which needs alteration – that “ – oer him he loved – that livid clay – “.

(4)

‘It is not Death’, Solitary Hours (London, 1826), p. 60, changed this line to ‘O’er him he loved – corrupting clay! –’

I wish I xxx could see how to alter it. But I will examine the whole & see whether in any word it can be improved, – for be assured that little piece will take its place with Grays Elegy & Herbert Knowles’s

(5)

Thomas Gray (1716–1771; DNB), Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard (1751) and Herbert Knowles, ‘Stanzas Written in the Churchyard of Richmond, Yorkshire’, published by Southey in Quarterly Review, 21 (April 1819), 396–398.

So little rest have I had since I left you that my portfolio goes home full of unanswered letters. I will write with my first leisure to you about the irregular blank verse.

(6)

The metre to be used in Bowles and Southey’s ‘Robin Hood’ and based on that in Southey’s Thalaba the Destroyer (1801). The resulting incomplete work was published 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.

You have only to unlearn the common tune, – & then follow your ear, taking mere convenience for your guide, except where the subject brings with it, as it often will do, its own measure. Break yourself of the common tune by practising in six syllable lines, & in eight syllable ones.

Mary Wollstonecraft I had never seen when those lines to her were written.

(7)

‘To Mary Wollstonecraft’ from Poems (Bristol, 1797), p. [3].

I saw her afterwards twice or thrice, & dined once at her house.

(8)

Southey dined with Wollstonecraft on 3 May 1797; see Southey to Joseph Cottle, 2 May [1797], The Collected Letters of Robert Southey, Part One, Letter 214.

She was a delightful woman, & in better times, or in better hands would have been an excellent one. But her lot had fallen in evil days, & the men to whom she attached herself

(9)

Gilbert Imlay (1754–1828), American businessman and author, and father of Wollstonecraft’s first child, Frances Imlay (1794–1816); Wollstonecraft’s husband, William Godwin; and, probably, Henry Fuseli (1745–1821; DNB), a Swiss-born painter with whom Wollstonecraft had been in love.

were utterly unworthy of her. You shall see one of these days what I say of that tempestuous age, – few persons but those who have lived in it can conceive or comprehend what the morning of the French Revolution was, nor xxx what a visionary world seemed to open upon those who were just entering it. Old things seemed passing away, & nothing was dreamt of but the regeneration of the human race.

You asked about my bust. Smith in Upper Norton Street has the mould, & casts may always be had there.

(10)

A bust of Southey had been sculpted in 1813 by James Smith (1775–1815). Smith’s business was carried on by his sons, Charles Raymond Smith (c. 1798–1888) and Thomas Smith (b. 1800) at 57 Upper Norton Street.

I have no time for more. Sunday, thank God, I shall be at home, – & if I find all well, shall be truly happy. Yet I depart with a heavier feeling than I ever took from London before, for it is not likely that I shall ever seen my Uncle again. He is very infirm, – more so than might even be expected at 74. Last night I went to assist him into his carriage, & before he had driven off, or I had re entered the door, some men past between us, bearing a coffin. Mere accident as it was I wish it had not occurred for it must have affected him as it did me.

Ediths love. God bless you – dear friend.

RS.

Notes

1. Deletion and insertion in another hand.[back]
2. Caroline Bowles had offered to contribute ‘The Mariner’s Hymn’ from Solitary Hours (London, 1826), pp. 22–24, to Alfred Pettet’s Original Sacred Music (London, n.d., but 1827), though it was eventually rejected and replaced by ‘I weep, but not rebellious tears’, later published 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. [227]–228.[back]
3. Bowles’s ‘It is not Death’, Solitary Hours (London, 1826), pp. 58–60.[back]
4. ‘It is not Death’, Solitary Hours (London, 1826), p. 60, changed this line to ‘O’er him he loved – corrupting clay! –’[back]
5. Thomas Gray (1716–1771; DNB), Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard (1751) and Herbert Knowles, ‘Stanzas Written in the Churchyard of Richmond, Yorkshire’, published by Southey in Quarterly Review, 21 (April 1819), 396–398.[back]
6. The metre to be used in Bowles and Southey’s ‘Robin Hood’ and based on that in Southey’s Thalaba the Destroyer (1801). The resulting incomplete work was published 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]
7. ‘To Mary Wollstonecraft’ from Poems (Bristol, 1797), p. [3].[back]
8. Southey dined with Wollstonecraft on 3 May 1797; see Southey to Joseph Cottle, 2 May [1797], The Collected Letters of Robert Southey, Part One, Letter 214.[back]
9. Gilbert Imlay (1754–1828), American businessman and author, and father of Wollstonecraft’s first child, Frances Imlay (1794–1816); Wollstonecraft’s husband, William Godwin; and, probably, Henry Fuseli (1745–1821; DNB), a Swiss-born painter with whom Wollstonecraft had been in love.[back]
10. A bust of Southey had been sculpted in 1813 by James Smith (1775–1815). Smith’s business was carried on by his sons, Charles Raymond Smith (c. 1798–1888) and Thomas Smith (b. 1800) at 57 Upper Norton Street.[back]
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