4156. Robert Southey to Edward Hawke Locker, 13 March 1824

 

Address: To/ Edward Hawke Locker Esqre/ &c &c &c.
Seal: red wax
MS: Huntington Library, LR 326. ALS; 4p.
Previously published: W. A. Speck, ‘Robert Southey’s Letters to Edward Hawke Locker’, Huntington Library Quarterly, 62.1–2 (1999), 162–163 [in part].
Note on MS: This letter is written on a sheet of paper printed at the head with the following: TO BE/ PUBLISHED/ BY/ SUBSCRIPTION, IN THREE VOLS. OCTAVO,/ PRICE, £2. S2./ (The money to be paid on delivery,)/ A CHRONOLOGICAL HISTORY OF THE/ WEST INDIES,/ BY CAPTAIN THOMAS SOUTHEY, COMMANDER/ ROYAL NAVY. [Tom Southey’s Chronological History of the West Indies (1827) was finally published by Longmans.]

Keswick. 13 March. 1824
My dear Sir

You will do me a great kindness if you can procure some subscriptions for what will be a very respectable book, made with great care upon a plan which I suggested, & with a good deal of my assistance. The subject includes the whole of the islands, Spanish, French &c. & therefore can only be treated in that chronological form which is common enough in the French language, but of which Andrewes,

(1)

James Pettit Andrews (1737–1797; DNB), History of Great Britain, Connected with the Chronology of Europe from Caesar’s Invasion to the Accession of Edward VI (1794–1795), no. 166 in the sale catalogue of Southey’s library.

I think, has given the only English specimen. A great body of facts will be brought together in the only practicable order, & I shall intersperse general views

What you say of my Book,

(2)

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

both from yourself, & from the Bishop of Durham,

(3)

Shute Barrington (1734–1826; DNB), Bishop of Durham 1791–1826.

gratifies me as it ought to do. It would not be difficult for me to give references in some future edition; but I really felt that the scale of the work seemed neither to require nor justify it. A sketch of our Church History was all that the limits of the work (tho extended to thrice the original design) would allow: & in that, I thought that while the inferences were my own the facts were too notorious to stand in need of any vouchers. This ground I have for trusting that it may be useful, that I am sure it would have been most essentially so to me, if such a work had been put into my hands in my youth.

I am persuaded that it might be of considerable use if there were a Professor of English History in each of our Universities & if the divinity students were examined as to their knowledge of the ecclesiastical, – & all other in the civil political part. Our institutions are depreciated because they are not understood.

I past four & twen six & thirty hours at Cambridge during my travels. It is to be hoped that what they are doing there will excite a spirit of emulation at Oxford; – the sight of such buildings rising in every direction

(4)

The expansion of undergraduate numbers after 1815 led to new buildings being erected in Cambridge by, among others, King’s, Trinity, St John’s, Corpus Christi and Peterhouse Colleges.

gave me, tho an Oxonian, a feeling of English delight, such as I have seldom experienced. Still the enlargement of the old Universities appears to me less desirable than the foundation of a new one in these northern parts, – at Durham, or at Hexham.

(5)

Durham University was founded in 1832, though Southey would have preferred it to be based at Hexham.

And if we had a Prime Minister with Percevals principles & Percevals warmth of heart, I should not despair of seeing such a measure effected However nothing is to be despaired of. Give peace in our time O Lord,

(6)

A quotation from the morning and evening service in the Church of England’s Book of Common Prayer (1662).

& xx we may then obtain every thing which is desirable. The better spirit is prevailing, & we must not relax in our endeavours to keep it up.

The Bp of Barbadoes acts like Reginald Heber, solely from a sense of duty.

(7)

William Hart Coleridge became Bishop of Barbados and the Leeward Islands in 1824, while Reginald Heber became Bishop of Calcutta in 1823.

He is the only child of an infirm & aged mother, who was left a widow when he was an infant.

(8)

William Hart Coleridge was the only child of Luke Herman Coleridge (1765–1790), a surgeon and brother of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and Sarah Hart (c. 1770–1830).

He <xxxx> had a respectable fortune, & was in the high road to preferment. What a set of people he is going among! As a diocese Botany Bay would be a Paradise in comparison.

(9)

Botany Bay was a penal settlement in New South Wales, founded in 1788. At this time, all of Australia was part of the Diocese of Calcutta and did not receive its own bishop until 1836. Southey was a long-standing opponent of the slave trade and held a low view of the planters of the West Indies.

Present my kind regards to Mrs Locker,

& believe me my dear friend
Yours most truly
Robert Southey.

Notes

1. James Pettit Andrews (1737–1797; DNB), History of Great Britain, Connected with the Chronology of Europe from Caesar’s Invasion to the Accession of Edward VI (1794–1795), no. 166 in the sale catalogue of Southey’s library.[back]
2. Southey’s The Book of the Church (1824).[back]
3. Shute Barrington (1734–1826; DNB), Bishop of Durham 1791–1826.[back]
4. The expansion of undergraduate numbers after 1815 led to new buildings being erected in Cambridge by, among others, King’s, Trinity, St John’s, Corpus Christi and Peterhouse Colleges.[back]
5. Durham University was founded in 1832, though Southey would have preferred it to be based at Hexham.[back]
6. A quotation from the morning and evening service in the Church of England’s Book of Common Prayer (1662).[back]
7. William Hart Coleridge became Bishop of Barbados and the Leeward Islands in 1824, while Reginald Heber became Bishop of Calcutta in 1823.[back]
8. William Hart Coleridge was the only child of Luke Herman Coleridge (1765–1790), a surgeon and brother of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and Sarah Hart (c. 1770–1830).[back]
9. Botany Bay was a penal settlement in New South Wales, founded in 1788. At this time, all of Australia was part of the Diocese of Calcutta and did not receive its own bishop until 1836. Southey was a long-standing opponent of the slave trade and held a low view of the planters of the West Indies. [back]
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