4190. Robert Southey to [Henry Taylor], 26 May 1824

 

MS: MS untraced; text is taken from Charles Cuthbert Southey (ed.), Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey, 6 vols (London, 1849–1850)
Previously published: Charles Cuthbert Southey (ed.), Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey, 6 vols (London, 1849–1850), V, pp. 178–180.

Keswick, May 26. 1824.

My dear Sir,

I thank you for your note.

(1)

Taylor had written to Southey on 14 May 1824, informing him of the death of Lord Byron.

Its information is of a kind to make one thoughtful; but the sorrow which I felt was not such as you were disposed to give me credit for.

I am sorry Lord Byron is dead, because some harm will arise from his death, and none was to be apprehended while he was living; for all the mischief which he was capable of doing he had done. Had he lived some years longer, he would either have continued in the same course, pandering to the basest passions and proclaiming the most flagitious principles, or he would have seen his errors and sung his palinodia,

(2)

‘Recantation’.

– perhaps have passed from the extreme of profligacy to some extreme superstition. In the one case he would have been smothered in his own evil deeds. In the other he might have made some atonement for his offences.

We shall now hear his praises from all quarters. I dare say he will be held up as a martyr to the cause of liberty, as having sacrificed his life by his exertions in behalf of the Greeks.

(3)

Byron had died in Greece on 19 April 1824 while attempting to aid the Greeks in their War of Independence (1821–1830) against the Ottoman Empire.

Upon this score the liberals will beatify him; and even the better part of the public will for some time think it becoming in them to write those evil deeds of his in water,

(4)

Francis Beaumont (1584–1616; DNB) and John Fletcher (1579–1625; DNB), Philaster, or Love Lies a–Bleeding (c. 1610), Act 5, scene 3, lines 90–91: ‘all your better deeds/ Shall be in water writ.’

which he himself has written in something more durable than brass.

(5)

Quintus Horatius Flaccus (65–8 BC), Odes, Book III (23 BC), Ode 30, line 1: ‘I have built a monument more durable than bronze.’ Though the poet used the Latin word for ‘bronze’ this was often rendered as ‘brass’.

I am sorry for his death therefore, because it comes in aid of a pernicious reputation which was stinking in the snuff.

(6)

As a candle smoulders after being snuffed out it often gives off an acrid odour; Southey compares this situation with Byron’s reputation at the time of his death.

With regard to the thought that he has been cut off in his sins, mine is a charitable creed, and the more charitable it is the likelier it is to be true. God is merciful. Where there are the seeds of repentance in the heart, I doubt not but that they quicken in time for the individual, though it be too late for the world to perceive their growth. And if they be not there, length of days can produce no reformation.

In return for your news I have nothing to communicate except what relates to the operations of the desk. I am going to press with the second volume of the Peninsular War,

(7)

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

after waiting till now in hope of obtaining some Spanish accounts of the war in Catalonia, which it is now pretty well ascertained are not to be found in Spain, though how they should have disappeared is altogether inexplicable, unless the whole account of the books and their author, Francesco di Olivares, given by a certain John Mitford, some four or five years ago, in Colburn’s Magazine, is fictitious.

(8)

Southey had read John Mitford’s ‘On Spanish Literature, with some Account of Francisco de Olivarez’, New Monthly Magazine, 10 (October 1818), 221–223. It mentioned Olivarez’s Account of the War in Catalonia, published in four volumes at Seville in 1815; Anecdotes of Chiefs Employed in the Catalan War (1816); and Memoirs of the Spanish Monarchy to the Abdication of Charles 4 & the Usurpation of Joseph Bonaparte (1816). However, none of these works seem to exist. Southey had already asked Murray to try and acquire them; see Southey to John Murray: 10 July 1820, The Collected Letters of Robert So…

I am reviewing Hayley’s Memoirs.

(9)

Southey’s review of John Johnson (1769–1833; DNB), Memoirs of the Life and Writings of William Hayley, Esq. the Friend and Biographer of Cowper, Written by Himself; with Extracts from his Private Correspondence, and Unpublished Poetry; and Memoirs of his Son Thomas Alphonso Hayley, the Young Sculptor (1823), no. 1179 in the sale catalogue of Southey’s library, Quarterly Review, 31 (March 1825), 263–311, published 11 March 1825.

Hayley

(10)

William Hayley (1745–1820; DNB), a writer whose reputation had declined significantly since his popularity in the 1780s.

has been worried as schoolboys worry a cat. I am treating him as a man deserves to be treated who was in his time, by popular election, king of the English poets, who was, moreover, a gentleman and a scholar, and a most kind–hearted and generous man, in whose life there is something to blame, more to admire, and most of all to commiserate.

(11)

Hayley’s son, the sculptor, Thomas Alphonso Hayley (1780–1800; DNB), had died young, as had Southey’s eldest son, Herbert Southey.

My first introduction to Spanish literature I owe to his notes;

(12)

William Hayley, An Essay on Epic Poetry; in Five Epistles to the Revd Mr. Mason. With Notes (London, 1782), pp. 202–273, included accounts of the life and work of Lope Félix de Vega y Carpio (1562–1635) and Alonso de Ercilla y Zuñiga (1533–1594), with quotations and translations.

I owe him therefore some gratitude. I have written some verses too, and am going on with the Tale of Paraguay,

(13)

A Tale of Paraguay (1825).

resolutely to its conclusion.

Farewell, my dear Sir; and believe me,
Yours with sincere regard,
ROBERT SOUTHEY

Notes

1. Taylor had written to Southey on 14 May 1824, informing him of the death of Lord Byron.[back]
2. ‘Recantation’.[back]
3. Byron had died in Greece on 19 April 1824 while attempting to aid the Greeks in their War of Independence (1821–1830) against the Ottoman Empire.[back]
4. Francis Beaumont (1584–1616; DNB) and John Fletcher (1579–1625; DNB), Philaster, or Love Lies a–Bleeding (c. 1610), Act 5, scene 3, lines 90–91: ‘all your better deeds/ Shall be in water writ.’[back]
5. Quintus Horatius Flaccus (65–8 BC), Odes, Book III (23 BC), Ode 30, line 1: ‘I have built a monument more durable than bronze.’ Though the poet used the Latin word for ‘bronze’ this was often rendered as ‘brass’.[back]
6. As a candle smoulders after being snuffed out it often gives off an acrid odour; Southey compares this situation with Byron’s reputation at the time of his death.[back]
7. Southey’s History of the Peninsular War (1823–1832).[back]
8. Southey had read John Mitford’s ‘On Spanish Literature, with some Account of Francisco de Olivarez’, New Monthly Magazine, 10 (October 1818), 221–223. It mentioned Olivarez’s Account of the War in Catalonia, published in four volumes at Seville in 1815; Anecdotes of Chiefs Employed in the Catalan War (1816); and Memoirs of the Spanish Monarchy to the Abdication of Charles 4 & the Usurpation of Joseph Bonaparte (1816). However, none of these works seem to exist. Southey had already asked Murray to try and acquire them; see Southey to John Murray: 10 July 1820, The Collected Letters of Robert Southey. Part Six, Letter 3509; 27 February 1821, The Collected Letters of Robert Southey. Part Six, Letter 3641; 11 June 1821, The Collected Letters of Robert Southey. Part Six, Letter 3693; and 27 July 1822, Letter 3877 and 1 November [1822], Letter 3911. Murray had then written to Spain to try and obtain these books for Southey’s History of the Peninsular War (1823–1832), and Herbert Hill had also offered to help. Southey had then sought the assistance of George Canning. Finally, Southey had written to John Mitford, 12 April 1824, Letter 4171.[back]
9. Southey’s review of John Johnson (1769–1833; DNB), Memoirs of the Life and Writings of William Hayley, Esq. the Friend and Biographer of Cowper, Written by Himself; with Extracts from his Private Correspondence, and Unpublished Poetry; and Memoirs of his Son Thomas Alphonso Hayley, the Young Sculptor (1823), no. 1179 in the sale catalogue of Southey’s library, Quarterly Review, 31 (March 1825), 263–311, published 11 March 1825.[back]
10. William Hayley (1745–1820; DNB), a writer whose reputation had declined significantly since his popularity in the 1780s.[back]
11. Hayley’s son, the sculptor, Thomas Alphonso Hayley (1780–1800; DNB), had died young, as had Southey’s eldest son, Herbert Southey.[back]
12. William Hayley, An Essay on Epic Poetry; in Five Epistles to the Revd Mr. Mason. With Notes (London, 1782), pp. 202–273, included accounts of the life and work of Lope Félix de Vega y Carpio (1562–1635) and Alonso de Ercilla y Zuñiga (1533–1594), with quotations and translations.[back]
13. A Tale of Paraguay (1825).[back]
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