4197. Robert Southey to Edwin Atherstone, 7 June 1824
Address: [in another hand] London Eleventh June 1824/ Edwin Atherstone Esq/ Taunton/ Fm/ J Rickman
Postmark: FREE/ 1 JU 1/ 1824
MS: Somerset Record Office. ALS; 3p.
Unpublished.
Keswick. 7 June 1824
I am much obliged to you for your little volume,
which not having such locomotive powers as you possessed in your dream, had to wait a month in Paternoster Row, & then travel patiently in the Waggon.
There is as much power in the poem as I had expected to find in it, – & this is saying much. I do not enter upon any task of verbal criticism because highly useful as it is to a youth who is making his first essay, & serving as it were his apprenticeship in the art, – it must be superfluous to those who know the proper use of language & have obtained a command of it. – The only remark which seems worth making is that there appears to be some confusion of time in the prelude: p. 26. The sun an hour ago, Went down – & p. 31. it is again noon.
You I believe mean first to describe the whole day, & then return to speak of your noon day dream: but this produces an apparent confusion.
I can say nothing of your design, because it is in its very nature lawless as well as boundless. A dream it is, & the effect upon the reader is like that of a dream, before the impression is shaken off. But a more durable impression is made by what more resembles reality, & a poet I should think is more likely to be popular by keeping to this low earth, than by taking flight thro the Universe. But I heartily wish you success both in your mundane & extra-mundane flights, & remain with much respect
Dear Sir
Yrs faithfully
Robert Southey.
