4203. Robert Southey to Herbert Hill, 23 June 1824

 

Address: to/ The Revd. Herbert Hill/ Streatham/ Surry
Stamped: KESWICK/ 298
Postmark: E/ 2x JU 26/ 1824; 10.F.NOON.10/ JU.26/ 1824
Seal: red wax; design illegible
MS: Keswick Museum and Art Gallery, WC 245. ALS; 4p.
Unpublished.

Keswick. 23 June. 1824

I am sorry to hear from Bertha, that the hooping cough is in your house. I have one myself which, without hooping, is sufficiently troublesome. It is come in the suite of my annual catarrh, which has attacked me with its usual violence; a long time I fear will elapse before it leaves me, & still longer before the system can recover the thorough relaxation which is thus brought on.

My search for the Catalan history has ended in the compleat conviction that no such book is in existence, & consequently that the account of the work & the author in Colburne’s Magazine is a mere fiction;

(1)

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…

– unaccountable as it is that any man should invent such a fiction, & publish it as authentic biography, with his name affixed. The books were said to be printed at Seville, & a letter from Seville has been transmitted me thro the foreign office, saying that none of the booksellers there have ever heard of any such works. My second volume is gone to press,

(2)

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

& I am expecting the first proofs every day. I have got scent of some German publications by men who were in the French service,

(3)

Southey’s letter to Murray does not seem to survive. However, the bibliography of his History of the Peninsular War, 3 vols (London, 1823–1832), III, p. 936, suggests that Southey had probably asked Murray to provide: Hermann von Staff (1790–1867), Der Befreiungs-Krieg der Katalonier, in den Jahren 1808 bis 1814 (1821–1827); and Franz Xaver Rigel (1783–1852), Die Siebenjahrige Kampf auf der Pyrenaischen Halbinsel vom Jahre 1807 bis 1814; besonders miene eigenen Erfahrungen in disem Kriege; nebst Bemerkungen uber das Spanische Volk und Land (1819–1821), no. 2442 in the sale catalogue of Southey…

& have desired Murray to procure them.

Your lot of Spanish newspapers

(4)

Southey eventually acquired a collection of 24 volumes of Spanish Gazetas, 1808–1813, no. 3472 in the sale catalogue of his library. These included Gazetas ‘de Gobierno’ (‘of the Government’) and from the Juntas of Seville and Valencia.

was a lucky acquisition, – as it fills up my series for the only year in which it was defective. A series of Lisbon papers for the same time would be signally usefully if it were possible to obtain it, but of this I have neither prospect nor hope.

I have just lost my bookbinder here,

(5)

William Crampton (c. 1785–1843), a Keswick bookseller, had obtained a copper plate to forge one-guinea banknotes of the Whitehaven Bank of Johnston, Adamson, Hope & Co. He was condemned to death at Carlisle Assizes on 26 August 1824, but recommended to mercy and received three years’ imprisonment.

& “could have better spared a better man”.

(6)

The First Part of Henry the Fourth, Act 5, scene 4, line 103.

He did common work as well as was required, & I was employing him in vamping & lettering some of my ragged regiments, with the intention of putting all that deserved it, in good repair. When lo, the fellow who might have x made an honest livelihood, chose to embark in the forgery line, & of all banks to meddle with that whose bills are almost exclusively current in Keswick. The matter was very soon discovered, & he is now in limbo with the fear of the gallows before his eyes. There is a knot of them concerned, & the inquiry is still going on. I miss him greatly, & there is not much likelihood that his place will be supplied. There is a very good binder whom I employ at Ulverstone,

(7)

Possibly John Soulby (b. 1795), who succeeded his father, John Soulby (1771–1817) in his business.

– but vamping in which I have most to do, requires a man upon the spot.

Longman has sent me the two first volumes of Spix & Martius, – the Bavarian travellers in Brazil.

(8)

Johann Baptist von Spix (1781–1826) and Carl Friedrich Philipp von Martius (1794–1868). Reise in Brasilien auf Befehl Sr. Majestät Maximilian Joseph I. Königs von Baiern, in den Jahren 1817 bis 1820 (1823) was translated by Hannibal Evans Lloyd (1771–1847; DNB) and published by Longmans in two volumes as Travels in Brazil in the years 1817–1820, Undertaken by Command of His Majesty the King of Bavaria (1824), no. 2722 in the sale catalogue of Southey’s library.

They imitate Humboldt,

(9)

Alexander von Humboldt (1769–1859), the German polymath and traveller in the Americas.

but are far from possessing his powers of mind, tho they are able men. The part which is published relates chiefly to Minas Geraes, – what remains will take them into a region almost unexplored up the Japura – to the Spanish frontier. If they made their way thither from the Mato Grosso their book would have been more interesting to me, but they went by sea from Bahia to Para, & so up the Orellana.

(10)

The Amazon river was once known by the name Rio de Orellana after Francisco de Orellana (1511–1546), the Spanish explorer who first navigated its length.

This is the only new book worth mentioning which has reached me since my return, – except Landor’s Dialogues.

(11)

Walter Savage Landor, Imaginary Conversations of Literary Men and Statesmen (1824).

But if the public did but know as well as you & I do, that every book is new to him who reads it for the first time, the booksellers trade would be greatly injured by the discovery.

We have been parched with drought while you have been deluged. A few days ago there fell just rain enough to save the garden, – but cold ungenial winds continue to prevail, & I am writing by the fireside

Let me hear of yourself, – of my Aunt, & of the children. Edward I hope will feel a great improvement in his condition now that he has ascended a step.

(12)

Edward Hill was a pupil at Westminster School and had passed ‘The Challenge’ to become a King’s Scholar and member of ‘College’, a group of forty boys with their own accommodation, special dress and privileges, including the right to proceed to a Closed Scholarship at Trinity College, Cambridge, or Christ Church, Oxford. However, he had encountered bullying in his first year in College.

His Welsh nieces

(13)

Southey’s younger daughters, Kate and Isabel.

often talk of what we are to do when he comes. I miss the two elder girls

(14)

Edith May and Bertha Southey.

much: they are very good however in sending home frequent accounts of themselves.

God bless you
RS.

Notes

1. 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 help of George Canning and, finally, John Mitford.[back]
2. The second volume of Southey’s History of the Peninsular War (1823–1832).[back]
3. Southey’s letter to Murray does not seem to survive. However, the bibliography of his History of the Peninsular War, 3 vols (London, 1823–1832), III, p. 936, suggests that Southey had probably asked Murray to provide: Hermann von Staff (1790–1867), Der Befreiungs-Krieg der Katalonier, in den Jahren 1808 bis 1814 (1821–1827); and Franz Xaver Rigel (1783–1852), Die Siebenjahrige Kampf auf der Pyrenaischen Halbinsel vom Jahre 1807 bis 1814; besonders miene eigenen Erfahrungen in disem Kriege; nebst Bemerkungen uber das Spanische Volk und Land (1819–1821), no. 2442 in the sale catalogue of Southey’s library.[back]
4. Southey eventually acquired a collection of 24 volumes of Spanish Gazetas, 1808–1813, no. 3472 in the sale catalogue of his library. These included Gazetas ‘de Gobierno’ (‘of the Government’) and from the Juntas of Seville and Valencia.[back]
5. William Crampton (c. 1785–1843), a Keswick bookseller, had obtained a copper plate to forge one-guinea banknotes of the Whitehaven Bank of Johnston, Adamson, Hope & Co. He was condemned to death at Carlisle Assizes on 26 August 1824, but recommended to mercy and received three years’ imprisonment.[back]
6. The First Part of Henry the Fourth, Act 5, scene 4, line 103.[back]
7. Possibly John Soulby (b. 1795), who succeeded his father, John Soulby (1771–1817) in his business.[back]
8. Johann Baptist von Spix (1781–1826) and Carl Friedrich Philipp von Martius (1794–1868). Reise in Brasilien auf Befehl Sr. Majestät Maximilian Joseph I. Königs von Baiern, in den Jahren 1817 bis 1820 (1823) was translated by Hannibal Evans Lloyd (1771–1847; DNB) and published by Longmans in two volumes as Travels in Brazil in the years 1817–1820, Undertaken by Command of His Majesty the King of Bavaria (1824), no. 2722 in the sale catalogue of Southey’s library.[back]
9. Alexander von Humboldt (1769–1859), the German polymath and traveller in the Americas.[back]
10. The Amazon river was once known by the name Rio de Orellana after Francisco de Orellana (1511–1546), the Spanish explorer who first navigated its length.[back]
11. Walter Savage Landor, Imaginary Conversations of Literary Men and Statesmen (1824).[back]
12. Edward Hill was a pupil at Westminster School and had passed ‘The Challenge’ to become a King’s Scholar and member of ‘College’, a group of forty boys with their own accommodation, special dress and privileges, including the right to proceed to a Closed Scholarship at Trinity College, Cambridge, or Christ Church, Oxford. However, he had encountered bullying in his first year in College.[back]
13. Southey’s younger daughters, Kate and Isabel.[back]
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