4252. Robert Southey to Henry Herbert Southey, 18 September 1824

 

Address: To/ Dr Southey/ 15. Queen Anne Street/ Cavendish Square/ London
Stamped: KESWICK/ 298
Postmark: E/ 21 SE 21/ 1824
Seal: red wax; design illegible
MS: Keswick Museum and Art Gallery, 1996.5.334. ALS; 3p.
Unpublished.

Keswick. 18 Sept. 1824
My dear Harry

I am glad you are in the way of being settled in a house,

(1)

Henry Herbert Southey settled at 4 Harley Street, one of a number of dwellings fashioned out of a larger building on the corner of Cavendish Square and Harley Street, London.

tho if bricklayers & carpenters are to interfere you will have to pass thro what might have been one of Job’s trials

(2)

In the Book of Job the central character is afflicted with misfortunes.

before you are fairly seated in it. – I have no money either in the funds or elsewhere, except the little that may be in John Mays hands, – but when my second volume

(3)

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

shall be thro the press, (say in six months from this time, if the printer

(4)

Thomas Davison (1766–1831).

so pleases) I can put 525£ at your disposal. Since my return I have been living upon the Church,

(5)

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

– xx Murray & Gifford between them have contrived to disappoint me of what I had counted on for the last QR,

(6)

Quarterly Review, 30 (January 1824), published 28 August 1824, did not contain 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 the Friend and Biographer of Cowper, Written by Himself; with Extracts from his Private Correspondence, and Unpublished Poetry; and Memoirs of his Son Thomas Alphonso Hayley, the Young Sculptor (1823), no. 1179 in the sale catalogue of Southey’s library. Southey’s article appeared in Quarterly Review, 31 (March 1825), 263–311, published 11 March 1825.

which would have put me to some inconvenience if there had not been Bedford to have recourse to. This has put me out of humour with the said Q – (which is likely to be Q in the corner

(7)

‘Q in the corner’ was a popular pseudonym for authors, especially of letters to newspapers and journals, and had been widely used since the anonymous Junius Letters (1769–1772). However, it was also used in chess as shorthand for ‘Queen in the corner’, i.e. a difficult and unwanted situation, and it is probably in this sense that Southey uses it here.

with me) & into humour with other things which have sometimes been laid aside for it. A certain medical acquaintance of yours

(8)

Dr Dove, the central figure in Southey’s novel, The Doctor (1834–1847).

is likely therefore to be introduced to the world, before I put pen to paper again for that Journal; & the Tale of Paraguay

(9)

A Tale of Paraguay (1825).

will be followed up by Oliver Newman.

(10)

Southey’s unfinished ‘Oliver Newman’, set in New England. A fragment was published posthumously in Oliver Newman: a New-England Tale (Unfinished): with Other Poetical Remains by the Late Robert Southey (London, 1845), pp. 1–90.

I am advanced some way in the third canto of the Tale which will consist of four only.

There has been no return of haemorrhage since I applied to you. The ointment I did not apply, – having found it useless in 1819, – the zinc & sulph. acid

(11)

Probably a reference to zinc sulphate, long used in medicine to combat diarrhoea. Southey had been suffering from a rectal prolapse and bleeding.

I took, probably with good effect: & have taken exercise, more or less, & with more or less inconvenience, sometimes without any, pretty regularly. There were a few days when the weather invited me to bathe, & I believe it was of great service; but the weather prevented me from continuing it.

E May is now with Lightfoot. She goes in about a week to Mrs Wade Brownes at Exeter; – thence to Taunton where she rejoins Lady Malet

(12)

Lady Susanna Malet, née Wales (1779–1868), widow of Sir Charles Malet, 1st Baronet (1752–1815; DNB).

– & I suppose she will be looking homeward soon after her return to town.

God bless you
RS.

Notes

1. Henry Herbert Southey settled at 4 Harley Street, one of a number of dwellings fashioned out of a larger building on the corner of Cavendish Square and Harley Street, London.[back]
2. In the Book of Job the central character is afflicted with misfortunes.[back]
3. The second volume of Southey’s History of the Peninsular War (1823–1832).[back]
4. Thomas Davison (1766–1831).[back]
5. Southey’s The Book of the Church (1824).[back]
6. Quarterly Review, 30 (January 1824), published 28 August 1824, did not contain 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. Southey’s article appeared in Quarterly Review, 31 (March 1825), 263–311, published 11 March 1825.[back]
7. ‘Q in the corner’ was a popular pseudonym for authors, especially of letters to newspapers and journals, and had been widely used since the anonymous Junius Letters (1769–1772). However, it was also used in chess as shorthand for ‘Queen in the corner’, i.e. a difficult and unwanted situation, and it is probably in this sense that Southey uses it here.[back]
8. Dr Dove, the central figure in Southey’s novel, The Doctor (1834–1847).[back]
9. A Tale of Paraguay (1825).[back]
10. Southey’s unfinished ‘Oliver Newman’, set in New England. A fragment was published posthumously in Oliver Newman: a New-England Tale (Unfinished): with Other Poetical Remains by the Late Robert Southey (London, 1845), pp. 1–90.[back]
11. Probably a reference to zinc sulphate, long used in medicine to combat diarrhoea. Southey had been suffering from a rectal prolapse and bleeding.[back]
12. Lady Susanna Malet, née Wales (1779–1868), widow of Sir Charles Malet, 1st Baronet (1752–1815; DNB).[back]
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