4280. Robert Southey to Caroline Bowles, 17 November 1824

 

Address: [in another hand] Seventeenth Novr twenty first 1824/ Miss Bowles,/ Buckland,/ Lymington/ Hants/ Wm Manning
Stamped: TO PAY 1D ONLY; XXX
Postmark: C/ 22 NO 22/ 1824
Endorsement: To Miss Caroline Bowles/ Keswick 17 Novr 1824 
MS: British Library, Add MS 47889. ALS; 4p. 
Previously published: Edward Dowden (ed.), The Correspondence of Robert Southey with Caroline Bowles (Dublin and London, 1881), pp. 73–75.

Your news

(1)

Caroline Bowles’s letter to Southey of 13 November 1824 had informed him of the forthcoming work by Sir William Napier (1785–1860; DNB), History of the War in the Peninsula and the South of France from the Year 1807 to 1814 (1828–1840); see Edward Dowden (ed.), The Correspondence of Robert Southey with Caroline Bowles (Dublin and London, 1881), pp. 72–73. Napier received much assistance from Wellington, but did not have access to the latter’s papers.

is new to me, – but it does not surprize, & can in no degree injure me.

(2)

Caroline Bowles was worried that Napier’s book would reduce the sales of Southey’s History of the Peninsular War (1823–1832), published by Murray.

Indeed I do not think it will affect Murray’s interest, who is the person interested. For the intended work will prove a military history exclusively. The Duke refused to communicate any papers to me upon the grounds that he reserved them for such a work. He said that I should do as every one who wished to make a popular work would, – ascribe more to the Spaniards than was due to them. In this, he is mistaken. But he want the truth is he wants a whole length portrait of himself, – & not an historical picture, in which a great many other figures must be introduced. – By good fortune I have had access to papers of his – of a much more confidential nature than he himself (I am very sure) would entrust to any one. And I have only to wish the work which he patronizes may come out as soon as possible, – that I may make use of it. For my third volume in all likelihood it will come in time; – & then it will save me some trouble, for I may rely upon its authority in mere military points.

This must be the reason why Murray announces my second volume so prematurely, when only 26 sheets are printed – out of 100.

(3)

‘In November will be published, The Second Volume of the History of the Late War in Spain and Portugal. By Robert Southey. Printing for John Murray, Albermarle-street’, Morning Post, 26 October 1824. The second volume of Southey’s History of the Peninsular War (1823–1832) did not appear until 1827.

I shall neither hurry myself, nor be hurried. And you need not be told that I shall every where speak of the Duke exactly as I should have done, if he had behaved towards me with more wisdom. Let who may write the military history, it is in my book that posterity will read of his campaigns. And if there had been nothing but a military interest in the story, the Devil might have written it for me.

Never I pray you, suffer yourself to be annoyed by any thing by anything which concerns, or seems to concern me, as an author. For in that character nothing can annoy me. I go on, as I always have done, in my own way, endeavouring to do what seems best according to my own judgement, with all diligence, & caring very little for any present opinion that may be passed upon my works. Like Landor, I am satisfied if I please ten persons who are competent to pronounce an opinion upon such subjects.

(4)

Walter Savage Landor, Gebir; a Poem, in Seven Books (London, 1798), p. ii: ‘If there are, now in England, ten men of taste and genius who will applaud my Poem, I declare myself fully content. I will call for a division; I shall count a majority.’ The book was no. 1030 in the sale catalogue of Southey’s library.

You will have received a letter before this time.

(5)

Southey to Caroline Bowles, [13 November 1824], Letter 4278.

But I write these hasty lines to shew you that I am not insensible of your solicitude for what you think concerns me; – Would that you were within reach: & yet I cannot wish you here at this time, when for the last seven weeks we have had the worst weather that I can remember for two & twenty years.

I want to hear what the Monster says to you.

(6)

Blackwood published Caroline Bowles’s next volume of poetry, Solitary Hours (1826).

That rascally passage concerning Sir Walter Scott which was cancelled in the London Magazine, beyond all doubt must have been written by Hazlitt.

(7)

Hazlitt had criticised Sir Walter Scott in his review of Peveril of the Peak (1823), London Magazine, 7 (February 1823), 205–210, describing the book’s anonymous author as ‘intolerant, mercenary, mean; a professed toad-eater, a sturdy hack, a pitiful retailer or suborner of infamous slanders, a literary Jack Ketch, who would greedily sacrifice anyone of another way of thinking as a victim to prejudice and power, and yet would do it by other hands, rather than appear in it himself.’ The passage was hurriedly suppressed as potentially libelous and only a few unaltered copies of this issue of the…

Murray is in water as near the scalding point as flesh & blood can bear it, – about Lord Byron.

(8)

Thomas Medwin’s (1788–1869; DNB), Journal of the Conversations of Lord Byron: Noted During a Residence with his Lordship at Pisa, in the Years 1821 and 1822 (1824) contained much criticism of Murray, who had published Byron’s poetry.

This it is to have any dealings with a bad man.

God bless you dear Caroline
RS.

17 Nov. 1824

Notes

1. Caroline Bowles’s letter to Southey of 13 November 1824 had informed him of the forthcoming work by Sir William Napier (1785–1860; DNB), History of the War in the Peninsula and the South of France from the Year 1807 to 1814 (1828–1840); see Edward Dowden (ed.), The Correspondence of Robert Southey with Caroline Bowles (Dublin and London, 1881), pp. 72–73. Napier received much assistance from Wellington, but did not have access to the latter’s papers.[back]
2. Caroline Bowles was worried that Napier’s book would reduce the sales of Southey’s History of the Peninsular War (1823–1832), published by Murray.[back]
3. ‘In November will be published, The Second Volume of the History of the Late War in Spain and Portugal. By Robert Southey. Printing for John Murray, Albermarle-street’, Morning Post, 26 October 1824. The second volume of Southey’s History of the Peninsular War (1823–1832) did not appear until 1827.[back]
4. Walter Savage Landor, Gebir; a Poem, in Seven Books (London, 1798), p. ii: ‘If there are, now in England, ten men of taste and genius who will applaud my Poem, I declare myself fully content. I will call for a division; I shall count a majority.’ The book was no. 1030 in the sale catalogue of Southey’s library.[back]
5. Southey to Caroline Bowles, [13 November 1824], Letter 4278.[back]
6. Blackwood published Caroline Bowles’s next volume of poetry, Solitary Hours (1826).[back]
7. Hazlitt had criticised Sir Walter Scott in his review of Peveril of the Peak (1823), London Magazine, 7 (February 1823), 205–210, describing the book’s anonymous author as ‘intolerant, mercenary, mean; a professed toad-eater, a sturdy hack, a pitiful retailer or suborner of infamous slanders, a literary Jack Ketch, who would greedily sacrifice anyone of another way of thinking as a victim to prejudice and power, and yet would do it by other hands, rather than appear in it himself.’ The passage was hurriedly suppressed as potentially libelous and only a few unaltered copies of this issue of the London Magazine were circulated. The matter might have rested there, but Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, 16 (October 1824), 439, reprinted a version of the passage. It did not name Hazlitt, attributing these words to ‘a celebrated critic’.[back]
8. Thomas Medwin’s (1788–1869; DNB), Journal of the Conversations of Lord Byron: Noted During a Residence with his Lordship at Pisa, in the Years 1821 and 1822 (1824) contained much criticism of Murray, who had published Byron’s poetry.[back]
TEI Link
TEI
Volume Editor(s)
Lynda Pratt
Ian Packer