MS: British Library, Add MS 47888. ALS; 3p.
Unpublished.
I send you a small supply of I’s autographs, on condition that you get a little blank book (it should be a neat one) & transcribe into it, (- not my nonsensicalities – which are fit only for great Albums,) – but the little extracts which are thus disposed of, whereby in process of time you will have a collection of maxims & sayings of no little value. If you do this I shall have a motive for keeping up the supply.
Cuthbert has an epistle on the stocks, – & so have I. At present I have not time to say much. But will you tell your Uncle that a brother of poor Mr Nash has written to me to ask his interest for Dr Richard Waring at the ensuing hospital election,
(1)
Peter Mere Latham (1789–1875; DNB) resigned as senior physician at the Middlesex Hospital on 16 November 1824. He was a friend and colleague of Henry Herbert Southey. Eight candidates put their names forward, including Richard Waring (d. 1868), a native of Kent, who had qualified from Edinburgh University in 1823 and became a Licentiate of the Royal College of Physicians in 1824. The result was declared on 18 December 1824 and Francis Hawkins (1794–1877; DNB) was successful, holding his post until 1858. Hawkins was Registrar of the Royal College of Physicians 1829–1858 and held various appoint…
– in communicating which request I shall have done all that befits me to do, – having promised to communicate it, but added at the same time that I took it for granted his interest must be engaged
(2)
Southey to William Nash, 19 November 1824, Letter 4281.
For yourself I have only two things to say, – that you will do well not to wear any thing at present which can be called willow, whether as relating to the colour of any part of your dress, or the material of a bonnet, – lest it should be supposed to refer to Dr Lathams
(3)
Peter Mere Latham married Diana Clarissa Chetwynd Stapleton (1795–1825) on 14 September 1824. Southey teases Edith May Southey that she should not be seen to wear willow, a custom for those who were grieving, as this might be taken as a sign of mourning that Latham had married another woman.
marriage.
Secondly – that if you are thrown much into company with Mr James S.
(4)
James Lowther Senhouse (1794–1844), a cousin of Humphrey Senhouse. He was educated at Westminster and Trinity College, Cambridge (BA 1815) and was ordained in 1822, becoming Perpetual Curate of Sawley, Derbyshire 1823–1844, and Rector of Gosforth, Cumberland 1827–1835. He too had married in 1824, to Elizabeth Brooks (dates unknown), so Southey may be warning Edith May Southey not to be tempted into matrimony, as the serpent tempted Eve in the Garden of Eden to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Genesis 3).
you would remember Eve, xx take warning by her fate; & not be tempted by a serpent.
You will use your own judgement about Mr Fielding.
(5)
There were four Fielding brothers, all fashionable painters of watercolours: Theodore Henry Adolphus Fielding (1781–1851; DNB); Anthony Vandyke Copley Fielding (1787–1855; DNB); Thales Fielding (1793–1837; DNB) and Newton Smith Fielding (1799–1856; DNB). One of the brothers had been giving lessons to Edith May Southey.
But I am sorry to hear that any thing ails your sight. If the weakness continues you had better get some advice concerning it while you are in town
Mrs Gonne may have a copy of any thing
(6)
Any of Southey’s works published by John Murray or Longmans.
– of course. And when you return you may copy the portraits of the Apollo & Venus
(7)
Apollo is one of the Greek Olympian deities and Venus the Roman goddess of love. Southey had given these names to two scarecrows in the garden of Greta Hall. Frances Keenan (d. 1838) had sketched these on her visit to Greta Hall in July 1824.
We are all well thank God, & I am as busy & as nonsensical as ever. I get on with my Danish after supper, & have made good progress in it, – reading those Traditions which we found so flat when we began with them.
(8)
Possibly Just Mathias Thiele (1795–1874), Danske Folkesagn (1819–1823), though this does not appear in the sale catalogue of Southey’s library.
Flat enough the greater number are; – but some are very strange, & it was very well worth while to collect them. – It is certainly the easiest language I ever attempted to learn, tho of course one has more occasion for a Dictionary
(9)
Southey possessed Christian Frederik Bay’s (c. 1737–1809), A Complete Vocabulary English and Danish (1806) and Complete English and Danish and also Danish and English Manual-Lexicon (1807), nos 133–134 in the sale catalogue of his library; and Christian Frederik Schneider (1772–1825), Danish Grammar adapted to the Use of Englishmen (n.d.), no. 1231 in the sale catalogue of his library.
than in any language of the Roman stock.
Remember me most kindly to Lady M.
(10)
Lady Susanna Malet, née Wales (1779–1868), the widow of Sir Charles Malet, 1st Baronet (1752–1815; DNB).
& your Somersetshire Cousins.
(11)
Edith May Southey had no first cousins in Somerset, so these may have been more distant relations of the Southey or Fricker families.
You have not forgotten what I said about ordering books at Longmans, – where you will please yourself in your choice – Our best love to Mrs G. Louisa & the children.
God bless you my muy magnifica
Yo el Pa.
(13)
Literally ‘I the Pa’ in Spanish.
Keswick 23 Nov. 1824
