Address: [in another hand] London Twenty Ninth Nov 1824/ Miss Bowles/ Buckland/ Lymington/ Hants/ Fm/ JRickman
Postmark: FREE/ 29 NO 29/ 1824
Endorsement: No 71 To Miss Caroline Bowles
MS: British Library, Add MS 47889. ALS; 3p.
Previously published: Edward Dowden (ed.), The Correspondence of Robert Southey with Caroline Bowles (Dublin and London, 1881), pp. 75–76.
The inclosure
(1)
The enclosure, an autograph of Southey’s in exchange for one of Alexander Pope’s (1688–1744; DNB), is no longer with the letter.
– as you will have guessed, – is for Mr St Barbe,
(2)
Charles St Barbe (1750–1826), a banker and salt manufacturer of Lymington, Hampshire, or his son, Charles St Barbe (1776–1849), a banker and antiquary.
– to whom you will give it with as civil an expression of thanks on my part as his civility deserves. – Pope’s handwriting I, literally speaking, should not have known from that of my Aunt, Miss Tyler.
I reply thus immediately to your letter, that I may thank you, while the impression is fresh, from for the extract from Capt Medwin,
(3)
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).
of which otherwise I might long have remained in ignorance. Undoubtedly I shall notice it, – & most probably as I did his Lordships former attack, – by a letter in the newspapers;
(4)
Southey to the Editor of the Courier, 8 December 1824, Letter 4289, published 13 December 1824. The earlier letter was Southey to the Editor of the Courier, 5 January 1822, Letter 3776, published 11 January 1822, sent in response to the ‘Appendix’ to ‘The Two Foscari’, Sardanapulus, A Tragedy. The Two Foscari, A Tragedy. Cain, A Mystery (London, 1821), p. 328, in which Byron had cautioned: ‘I am not ignorant of Mr. Southey’s calumnies on a different occasion, knowing them to be such, which he scattered abroad on his return from Switzerland against me and others.’ Southey had visited Switzerlan…
– being the most summary method, & that also whereby the most extensive circulation may be obtained. – Should you happen to have the book at and hand, tell me if there be in it any thing else which may seem to you to require any observation on my part. There will be plenty of time for this, – for it is of no importance whether my letter appear a week hence, or a fortnight, – or a month. – It is not for the sake of repelling an accusation that I notice these impudent lies, but for the sake of showing that those who have advanced them are impudent liars. – To what an extent they are so, you who have seen my correspondence with Shelley,
(5)
In a letter of 26 June 1820, Shelley had accused Southey of writing a hostile review of Laon and Cythna, or the Revolution of the Golden City (1818; published late 1817) and The Revolt of Islam. A Poem, in Twelve Cantos (1818); see Edward Dowden (ed.), The Correspondence of Robert Southey with Caroline Bowles (Dublin and London, 1881), pp. 358–359. Southey responded with his letter to Percy Bysshe Shelley, [c. 29 July 1820], The Collected Letters of Robert Southey. Part Six, Letter 3517. Shelley replied in a letter to Southey, 17 August 1820, Edward Dowden (ed.), The Correspondence of Robert S…
know. – I am only sorry you have not a copy of it, – which you shall have one of these days. – It would not become me to publish it while there are any persons living who would be wounded by it: – as for such dead as those to whom it refers, – I know of no respect or tenderness to which they are entitled. A dead dog is entitled to no more than a living one. It will come to light in due season. You remember Latimers saying “Well; there is nothing hid but it shall be opened.
(6)
John Watkins (d. c. 1831; DNB), The Sermons of the Right Reverend Father in God, and Constant Martyr of Jesus Christ, Hugh Latimer, Some Time Bishop of Worcester, 2 vols (London, 1824), I, p. cliv. Hugh Latimer (c. 1487–1555; DNB), Bishop of Worcester 1535–1539 and Protestant martyr was a favourite writer of Southey’s.
Have you heard that Hobhouse printed a pamphlett in contradiction of some of Medwin’s statements,
(7)
John Cam Hobhouse (1786–1869; DNB), Exposure of the Mis-statements Contained in Captain Medwin’s Pretended ‘Conversations of Lord Byron’ (1824). The pamphlet was suppressed, but its contents were widely known.
which he has been prevailed upon by his friends to suppress, because it would certainly bring in a duel. It seems he had given Medwin the lie there in plain terms. But it is Lord B. & not his Blunderbuss
(8)
Speaking of David Mallet’s (c. 1705–1765; DNB) edition of the Works (1754) of Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke (1678–1751; DNB), Samuel Johnson (1709–1784; DNB) declared of Bolingbroke that ‘he was a scoundrel, and a coward: a scoundrel for charging a blunderbuss against religion and morality; a coward because he had not the resolution to fire it off himself, but left half a crown to a beggarly Scotchman, to draw the trigger after his death!’ (James Boswell (1740–1795; DNB), Life of Samuel Johnson, 3rd edn (London, 1799), p. 312). Southey used this precedent to describe Thomas Medwin (1…
who is the liar. The Blunderbuss has only let off what it was charged with. – And this I should take care to say in my newspaper epistle.
“Sick & alone’ – are sad words in themselves, & more so when they are so coupled. – If wishes would avail, you should be well & here. – God bless you –
RS.
