4297. Robert Southey to [John Wilson Croker], 18 December 1824

 

MS: Morgan Library, MA 1005. ALS; 3p.
Previously published: Kenneth Curry (ed.), New Letters of Robert Southey, 2 vols (London and New York, 1965), II, pp. 275–277; Myron F. Brightfield, John Wilson Croker (London, 1940), p. 182 [in part].

Keswick. 18 Dec. 1824
My dear Sir

I am glad to find that the management of the Quarterly Review is not to remain much longer in abeyance, & that it is likely to be placed in very competent hands. Looking at all the requisites which are necessary for such a task, I should think it impossible to find a person better qualified for it than John Coleridge. As a scholar he has been thoroughly bred, at Eton & at Oxford; he has a high University reputation,

(1)

John Taylor Coleridge had been elected into a Vinerian Scholarship, the most important honour awarded to aspiring lawyers, and was a Fellow of Exeter College.

– which tho but a feather in a scale, is a feather in a cap also. His principles are in every respect what they ought to be; I know no man who is more sincerely attached to the institutions of his country, nor who understands them better. He has all the attainments that the office requires, all the discretion & all the firmness. His connections are good; & his professional prospects such that it is deemed by some of his friends an act of imprudence in him to engage in any thing which may seem to interrupt them, – for that it is possible to be a man of business & of letters at the same time is far from being generally understood, tho few ages have afforded better examples of this union than our own.

Our own is indeed a marvellous age in whatever light it be regarded; & a pleasanter one there never can have been to have lived in for one, who like myself, has nothing to do in the world but to learn what has been done in former times, to observe what is going on, & to speculate upon what is to come. I am glad to see that your Conway papers are soon to see the light.

(2)

The papers of Edward Conway, 1st Viscount Conway (1564–1631; DNB), Secretary of State 1623–1628, his son Edward Conway, 2nd Viscount Conway (1594–1655; DNB), bibliophile and military commander, and his grandson, Edward Conway, 1st Earl Conway (1623–1683; DNB), Secretary of State 1681–1683. They were discovered at Ragley Hall, the Conways’ seat in Warwickshire, in 1751, and most of them were given by Francis Charles Seymour-Conway, 3rd Marquess of Hertford (1777–1842) to Croker. Croker never published them and on his death some were bequeathed to the Public Record Office, some to the British Mu…

You were busy with them when I saw you last, & hardly then knew what treasures you might find there. A compleat body of such papers would be of as much importance to our history, as the publication of the Records, & of the original historians: & if the Royal Society of Literature

(3)

The Royal Society of Literature, founded in 1820 to promote British writing and scholarship.

had had any thing to recommend it, except its good intent, it might have been made available to this, & other such purposes.

I have just now had a pressing application to undertake a continuation of Smolletts History.

(4)

Tobias Smollett (1721–1771; DNB), A Complete History of England Deduced from the Descent of Julius Caesar to the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle (1757–1758) and Continuation of the Complete History of England (1760–1765). Southey owned an edition from 1789–1790, no. 1465 in the sale catalogue of his library. It is not clear who offered Southey the opportunity to continue this project, but he did not take it up.

But whatever I do must be done at my own time, & in my own way. Something in English history I have long thought of doing. It will be Murray’s fault if I do not produce a summary view of our political progress down to the accession of the present family, – under the title of the Book of the State, & follow it by the Age of George 3d – with a brief view of the two intermediate reigns.

(5)

Southey did not write any of the following: a ‘Book of the State’ on British history down to the accession of the Hanoverian dynasty in 1714; a history of the reign of George III (1738–1820; King of Great Britain 1760–1820; DNB); or a history of the reigns of George I (1660–1727; King of Great Britain 1714–1727; DNB) and George II (1683–1760; King of Great Britain 1727–1760; DNB).

I think I know how this ought to be done. At present I am chearfully employed in proceeding with the Peninsular War,

(6)

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

& finishing a poem in the Spenserian stanza,

(7)

Southey’s A Tale of Paraguay (1825), written in the stanza of eight lines of iambic pentameter and a concluding hexameter, made famous by Edmund Spenser (1552/1553–1599; DNB).

which tho of no great length has been a work of time.

The Bishop of Limerick induced me to make a half promise of visiting him in the ensuing spring. I told him I should prefer waiting till the next rebellion were over, – which I fear will not be by that time. The bed of roses

(8)

Christopher Marlowe (1564–1593; DNB), ‘The Passionate Shepherd to his Love’ (1599), line 9. This phrase was often used to describe a comfortable situation – and Southey implies it was far from comfortable to be an Anglican bishop in Ireland.

is not without its thorns at present. It is well that when the crisis th comes the struggle should assume its true character, of a war for separation & for Catholic ascendancy. I wrote an Ode upon the Kings Visit to Ireland,

(9)

Southey’s New Year’s ode for January 1822, ‘Ireland’, published in Sir Thomas More: or, Colloquies on the Progress and Prospects of Society, 2 vols (London, 1829), I, pp. [295]–302. The poem was occasioned by George IV’s visit to Dublin, 12 August–3 September 1821, and composed in fulfilment of Southey’s duties as Poet Laureate.

which would naturally have concluded with a compliment to Marquis Wellesley;

(10)

Wellesley had just been appointed Lord Lieutenant of Ireland on 8 December 1821 when Southey began composing his poem.

– but I saw so little to hope & so much to fear that I had not heart to finish it as it should have finished, – otherwise I should have been glad to publish it.

farewell my dear Sir & believe me
with much regard
Yrs faithfully
Robert Southey.

Notes

1. John Taylor Coleridge had been elected into a Vinerian Scholarship, the most important honour awarded to aspiring lawyers, and was a Fellow of Exeter College.[back]
2. The papers of Edward Conway, 1st Viscount Conway (1564–1631; DNB), Secretary of State 1623–1628, his son Edward Conway, 2nd Viscount Conway (1594–1655; DNB), bibliophile and military commander, and his grandson, Edward Conway, 1st Earl Conway (1623–1683; DNB), Secretary of State 1681–1683. They were discovered at Ragley Hall, the Conways’ seat in Warwickshire, in 1751, and most of them were given by Francis Charles Seymour-Conway, 3rd Marquess of Hertford (1777–1842) to Croker. Croker never published them and on his death some were bequeathed to the Public Record Office, some to the British Museum and some were sold at auction. They contain much material of inestimable value on seventeenth-century politics and literature. At around this time they were being advertised as ‘about to be published, in five large volumes’ (New Monthly Magazine, 15 (February 1825), 61).[back]
3. The Royal Society of Literature, founded in 1820 to promote British writing and scholarship.[back]
4. Tobias Smollett (1721–1771; DNB), A Complete History of England Deduced from the Descent of Julius Caesar to the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle (1757–1758) and Continuation of the Complete History of England (1760–1765). Southey owned an edition from 1789–1790, no. 1465 in the sale catalogue of his library. It is not clear who offered Southey the opportunity to continue this project, but he did not take it up.[back]
5. Southey did not write any of the following: a ‘Book of the State’ on British history down to the accession of the Hanoverian dynasty in 1714; a history of the reign of George III (1738–1820; King of Great Britain 1760–1820; DNB); or a history of the reigns of George I (1660–1727; King of Great Britain 1714–1727; DNB) and George II (1683–1760; King of Great Britain 1727–1760; DNB).[back]
6. Southey’s History of the Peninsular War (1823–1832).[back]
7. Southey’s A Tale of Paraguay (1825), written in the stanza of eight lines of iambic pentameter and a concluding hexameter, made famous by Edmund Spenser (1552/1553–1599; DNB).[back]
8. Christopher Marlowe (1564–1593; DNB), ‘The Passionate Shepherd to his Love’ (1599), line 9. This phrase was often used to describe a comfortable situation – and Southey implies it was far from comfortable to be an Anglican bishop in Ireland.[back]
9. Southey’s New Year’s ode for January 1822, ‘Ireland’, published in Sir Thomas More: or, Colloquies on the Progress and Prospects of Society, 2 vols (London, 1829), I, pp. [295]–302. The poem was occasioned by George IV’s visit to Dublin, 12 August–3 September 1821, and composed in fulfilment of Southey’s duties as Poet Laureate.[back]
10. Wellesley had just been appointed Lord Lieutenant of Ireland on 8 December 1821 when Southey began composing his poem.[back]
TEI Link
TEI
Volume Editor(s)
Lynda Pratt
Ian Packer