132. Robert Southey to Richard Duppa, [12 July 1795]

132. Robert Southey to Richard Duppa, [12 July 1795] *
Poor Seward! I write to you Duppa with a strange sinking of the heart. he introduced me to you — he purified & strengthened my heart — & he has left a vacancy there which will not easily be supplied.
Of my Joan of Arc. the bookseller who has purchased the copy right will have a frontispiece. [1] & he talks of about thirty guineas as the expence of designing & engraving. will you get this done for me? you can enter into the design character & conceive my ideas, these are the lines as narrated by the Maid.
I should give you the lines expressing the character of Joan after she had once been awakened to patriotism.
————
Underwood [4] is in Bristol. & on seeing this subject he wishd Loutherbourg [5] to design it. the size is quarto. & a good design well executed from such a subject would assist the work.
forgetting your number I enclose this to Bedford. will you be good enough to tell me if you can get this done for me & what you estimate the expence at. for artists use your own judgement & I am sure the design that you approve will please me.
God bless you.
what was it that killd my dear Edmund Seward? I wrote to him immediately on hearing of his illness. & William answerd it — for it arrived the very hour of his death. you know not how I esteemed & loved him nor the deep & lasting impression his death has made upon me.
direct to me at Mrs Sawiers. No 25 College Street Bristol.
the poem is in the press & will be deliverd on the first of January. I am anxious for its success — & a good deal is for Cottles sake the bookseller, a liberal worthy man. type & paper are very splendid. for the poetry I could say much myself.
yrs civically
Robert Southey
I wish to have th a vignette engraved for a volume of poems. the subject from my Botany Bay Monologue. [6] a female on the sea shore, at New Holland <gathering shells for lime>. Bedford will shew you the poem: Underwood thinks it a very good subject for Stodhart [7] to design.
this is troubling you — but I believe you will feel pleasure in being busied for xxxxxxxx me
farewell.
Notes
* Address: R Duppa
Endorsement: Southey SD/ Ans
MS: Morgan Library, MA
63. ALS; 4p.
Unpublished.
Dating note: This letter is the enclosure referred to in Letter 131, Southey to Grosvenor Charles Bedford
[12 July 1795], and can be dated accordingly. BACK
[1] The first edition of Joan of Arc did not have a frontispiece, but the second edition (1798) did. BACK
[2] A revised version of these lines appeared in Southey’s Joan of Arc, An Epic Poem (Bristol and London, 1796), p. 33. BACK
[4] Thomas Richard Underwood (1772–1835; DNB), watercolourist and geologist, who in 1795, advised Southey on possible illustrations for his poems. BACK