277. Robert Southey to Joseph Cottle, 9 December [1797]
277. Robert Southey to Joseph Cottle, 9 December [1797] *
My dear Cottle
I am engaged in the Critical Review, immediately I requested to review Amos’s book — it was in other hands — I mentioned it as what I much wished — & it has been transferrd to me. [1] will you send me up the Original that I may do your brother justice.
a huge parcel is just arrived — all poetry. this is xxxx lucky for our selections.
If you could assist me with ten pounds — I should be glad. my expences this quarter have exceeded my income. I shall recover in the next. a pestilence on Mr Pitt [2] for raising the price of every thing!
send likewise my Northern Antiquities with the original Edda. [3] You shall know all that I review.
God bless you.
yrs affectionately
RS.
I expected a proof [4] to day.
Saturday 9thSept December.
Notes
* Endorsements: (94) 43 Decr 9 — 1797; (Sent, J.C.)
MS: Cornell University Library. ALS; 1p. (c).
Previously published: Reproduced in facsimile in
George Healey, The Cornell Wordsworth Collection (Ithaca, NY, 1957), p. [417]. BACK
[1] Southey’s review of Amos Simon Cottle’s Icelandic Poetry, or the Edda of Saemund Translated into English Verse (1797) appeared in the Critical Review, 22 (January 1798), 24–28. He was involved in the book’s genesis — suggesting Cottle produce a verse translation of the Edda — and contributed a dedicatory poem to it. BACK
[3] Paul Henri Mallet (1730–1807), Northern Antiquities: or, a Description of the Manners, Customs, Religion and Laws of the Ancient Danes, and Other Northern Nations; Including those of Our Own Saxon Ancestors. With a Translation of the Edda, or System of Runic Mythology, and Other Pieces, from the Ancient Islandic tongue (1770). BACK
