78. Robert Southey to Horace Walpole Bedford, 30 [-31] December 1793
78. Robert Southey to Horace Walpole Bedford, 30 [–31] December 1793 *
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The Bee will make a tit bit of democracy ere long for Edmund Seward.
Monday. December 30. 1793. 1/2 past ten in the morning .
C Collins told me that you had relinquished your favorite employment of letter writing & I begin to believe him. your last passed one of mine on the road. I have written since that. & now have the paper before me & the pen in my hand without yet hearing from you.
five hours have elapsed since I was obliged to shut my casette but how I can hardly tell you. I have however discovered a very dangerous peculiarity in myself which may get me into some awkward scrapes unless I check it — on a walk thro Bristol streets to pay a long neglected morning visit I read a letter just received & caught myself commenting & rhapsodizing aloud! see how communicative is my disposition — a heart full of romance & a head full too, both beating away most vehemently are very dangerous in the streets. now what there is peculiar to thought meditation or love lorn fancy in folded arms, natural philosophers must determine — my musings were of the agreable order but my arms wanted sadly to cross each other.
there is much more Romance in this world than I imagined Horace & Romance is but another name for goodness — that is if people will look for it — interest interest is dinned into my ears till not only my head aches but my heart too. let the wind whistle as it will I seek the real goods of life & despise (perhaps too much) the artificial blessings. the rude traveller treads on the plant which the Botanist seeks with care — now I am a Botanist in society. curse the tulips turn away from the sunflowers — court the violets & love the roses.
so much for rhapsody. “out of the fullness of the heart the mouth speaketh.” [2] a little food is overpowering to the starvd man as poor Cadman [3] will tell you. why are you silent Horace? you know how dearly I love letters in spite of CCs cold investigation of their inutility. now tomorrow I go to Bath & if you will write immediately twill be like Manna to a starved wretchd. direct No 8 Westgate Buildings Bath. never mind tho you should have written to Bristol. “idleness is the first step of the ladder of iniquity” [4] my good things come so seldom that I am proud of them. remember that maxim my friend & be assured that business is the only antidote against melancholy. & now I am going to dinner — then to call a council in my own mind whether I shall obey Romance or Reason. Romance carries the day — then to the Play for once with pleasure. then to my toasted cheese — then to bed — up at five — walk to Bath to breakfast & then — sink into listless languor & curse the dull course of Time. “a dram of sweete is worth a pound of sour [5] so said our Spenser — but my sweets comes by atoms & my sours by tons.
1/2 past 4. I have been reading Cowpers Homer [6] & much satisfaction has the perusal afforded me. a quotation I had occasion to make gave me an opportunity of discovering how unlike Homer is Popes version. Achilles cuts off his hair at Patroclus tomb & apostrophises Spercheus.
now one translation being enough for my purpose — I do not transcribe Cowper. can there be a more licentious paraphrase than Popes is of this passage?
I could wish you to translate Lucan [9] were it not rather a servile task & certainly but secondary praise. another epic poem must soon save me from listlessness — on what subject I am much divided. Brutus Cassibelan Arthur Egbert [MS obscured] Alfred & Odin [10] are all fighting for pre eminence. in the meantime one song of Memory is finished & various smaller compositions fill up the hour the paper & the casette. were you at Oxford with me we could make the Body-lining of some use. by the by a metrical romance would be a good subject opportunity to wilder it away.
Tuesday morning. my departure is delayd till after breakfast & the cold interval is yours. should your letter as I expect arrive tomorrow it will be forwarded or rather backwarded to me. my casette & I are inseperable — all my guathel [11] goes with me & Akenside [12] & Lucan are my pocket companions. you would be astonishd at the number of volumes I have read in this manner. it is very seldom that I am without a book in my pocket. & the half & quarters of hours wasted so often in waiting amount to a great deal in the year. ten to one but I read all the way to Bath & should the sun shine it makes glad the heart of man spout vociferously to the edification of all the stage coachmen. this however only happens in abstraction. Shall you join our party at Balliol? if not what do you do with yourself? another year should not pass in solitude & what CC calls originalizing. with us you are sure of society & employment & I may say you will seldom find a better set tho Christ Church may furnish a genteeler. it is time you should determine. this seclusion of yourself you have already practised too long. experience shows me its ill effects. you must mix more with the world — study men & manners & forget melancholy in employment. Edmund Seward will be at Balliol till June next & if you enter there our party will be six in that college. your brother knows how we live & upon what friendly unceremonious terms. I will venture to affirm that we live there as agreably as any young men can live at college — come & try — put on a cap & gown break your spectacles & come to chapel with me twice a day. CC has invited me to Maize Hill but it was impossible to accept his invitation. my life here is as bad as yours with this difference — yours is choice mine necessity. since I quitted Brixton I have only walked out for the air twice. & except that have not walked two miles in the whole two months. you will call this wrong but I am chained to my casette for want of employment, & like Calypso island [13] tis difficult to escape from it.
my hands ache with the cold & breakfast is preparing. my shirts &c are packing up & momentary interruptions disturb me. write immediately. why not write some odes &c &c? has your brother seen any of Lovells verses? I have two beautiful sonnets of his in my casette for transcription the snowdrop & the nightingale. shall I send them? his verses flow more naturally than mine but I feel pleased at finding a superior. thank God I have neither envy nor ambition.
yrs sincerely
R Southey
Notes
* Address: Horace Walpole Bedford Esqr/ New Palace Yard/
Westminster/ Single.
Stamped: BRISTOL
Postmark: [partial] E/ 2/ 94
Watermarks: G R in a circle; figure of
Britannia
Endorsement: Recd Jany. 2d. 1794
MS: Bodleian
Library, MS Eng. Lett. c. 22. ALS; 4p.
Unpublished. BACK
[5] Edmund Spenser (c. 1552–1599; DNB), The Faerie Queene (1590–1596), Book 1, canto 3, line 264. BACK
[6] William Cowper (1731–1800; DNB), The Iliad and Odyssey of Homer, Translated into English Blank Verse, (1791). Southey borrowed the first volume from the Bristol Library Society between 23–27 December 1793 and the second from 27–30 December 1793. BACK
[7] The Greek can be translated as ‘O Spercheius, my father Peleus promised you in vain that when I returned here to my dear native land I would cut my hair for you and perform a holy hecatomb’. These are Achilles’ opening words at the funeral of Patroclus, Iliad, Book 23, lines 144–146. BACK
[8] Alexander Pope (1688–1744; DNB), The Iliad of Homer, 6 vols (London, 1715–1720), VI, p. 69. BACK
[10] Southey’s list of possible subjects for an epic includes Brutus, legendary first King of Britain and great-grandson of Aeneas; Cassibelan, who led the resistance to Julius Caesar’s second invasion of Britain 54 BC; Arthur, legendary King of Britain; Egbert (d. 839; reigned 802–839; DNB), the first king of the West Saxons to be acknowledged as King of England; Alfred the Great (848/9–899; reigned 871–899; DNB); and Odin, leader of the Norse gods. BACK
