* MS: the letter survives only in a partial, undated transcript in the hand of Henry Crabb Robinson, Dr Williams’s Library, London, Crabb Robinson MSS. TR; 1p. The letter was possibly amongst the letters from Southey to Duppa that Robinson was given by Duppa’s niece, Mrs Stone, and that he ‘made extracts from’ in March 1844, see Henry Crabb Robinson on Books and their Writers, ed. Edith J. Morley, 3 vols (London, 1938), II, pp. 640 and 642.
Unpublished.
Dating note: undated, but the content indicates that it was written before Southey to Duppa, 23 May 1807, Letter 1325. Given Cuthbert Southey’s habit of silently removing anything controversial relating to family and friends and to his father’s lack of orthodoxy, this extract was possibly originally part of Southey to Duppa, 27 March 1807, Letter 1299. However, this cannot be ascertained for certain, so it is included in this edition as a separate letter. BACK

[1] That is, to procure favourable reviews of Duppa’s The Life and Literary Works of Michael Angelo Buonarotti, with His Poetry and Letters (1806). BACK

[2] Southey requested Scott to obtain a favourable notice in the Edinburgh Review in his letter to him of 4 February 1806 (Letter 1152). BACK

[3] Christopher Wordsworth, defender of the Articles of Religion on which the Church of England was founded, reviewed for the Critical Review. A review of Duppa’s book, cavilling at the author’s neglect of orthodox grammatical rules, appeared in the Critical, 10 (1807), 385–399. BACK