631. Robert Southey to John Rickman, 27 November 1801 ⁠* 

My dear Rickman

This morning I called on Burnett, whom I found recovering from a bilious flux & in the actx of folding up a letter designed for you. he then for the first time showed me your letter, & his reply. I perceived that the provoking blunder in Lambs direction affected the tone of yours other, & that the seventeen shillings-worth of anger fell upon George. your caustic was too violent, it eat thro the proud flesh – but it has also wounded the feeling & healthy part below. the letter which I have suppressed was in the same stile as his last. I prevailed on him to lay it up in his desk – because it was no use showing you the wound you had inflicted – & your time would be better any how employed than in reading full pages that were not written with the design of giving pleasure. That your phrases were too harsh I think & Lamb & Mary Lamb think also. twas a horse medicine – a cruel dose of yellow gamboodge  [1] (tho I do not mean to insinuate that it occasioned his diarrhoœa.) –

What I foresaw – or rather hoped would take place is now going on in him. he begins to discover that hackneying authorship is not the way to be great. to allow that six hours writing in a public office is better than the same number of hours labour for a fat publisher – that it <is> more certain – less toilsome – quite as respectable. I have even prevailed on him to attend to his hand-writing – on the possibility of some such happy appointment – & doubt not ere long to convince him, in his own way, of the moral fitness of writing straight lines & distinct letters – according to all the laws of mind. he wishes to get a tutors place. in my judgement a clerks would suit him better, for its permanence. nothing like experience! he would be not think its duties beneath him. & if he were so set at ease from the daily bread & cheese anxieties that would disorder a more healthy intellect than his – I believe that passion for distinction which haunts him, would make him in the opinion of the world – the booksellers – & himself – a very pretty historian. quite as good as any of the Scotch breed – It puzzles me how he has learnt to round his sentences so xx ear-ticklingly. he has never rough-hewn any thing – but he finishes like a first journeyman.

Write to him some day, & lay on an emollient plaister. it would heal him – & comfort him. a very active man we shall never have. but as active as nature will let him he soon will be – & quite enough for daily official work. If you could set him in the Land of Potatoes [2]  we should, I believe in conscience see the Historian of the Twelve Caesars [3]  become a great man. A more improbable prophecy of mine about the wretched Alfred [4]  has been fulfilled!

Mr Corry & I have met once since my last – & no mention was made about Egypt – the silence satisfied me – because Portugal is a better & far more suitable subject. it is odd that he has never asked me to dine with him – & not quite accordant with his general courtliness of conduct. Seeing little of him – I have not formed so high an opinion of his talents or information as you had led me to conceive. doubtless in his own department he possess both – but on all other ground I am the better traveller – & he hardly knows the turnpike when I have beat thro all the by ways & windings & cross roads. I found it expedient to send him my sundry books in compliance with a hint to that effect. he called to thank me – & this dropping a card has been the extent of my personal & avoidable civility. to my great satisfaction I have entire leisure – that is to my present comfort – for it does not promise much for the future.

I had nearly forgotten to ask you for the transfer to the Library. [5] 

Your friend Vaughan Griffiths [6]  has got a few steps up the ladder – I do not mean the ladder which such like honest gentlemen sometimes ascend. he has taken Remnant [7]  the German booksellers stock, & announces a catalogue of foreign books. the Magazine exists [8]  – I certify its existence having seen one for this month in a window. the xxx spirit having left it I suspect Vampirism in its present life.

Coleridge is in town. you should commute your Star [9]  for the Morning Post – in which you will see good things from him [10]  – & such occasional verses as I may happen to evacuate. [11]  the Anthology is revivescent under the eye of blind Tobin, to whom all the honour & glory & papers are transferred.  [12]  there will <be> enough of the old leaven to keep up its <a> family likeness to its Half-brothers. Madoc [13]  is on the anvil – slow & sure. I expect my Port[MS torn] this evening with my Mother, & shall return with new appetite to my dear old folios.

The letter to which you referred in your money-letter as directed here, never arrived. You who have the Great Seal [14]  at command had better always write straight. & do give Burnett a line – your letter was too [MS obscured] – & you would do a kind action by easing him of resentment.

Ediths remembrance – farewell

yrs truly

R Southey.

Saturday. Nov^r 27. 1801

25 Bridge St. Westminster.