3999. Robert Southey to General William Peachy, [14 April 1823]

Address: To/ Major General Peachy
MS: British Library, Add MS 28603. ALS; 3p.
Unpublished.
Dating note: Dating from content. Tom Southey left to sail to Canada early on 13 April, the day before this letter was written.

My dear Sir

I am very sorry to hear M^rs Hall

⁽¹⁾

is indisposed, – which is the more vexatious, as this would have been so fine a day for beginning your migration.

Catcotts book

⁽²⁾

cannot be of much value; I believe it proceeds upon geological arguments, which science was very little un cultivated in his time (if it be well understood now) – his brother George I knew & tried to get information from him respecting Chatterton,

⁽³⁾

but I remember that I used to compare the attempting at eliciting any thing like common sense from poor Catcott to that of trying to strike fire with a wooden mallet from a lump of lead. – Townsend of Pewsey has written a book of some good repute with the view as thus concerning which you enquire, – its title I believe is ‘the character of Moses as an historian vindicated.

⁽⁴⁾

Fouche’s letter

⁽⁵⁾

appeared in the newspapers, & I think if it had been worth remembering I should not have so totally forgotten it.

My brother rode off yesterday at break of day, & desired me to say how sorry he was that the weather had prevented him from paying his respects at the Island.

I shall be glad to hear of your safe arrival, & should you pass the month of April at Bath, I will endeavour to arrange my plans as to see you there.

God bless you, my dear Sir
Yrs very truly
Robert Southey.

Monday morning.

Notes

1. Unidentified.[back]

2. Alexander Catcott (1725–1779; DNB), A Treatise on the Deluge (1768).[back]

3. George Symes Catcott (1729–1802), the Bristol pewterer and patron of Thomas Chatterton (1752–1770; DNB). Southey had written to Catcott to obtain information for his and Joseph Cottle’s edition The Works of Thomas Chatterton (1803); see Southey to Joseph Cottle, [c. 21 August 1802], The Collected Letters of Robert Southey, Part Two, Letter 708.[back]

4. Joseph Townsend (1739–1816; DNB), The Character of Moses as an Historian, Recording Events from the Creation to the Deluge (1813), a robust defence of the accuracy of the biblical account of history. It is possible that Peachy’s enquiries were motivated by the appearance of William Buckland (1784–1856; DNB), Reliquiæ Diluvianæ, or, Observations on the Organic Remains attesting the Action of a Universal Deluge (1823), which argued that the Earth was much older than a literal interpretation of the account in Genesis suggested.[back]

5. Joseph Fouché (1759–1820), Lettre au Duc de Wellington (1817). Fouché was an old Jacobin who had later served the Napoleonic regime as Minister of Police 1799–1810.[back]

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3999. Robert Southey to General William Peachy, [14 April 1823]

3999. Robert Southey to General William Peachy, [14 April 1823]

The Collected Letters of Robert Southey: Part Seven

Lynda Pratt, Ian Packer