4012. Robert Southey to Henry Herbert Southey, 5 May 1823

Address: To/ D^r Southey/ 15. Queen Anne Street/ Cavendish Square/ London
Stamped: KESWICK/ 298
Postmark: E/ 8 MY 8/ 1823
Seal: red wax; design illegible
MS: Keswick Museum and Art Gallery, 1996.5.134. ALS; 4p.
Unpublished.

Keswick. 5 May. 1823

My dear Harry

I have just received the Portugueze MSS. for which I beg you will make my acknowledgements in due form to the Ambassador when you see him.

⁽¹⁾

And if you say that I will carefully return the mss. you may find out whether it is intended that I should keep it, in which case I shall gladly bestow a binding upon it, & add it to my collection. I have looked into it enough to see that it is well written, – & beyond all doubt it will be of great use to me. I wish I were at work upon it. But I am staked down to the book upon which not my ways & means alone, but Toms also for his expedition, are dependent.

⁽²⁾

The printer

⁽³⁾

is getting on rapidly, & so am I, being 9 or 10 sheets ahead of him. His next sheet compleats the first volume. If the latter part should please me as well as what is done, the book I think must prove an interesting one, & I hope to wind up well with a chapter enquiring into what has been lost by the Reformation, & the present state of the Church.

⁽⁴⁾

I am in fear about my cyder, – it ought long ago to have made its appearance.

⁽⁵⁾

–

What is become of Gifford & the Review?

⁽⁶⁾

A matter this of some consequence to me who look for an hundred pounds upon its publication, & have masons at work: – upon my landlords account indeed, but to be paid by me out of my rent. We are building outhouses, & repairing the house within & without.

Undoubtedly you are right about Edith May, for she has complained of rheumatism all the winter. We are going on well thank God. I am heartily glad that your wheels seem to answer. For myself I have kept in condition thro the winter, which is attributable perhaps to a freer diet in some degree, coming in aid of exercise & assisting the digestive processes. And I am in good working condition, & in good humour with my work – - A little more solicitous about ways & means perhaps than I used to be, – when younger, – not however over anxious.

Mary Calvert

⁽⁷⁾

is delighted at having caught a sight of you in the streets. She is visiting Miss Stanger,

⁽⁸⁾

upon whom I suspect her brother John has fixed his intentions. He had no sinecure in attending her on Saddleback.

I wish I could fix the time of my departure – Alas I am but in bloody Q Marys reign!

⁽⁹⁾

after which comes the settlement of the Ch – its overthrow, – a chapter from thence to the Revolution; – a few pages concerning the Nonjurors & the last century – & then the conclusion.

Love to Louisa & M^rs Gonne – which love is to be understood as coming from my womankind as well as myself –

God bless you
RS.

Notes

1. Cristóvão Pedro de Morais Sarmento, 1st Viscount of Torre de Moncorvo (1788–1851), a Portuguese diplomat. He served in the Portuguese Embassy in London for nearly forty years and was briefly chargé d’affaires in 1822. His brother, Alexandre Tomás de Morais Sarmento, 1st Viscount of Banho (1786–1840), was also a diplomat. Both men had served as volunteers in a Portuguese force raised in Coimbra which had defended the Vouga river against a French army in 1809. Alexandre Sarmento had written an account of this campaign which had been forwarded to Southey. Southey needed this material for his History of the Peninsular War (1823–1832).[back]

2. Southey’s The Book of the Church (1824). Tom Southey was considering emigrating to Canada and Southey feared he would have to contribute to the costs of this venture.[back]

3. Charles Roworth (c. 1765–1851), a printer based at Bell-yard, Temple Bar, London.[back]

4. Southey did not write this conclusion.[back]

5. Nicholas Lightfoot had arranged to send Southey some barrels of cider as a gift.[back]

6. Southey’s review of Henri Grégoire (1750–1831), ‘Histoire de la Théophilantropie, depuis sa Naissance jusqu’à son Extinction’, part of Grégoire’s Histoire des Sectes Religieuse, qui, Depuis de Commencement du Siecle Dernier Jusqu’a l’Epoque Actuelle, sont Nées, se sont Modifiées, se sont Éteintes dans le Quatre Parties du Monde, 2 vols (Paris, 1814), II, pp. 55–171, Quarterly Review, 28 (January 1823), 493–536, published 8 July 1823. The book was no. 2838 in the sale catalogue of Southey’s library.[back]

7. Mary Calvert (1804–1890), daughter of William Calvert. She married Joshua Stanger (1801–1854), son of James Stanger, in 1824.[back]

8. Hannah Stanger (1799–1867), daughter of James Stanger. She did not marry John Mitchinson Calvert.[back]

9. Mary I (1516–1558; Queen of England 1553–1558; DNB). Her reign was covered in The Book of the Church, 2 vols (London, 1824), II, pp. 141–251. It took a further 277 pages for Southey to cover the Church settlement of 1559, the Civil War and the English Republic (1642–1660), the Revolution of 1688 and the refusal of the nonjurors within the Church to accept that Revolution. He did not leave home until 3 November 1823.[back]

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4012. Robert Southey to Henry Herbert Southey, 5 May 1823

4012. Robert Southey to Henry Herbert Southey, 5 May 1823

The Collected Letters of Robert Southey: Part Seven

Lynda Pratt, Ian Packer