4017. Robert Southey to Nicholas Lightfoot, 12 May 1823

Address: [in another hand] London Fifteenth May 1823/ The Rev^d. / Nicholas Lightfoot/ Crediton/ Free/ JRickman
Postmark: FREE/ 15 MY 15/ 1823
MS: Bodleian Library, MS Eng. Lett. d. 110. ALS; 4p.
Unpublished.

Keswick. 12 May. 1823

My dear Lightfoot

Your cyder is at last safe in my cellar having been long delayed on the way, I know not where, & jolted about at last in hot weather, so that the one barrel when it arrived was working thro the seams of the cask. It soon however became still when it was at rest, – & we shall speedily drink your health in it.

You will look now to hear of my operations for the summer. They are still more distant than I could wish; & for this reason that the Book

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which I have in hand, & which must be finished before I can leave home, is extending to just double the length which had been intended, – two volumes instead of one, & full half a volume yet remains to be written. Sorry for this I am, as it respects my movements: – not otherwise, – for I am well satisfied with the book, & think it will be much the better for entering more into detail. But I should much rather have made my journey in spring than in the summer.

It will not be then till after your holydays that you will see me; – & if Parliament should have xxxx broken up;

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this will cost me a day at Sir T Aclands. I shall have however the xx advantage of summer weather, & moreover I shall <probably> find your son John at home during the long vacation. – I thought to have introduced John Wordsworth

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to him as a fellow collegian, – but for some reasons which are incomprehensible to me, his father has placed him at New College as a Gentleman Commoner.

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What can have induced him to this apparently preposterous step I cannot understand.

Our travellers

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informed us from Exeter of your cordial hospitality at Crediton. They are, we suppose, in Somersetshire at this time, & from thence will probably return without any farther delays on the route.

I wish I could transfer to you, – or still more to your son, to whom it would be of more use, – the claims for preferment which my forthcoming Book of the Church would certainly give its author were he in orders. In this case I should be truly glad if the old lines Sic vos non vobis &c were as applicable, as it has been with reference to the booksellers sometimes.

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I shall have given a fairer & clearer view of our ecclesiastical history than has ever yet been presented, & for that very reason a more attractive & favourable one.

My brother the Captain is on his voyage to Quebec – to take possession of a great tract of lands in Upper Canada, & see what preliminary measures may be necessary for removing his family thither next year. It would have been better if he had resolved upon this earlier – nor do I feel by any means certain that he may not change his purpose when he gets upon the spot, – the propensity of his mind being to stave off difficulties for the present, rather than fairly to meet & endeavor to overcome them.

My own household, God be thanked, continue well, & for myself, I have not for the last seven years kept in such condition as thro the last winter. The ground which I gained in the summer while you were here has not been lost & this I impute to regular exercise, aided by a freer diet. My eldest daughter talks of spending the next winter in London. In that case I shall take her up, & return almost immediately, – unless any fit escort should present itself. She would be the better for the journey now: but no persuasions will prevail on her to leave Keswick during the summer. We have been more than once on the Lake, – & if my friend & fellow-traveller Senhouse comes to me, as I expect for a few days, we shall have some mountaineering.

The prospect of public affairs is sufficiently perplexed. Perhaps there never was a time when it could be so little foreseen what course events were likely to take. I neither know what to wish, or to expect, & should apprehend danger & evil from any issue that can possibly arise, if these things were not directed by something better than any human councils

And now my dear Lightfoot farewell. Present my best wishes to M^rs L. & your children

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– accept those of my Lady Mare & her daughters,

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& believe me ever & always,

Your affectionate old friend
Robert Southey

Notes

1. Southey’s The Book of the Church (1824).[back]

2. The parliamentary session ended on 19 July 1823; Southey did not leave home until 3 November.[back]

3. John Wordsworth entered New College, Oxford in 1823. [back]

4. Wordsworth had faced difficulties in placing his son, John, at an Oxford college, as he was nearing the age of 20, after which many colleges would not admit him as an undergraduate. Wordsworth finally decided on New College because of his acquaintance with Augustus William Hare (1792–1834; DNB), a Fellow of the College from 1818. Hare offered to take a special interest in John Wordsworth and help him in his studies. Southey may have felt this was an ‘apparently preposterous step’ because of New College’s small size, poor academic reputation and cliquishness – almost all undergraduates were ex-pupils of Winchester College and many claimed their place as relatives or ‘Founder’s Kin’ of William of Wykeham (1320/1324–1404; DNB). New College’s small group of ‘gentleman commoners’ were those who were not connected to Winchester College.[back]

5. Sara Coleridge and her daughter Sara.[back]

6. ‘For you, but not yours’, a line attributed to Publius Vergilius Maro (70–19 BC). It was usually applied in the context of somebody who laboured, but the reward was taken by somebody else.[back]

7. Nicholas Lightfoot married Bridget Prideaux (1768–1856) on 13 July 1801. Their children were: John Prideaux Lightfoot; Frances Jane Lightfoot (1806–1882), Southey’s god-daughter; Catherine Anne Lightfoot (1808–1898); Bridget Mary Lightfoot (1810–1889); and Nicholas Francis Lightfoot (1811–1881), Vicar of Cadbury 1846–1855, Rector of Islip 1855–1881.[back]

8. Edith May Southey, Kate Southey, Bertha Southey, Isabel Southey.[back]

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4017. Robert Southey to Nicholas Lightfoot, 12 May 1823

4017. Robert Southey to Nicholas Lightfoot, 12 May 1823

The Collected Letters of Robert Southey: Part Seven

Lynda Pratt, Ian Packer