Endorsement: RS to JR 29 June/ 1823
MS: Huntington Library, RS 437. ALS; 3p.
Previously published: John Wood Warter (ed.), Selections from the Letters of Robert Southey, 4 vols (London, 1856), III, pp. 395–396.
I am very much gratified at finding that the Inscriptions
(1)
Southey had visited the Caledonian Canal with Rickman and Thomas Telford on their tour of Scotland in August–September 1819. He wrote three ‘Inscriptions for the Caledonian Canal’: ‘Inscription for a Tablet at Banavie, on the Caledonian Canal’, Friendship’s Offering. A Literary Album (London, 1826), pp. [167]–168; and ‘At Clachnacharry’ and ‘At Fort Augustus’, The Anniversary; or, Poetry and Prose for MDCCCXXIX (London, 1829), pp. 194–197. At this time, Southey had only written the first two of these poems.
have pleased you, – & am not a little surprized as well as pleased by your intention of committing them to the lapidary.
(2)
Rickman was Secretary to the Commissioners for the Caledonian Canal and had suggested that Southey’s poems should be engraved on stone tablets at suitable points along the canal’s course. Only ‘Inscription for a Tablet at Banavie, on the Caledonian Canal’ was carved on a large white marble slab, and it was not publicly displayed until it was placed in its current location, in the boundary wall of the canal offices, Clachnaharry Road, Inverness, in 1922, on the canal’s centenary.
My error was not in supposing Telford to have been a Highlander (for I knew he was a townsman of Mickle x & of Sir J Malcolm – as well as Pasley
(3)
Telford; William Julius Mickle (1734–1788; DNB), the poet; Major-general Sir John Malcolm (1769–1833; DNB), a soldier and East India Company administrator; and General Sir Charles Pasley (1780–1861; DNB), a military engineer, were all from the Eskdale area of Dumfriesshire.
– I did not know that Herries was a Scotchman
(4)
Herries was not from Scotland, but the family home of his father, Charles Herries (1745–1819), was Halldykes in Dryfesdale, Dumfriesshire.
) – but in applying to Scotland in general the appellation (which has often been given it) of the Land of Hills, – when in that situation the words should seem to denote the Highlands.
(5)
As the conclusion to ‘Inscription for a Tablet at Banavie, on the Caledonian Canal’, Southey cancelled the lines ‘Nor less hath he achieved for Scotland here/ His native country, – rightly may the Land/ Of Hills among her Worthies rank his name’; see the manuscript held in the Huntington Library, San Marino, HM 2733.
– I have altered it thus
Thus by her son
Ennobled & enrich’d, in grateful pride
Scotland enrols among her heritors
Of earthly immortality his name.
(6)
Following further criticism from Rickman, Southey did not retain these lines.
The additional matter which you have suggested cannot be embodied in the other Inscription,
because every sentence grows out of that which preceded it, & there is no place where I could fit it in, without a solution of continuity. This is my present opinion after having taken counsel with my pillow, – & looked wistfully at the subject since. If it appears in the same light to me tomorrow, I will plant what I cannot succeed in inserting as a graft, – & make a third inscription,
noticing the principal features of the work, the time & cost therein employed (if I can manage the subject) & the civilizing tendency of the labour as contrasted with x similar works in ancient times when performed by slaves or prisoners. The position may very fitly be designated by help of Glengarry,
(9)
Alexander Ranaldson Macdonell (1773–1828; DNB), Chief of Clan MacDonell of Glengarry. Southey, Rickman and Telford had called on him at Invergarry House on 18 September 1819 on their Scottish tour (Journal of a Tour in Scotland in 1819, ed. Charles Harold Herford (London, 1929), pp. 194–201). He was a leading enthusiast for Highland dress, traditions and culture and had erected a monument to celebrate a famous occasion in his clan’s history.
as you suggest; & the two Inscriptions be placed on the same monument vis-a-vis after the Irish fashion, or the former be transferred to Clachnacarry, as the mouth of the Glen on that side.
God bless you
RS.
