4046. Robert Southey to Charles Watkin Williams Wynn, 18 July 1823

MS: National Library of Wales, MS 4813D. ALS; 3p.
Unpublished.

Keswick. 18 July. 1823

My dear Wynn

I dare say you would be surprized at my brother Henrys appointment:

– but you will cease to be so when you hear that it has been thro Sir W^m Knightons means, – with whom he fell in while studying at Edinburgh, & has been acquainted ever since.

I was sorry to read of Peckwells death, tho it is not reasonable to be sorry when any one is removed to a better world, who can so well be spared in this. In a few years he would have had nothing to do but to die, – & if length of life is not desirable for the sake of others, certainly it is not for oneself. He was a worthy man, whom it would always have given me pleasure to have met.

Phillimore’s son

⁽²⁾

has been playing the tyrant in College over a cousin of mine, & has got into a scrape about it. He did not get this despotism from his father, – & for his fathers sake I am truly sorry that he has shown it. The masters of our public schools are very reprehensible for not effectually putting a stop to this evil. It was in great danger of being carried from school to Cambridge, since the Colleges has been full, & the town crowded with undergraduates. Some who had proceeded Beasts from school took advantage of the license which lodgings allowed them to annoy those whom they had been accustomed to ill treat, challenges were the consequence, – & this has been one of the reasons for enlarging the Colleges there with the view of not permitting any person to lodge out of their walls. – I heard this last year from D^r Wordsworth.

– I am persuaded that the burning of widows might be prevented without danger.

⁽³⁾

It is certain that Albuquerque

⁽⁴⁾

owed his popularity in India greatly to such a prohibition.

God bless you
RS.

I shall not be in town till October

Notes

1. Henry Herbert Southey had been elected a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians on 25 June 1823; the London Gazette, 1 July 1823, announced he had been appointed a Physician in Ordinary to George IV.[back]

2. John George Phillimore (1808–1865; DNB), the eldest surviving son of Joseph Phillimore. Like his father he was educated at Westminster School (1817–1824) and Christ Church, Oxford (BA 1828, MA 1831). In later life he was variously a Clerk at the Board of Control 1827–1832, a barrister and a Liberal MP for Leominster 1852–1857. In 1820 Phillimore had passed ‘The Challenge’ examination and become one of 40 King’s Scholars at Westminster. They had their own house known as ‘College’ and considerable privileges, including the right to proceed to closed scholarships at Trinity College, Cambridge, or Christ Church, Oxford.[back]

3. Sati was the practice of ritual suicide by widows. A prolonged campaign by evangelicals and Bengali intellectuals was attempting to ban sati, but it was not legally prohibited in British-controlled India until 1829–1830.[back]

4. Afonso de Albuquerque (1453–1515), Governor of Portuguese India 1509–1515, banned sati in the Portuguese colony of Goa.[back]

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4046. Robert Southey to Charles Watkin Williams Wynn, 18 July 1823

4046. Robert Southey to Charles Watkin Williams Wynn, 18 July 1823

The Collected Letters of Robert Southey: Part Seven

Lynda Pratt, Ian Packer