Address: To/ J Rickman Esqre/ Post Office/ Portsmouth
Postmarks: FREE/ 12 SE 12/ 1823; F. SE/ 12/ 1823
Endorsement: RS to JR/ xxx 1823
MS: Huntington Library, RS 443. ALS; 3p.
Previously published: John Wood Warter (ed.), Selections from the Letters of Robert Southey, 4 vols (London, 1856), III, pp. 400–401.
Among the many reasons which concurred in delaying my reply to your last, the most important, was that I had an opportunity of shewing Wordsworth 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.
You will see that I have made all the alterations which you suggested. Menäi certainly sounds better than Mēnai.
(2)
‘Inscription for a Tablet at Banavie’, line 12.
What the Welsh pronunciation is I know not – Gwalchmai is strongly aspirated upon the X.
(3)
Gwalchmai ap Meilyr (fl. 1130–1180) was a Welsh poet from Anglesey, who was mentioned in Madoc (1805), Part One, Book 11, line 59. Gwalchmai was not mentioned in ‘Inscription for a Tablet at Banavie’ and Southey is probably using the name here as an example of how to pronounce the ‘ai’ in ‘Menai’ in Welsh.
The inscription is improved by curtailing it. The same good effect is produced in the first by striking out the lines to which you object concerning the parents glad return.
(4)
In the version sent here to Rickman, ‘At Clachnacarry’ was shortened by omitting various lines, including, at line 20, ‘& children there/ Welcome their parents glad return, who else/ Had clung around a widowd mothers knees,/ Mingling their tears with hers’.
With regard to the cry against expenditure, I more than doubted whether the lines were properly introduced there, & have therefore altered the passage.
(5)
‘At Clanchacarry’ lines 25–28, praised the government for its expenditure on the Caledonian canal. In the published version, Southey omitted his criticism of ‘Of parsimonious policy unwise/ With the Senate even as with the multitude’.
It will be time enough however to send you the two others in their corrected form hereafter. – Glede is in common use with us, & certainly a preferable word to kite.
(6)
‘At Fort Augustus’, line 1; Southey changed ‘kite’ to ‘glede’.
Ger-falcon I take to be derived from the Arabic thro the Spanish & Portugueze – Girafalte.
(7)
The gyrfalcon is the largest of the falcons and a rare visitor to Scotland. Its name is derived either from the old German word ‘gir’, meaning ‘vulture’, or the Latin ‘gyrus’, meaning ‘curved path’. ‘Girafalte’ is the Portuguese word for the gyrfalcon.
I am reading the Saxon Chronicle.
(8)
James Ingram, (1774–1850; DNB) The Saxon Chronicle, with an English Translation and Notes, Critical and Explanatory. To which are added Chronological, Topographical and Glossarial Indices; a Short Grammar of the Anglo-Saxon Language; a New Map of England During the Heptarchy; Plates of Coins etc. (1823). Southey possessed two copies, nos 2593 and 2594 in the sale catalogue of his library.
The poems incorporated in it are much more difficult than the prose: but I must have more insight into the language before I can explain the cause. When I shall have finished this, I mean to begin upon the Gothic gospels,
(9)
Edward Lye (1694–1767; DNB) and Erik Benzelius (1675–1743), Sacrorum Evangeliorum Versio Gothica (1750), no. 924 in the sale catalogue of Southey’s library.
– & then the Edda.
(10)
Edda Saemundar hinns Froda. Edda Rhythmica seu Antiquior, Vulgo Saemundina Dicta (1787–1828), no. 918 in the sale catalogue of Southey’s library.
I shall then be able to what there is in the Minnesingers & the old German metrical romances,
(11)
Johann Jakob Bodmer (1698–1783), Sammlung von Minnesinger aus dem Schwaebischen Zeitpuncte: CXL Dichter Enthaltend (1758–1759), no. 2586 in the sale catalogue of Southey’s library.
– & then I will need no farther preparation for beginning the history of English manners & literature; subjects which I think may well be combined, because it is chiefly in the latter that the former are preserved.
(12)
This project did not result in a book; Southey’s surviving notes towards it were posthumously published as ‘Collections for the History of Manners and Literature in England’, Common-Place Book, ed. John Wood Warter, 4 series (London, 1849–1850), I, pp. 439–578.
There is a rumour that Mr Telford will be in this parts to plan the road across Alston Moor.
(13)
Telford planned the road from Carlisle to Glasgow (1815–1823), but he was not involved in building the road across Alston Moor.
If you have an opportunity pray tell him that I shall certainly not be absent a single night from home till the beginning of November. Last year I mist him, by accepting an invitation to meet Mr Canning; – & the vexation which this gave me, made me I believe the less unwilling to decline the xxxx xxx a similar invitation last week.
God bless you
RS.
Keswick. 9 Sept.
