Address: [deletions and readdress in another hand] To/ John Taylor Coleridge Esqre/ Ottery S t Mary’s <No 2. Pump Court>/XXXX/ Devonshire <Middle Temple>/ London
Stamped: KESWICK/ 298
Postmark: A/ 27 OC 27/ 1823
Endorsement: 1823/ Octr 27th/ R.S. Keswick
MS: British Library, Add MS 47553. ALS; 4p.
Previously published: W. Braekman, ‘Letters by Robert Southey to Sir John Taylor Coleridge’, Studia Germanica Gandensia, 6 (1964), 131–133.
As you are writing about Penitentiaries,
(1)
John Taylor Coleridge’s article appeared in Quarterly Review, 30 (January 1824), 404–440, published on 28 August 1824.
I will tell you what my brother Henry says to me in his last letter concerning the one at Millbank, where he is now officially employed.
(2)
Millbank prison had opened in 1816. The inmates were those who chose to serve a term of imprisonment rather than accept transportation to Australia. In 1822–1823 the prison was the site of a major epidemic and many prisoners were temporarily evacuated. Henry Herbert Southey was one of five doctors assigned to investigate the causes of the outbreak and treat the prisoners.
“I believe, he says, the whole system of that precious receptacle to be bad for the health, & bad for the morals of the prisoners; & if the government is wise, the place will be converted to some other use.” – Before you finish your paper, or at least before it goes thro the press, you may find it useful to have some conversation with him on the subject.
I heard from Gifford on the publication of the last number,
(3)
Quarterly Review, 29 (April 1823), published on 27 or 28 September 1823.
& for the first time since his illness. He tells me that he has promised Murray to try to conduct the Review as far as the 60th No.
(4)
Quarterly Review, 30 (January 1824), published 28 August 1824. In fact, Gifford edited one more issue, Quarterly Review, 31 (April 1824), published 30 December 1824 or 1 January 1825.
– that is for three numbers more; he has done this rather to satisfy Murray, than with any expectation of being able to effect it, but if he should reach <that> number, then he says “Adieu panniers, the vintage is over.”
(5)
An English translation of the French proverb, and refrain to a popular song, ‘adieu paniers, vendanges sont faites’.
I think your brother Edward
(6)
Edward Coleridge (1800–1883), a Master at Eton College 1825–1857, Fellow of Eton College 1857–1883 and Vicar of Mapledurham 1862–1883.
was misinformed, & that the matter of the succession is altogether unsettled.
(7)
When Gifford retired, he was briefly succeeded by John Taylor Coleridge.
A point into which I shall enquire ere long on the spot.
Your paper upon Pindar pleased me very much, before I knew whose it was.
(8)
A review of Abraham Moore (1766–1822), The Odes of Pindar, Translated from the Greek. With Notes, Critical and Explanatory. Part I (1822), by John Taylor Coleridge, Quarterly Review, 28 (January 1823), 410–430, published 8 July 1823. Pindar (c. 522–c. 443 BC) was a Greek lyric poet.
With regard to the translation, it seems to me that the manner of the original might be best expre resembled by a rhymeless lyric measure. I am truly glad Mrs Hemans has found in you an efficient friend,
(9)
The poet Felicia Hemans (1793–1835; DNB). John Taylor Coleridge had favourably reviewed her work in Quarterly Review, 24 (October 1820), 130–139, published 19 December 1820.
& wish you would do the same good office for a friend of mine, whom I very greatly esteem, & who, if she needs it less than Mrs Hemans as an individual, deserves it more as a Poetess. Ellen Fitzarthur & the Widows Tale
(10)
Bowles’s poems, Ellen Fitzarthur (1820) and The Widow’s Tale, and Other Poems (1822). Bowles was not reviewed in the Quarterly Review at this time.
are what she has published, both anonymously, but she is a namesake & relation of Bowles’s; a little timid creature, in such a state of health that she seems to be hovering between this world & the next, – but more estimable, & more interesting in mind & manners than I can describe. If reviewers were more aware of the serious good which it is their power to do, by bestowing pr commendation where it is well deserved, they would find less inclination to xxxx & less time for that species of wanton censure which produces nothing but evil.
The article upon Spain is by Blanco,
(11)
A review of Michael Joseph Quin (1796–1843; DNB), A Visit to Spain; Detailing the Transactions which Occurred during a Residence in that Country in the Latter Part of 1822, and the First Four Months of 1823. With an Account of the Removal of the Court from Madrid to Seville; and General Notices of the Manners, Customs, Costume and Music of the Country, by Joseph Blanco White, Quarterly Review, 29 (April 1823), 240–276, published 27 or 28 September 1823.
if you have not already discovered this, you will read it with more interest when you know it to come from a Spanish Protestant. The sentiments are exactly what I should have expressed, but I could not have expressed them better, nor with such an intimate & thorough knowledge of the subject.
Your friends
(12)
Thomas Rennell (1787–1824; DNB), a well-connected clergyman and scholar, and Vicar of Kensington 1816–1824, had married Frances Henrietta Delafield (1795–1874) on 14 October 1823. The couple were honeymooning in the Lake District.
have not yet reached Keswick, – I enquired for them at both Inns
(13)
The Royal Oak and the Queen’s Head in Keswick.
this morning. Never hesitate at drawing on me for such civilities. If I do not like the parties I have always excuse enough for showing as little notice as may be agreable; – but I am not fastidious, & you will send me no person who has not some good qualities to recommend him.
My Book of the Church will after all be finished at Streatham.
(14)
Southey’s The Book of the Church (1824). He undertook a long visit to London and various other locations November 1823–February 1824.
I am now approaching the last scene of Laud’s tragedy,
(15)
The Book of the Church, 2 vols (London, 1824), II, pp. 413–453, on the Bill of Attainder against, and execution of, William Laud (1573–1645; DNB), Archbishop of Canterbury 1633–1645.
which I shall finish tomorrow, & I must conclude the book with the Revolution & the fortunes of the Nonjurors
(16)
The Book of the Church, 2 vols (London, 1824), II, pp. 519–527, on the Revolution of 1688 and the separation from the Church of England of the nonjurors, who refused to accept the deposition of James VII and II (1633–1701; King of Great Britain 1685–1688; DNB).
– There it will be proper to wind up, for want of room, & also because what I should else say there, may find as convenient a place elsewhere. My daughter & I begin our travels on Monday Nov. 3d. [MS missing] travel with four Ladies
(17)
Louisa Charter, and Elizabeth Charter (1782–1860), friend of the poet George Crabbe (1754–1832; DNB). They were the sisters of Emma Peachy, first wife of William Peachy, and nieces of Sir Charles Malet (1752–1815; DNB), 1st Baronet, a prominent diplomat with the East India Company. Peachy had lent the Charter sisters his home on Derwent Island. They were accompanied by Lady Susanna Malet, née Wales (1779–1868), widow of Sir Charles Malet, 1st Baronet (1752–1815; DNB), maternal uncle of the Charter sisters. Their other companion was one of the three children born in India to Sir Charles Malet and Amber Kaur (b. 1772): Eliza (b. 1791); Henry Charles (1793–1844); and Louisa (b. 1795). They accompanied Malet to Britain in 1798 and were brought up with his children by Susanna Malet. Eliza Malet married, in 1812, Robert Ekins (1785–1874), Vicar of Godalming 1810–1833, Rector of Folke, Dorset 1833–1843, Perpetual Curate of North Wootton 1843–1854. Southey is probably referring here to Louisa Malet.
as far as Derby, & if the weather be favourable shall be a week in getting there, looking at the Yorkshire Caves, Gordal scar, Bolton Abbey, & the Peak
(18)
A limestone ravine in North Yorkshire; the ruins of a twelfth-century Augustinian monastery; and the Peak Cavern, near Castleton, Derbyshire, also known as the Devil’s Arse.
on our way. I shall then take Edith for a few days to Sir George Beaumonts & xxxxxxxxxx, & hope to reach London on the 15th. – This is now near enough in prospect to give me an uncomfortable sense of unsettledness. From the hour of my departure till I return again, there will be little rest for the sole of my foot, or the seat of my pantaloons. I have to travel East & West, far & wide, making visits in most of which the farewell will follow so close upon the welcome, that if I consulted my own feelings only, I should perhaps leave them unmade.
Sir T. Lethbridge is no connection of mine, but if John Southey’s daughter had left a son, Sir T.
(19)
Sir Thomas Lethbridge, 2nd Baronet (1778–1849), of Sandhill Park, Bishops Lydeard.
would not have had the Lethbridge property.
(20)
John Southey (1666–1728) was a distant relative of Southey’s – the uncle of Southey’s grandfather, Thomas Southey (1696–1777). John Southey married Mary Cannon (1678–1730), co-heiress to the Fitzhead estate in Somerset, and became a wealthy man. His daughter, Mary Southey (1704–1789), married Christopher Lethbridge (1685–1746), of Westaway House, Devon, and head of the Lethbridge family. They had one child, a daughter, Elizabeth Cannon Lethbridge (d. 1765). Southey believed that if the couple had produced a son, he would have inherited the Lethbridge property, which instead passed to Elizabeth…
She left a daughter who was mother to the late Lord Somerville; & upon his death the Southey property would have descended to me – if the will under which he succeeded to it, had been observed in other respects.
(21)
Elizabeth Cannon Lethbridge married Hugh Somerville (1729–1795) and left one child, John Southey Somerville, 15th Lord Somerville (1765–1819; DNB). He was heir to the property of John Southey (1666–1728) and Mary Cannon (1678–1730), including the Fitzhead estate. However, John Southey’s son, John Cannon Southey (d. 1768), who bequeathed his family’s property to his great-nephew, Lord Somerville, had left a complex, ill-advised will which tried to ensure that if Lord Somerville died without heirs, the Fitzhead estate would pass to Southey’s father and his two uncles, John and Thomas Southey. Of…
But after long litigation with one of my Uncles he set aside the provisions of the will, sold some of the estates, & bequeathed the rest to his half-brother.
(22)
Mark Somerville, 16th Lord Somerville (1784–1842).
The Fitzhead lease he sold also, leaving me a right to – a suit in Chancery for it. – Some of the estates lie in the parish of Bishops Lydiard, where my father was born.
(23)
The estate on which Southey’s father was born was actually Holford, which is in Lydeard St Lawrence; but another of the estates in question, East Combe, was in Bishops Lydeard.
Has your brother Henry tried the meadow saffron? a medicine by which wonders have been wrought in rheumatism.
(24)
Colchicum autumnale, also known as autumn crocus, or naked lady. Extracts from the plant are still used as a treatment for gout.
– Clarkson whom the disease had crippled has been compleatly restored by it. – I have promised Charles Kennaway one of my flying calls, – & will at the same time pay my respects at Ottery.
(25)
Ottery St Mary, home to many of the Coleridge family. Southey visited them in January 1824.
– Your Aunt is not improved in health, complaining still of affections in the head which I do not like to hear of. Sara is well, but more dispirited about her eyes than there seems any reasonable cause for. I have proposed that she should translate the Memoir of the Chevalier Bayard,
(26)
Sara Coleridge did produce this translation: The Right Joyous and Pleasant History of the Feats, Gests, and Prowesses of the Chevalier Bayard, the Good Knight without Fear and without Reproach (1825). Murray was the publisher. Unsurprisingly, Southey gave his niece’s book a glowing recommendation in Quarterly Review, 32 (October 1825), 355–397, published 25 October 1825.
& am expecting Murray’s answer. – God bless you –
Yrs faithfully
R Southey.
