4096. Robert Southey to William Peachy, 28 November 1823

Address: To/ Major-General Peachy/ Post Office/ Bath
Stamped: KESWICK/ 298
Postmark: E/ 7 OC 7/ 1823
MS: British Library, Add MS 28603. ALS; 4p.
Unpublished.

Q Anne Street. 28 Nov. 1823

My dear Sir

Were I to delay answering your letter till I could do it in comfortable leisure, Heaven only knows when it would be answered. I must therefore xxxxxx rely upon your goodness for excusing a brief & hurried reply, – & proceed at once to state all I know upon the points concerning which you inquire.

When I wrote to you concerning a monument for M^r Edmondson,

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it was in consequence of a conversation with Calvert, to whom I started the subject, at a time when he was thinking of proposing it to me. We did not know that the same feeling had been expressed on the day of the funeral, by the persons who had been invited to it, & that each of some twenty of them had immediately subscribed half a guinea each, the intention being that the subscription should be limited to that sum. I have heard since my arrival in town that that intention is given up, that M^r Stanger has put down his name for 2 £, & his sons

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there for 1 £ each. & this is all I know. M^r Dentons

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monument cost something about forty pounds. I do not suppose that the persons who manage the affair (whoever they are) will think of incurring any unnecessary expence, a public testimony to the worth of a man most exemplary in his station is what is wanted & intended; – a matter of gratitude & feeling, – not of ostentation, – something which may hold up an example to the living, by recording the merits of the dead.

I know something of M^r Arnold who was a fellow of Oriel,

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& is associated with a brother of Professor Bucklands (your friend) in an institution at Laleham, nearly opposite Staines.

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Buckland attends to the younger pupils in one house, & Arnold to the elder in his own. What his terms are I do not know, except that they are high, – as may be expected from a man who is a scholar of the very first order. Should you think seriously of placing Charles Edward

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there, it will be necessary to ascertain whether there be a vacancy for him, & whether M^r Arnold would take him for so short a term.

I know nothing of the three clergymen

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whom you mention.

You will easily imagine in what a giddy whirl of occupations & engagement I am involved. I shall not feel at rest till I get into the mail coach for my return, – I am now writing before breakfast & expect Lady Malet & the Miss Charters

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to call at half past ten that we go together to the Central School,

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where D^r Bell expects us. My table is covered with notes, – which must be answered, – my cloak-bag is full of papers tost in higgledy-piggledy by Sir Charles Doyle, which I must take out & bundle up, – the said cloak bag being in requisition because my daughter & I shift our quarters this afternoon from hence to Palace Yard, where we shall pass a week with M^r & M^rs Rickman. I am to meet Sir Humphry Davy & Davies Gilbert

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there at dinner, while Edith goes to the play with M^rs Charles Wynn & her daughters

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Our kindest remembrances to M^rs Peachy & Charles Edward. The Doctor would desire his; did he know how I am employed –

farewell my dear Sir
& believe me
always most truly yours
Robert Southey.

Notes

1. Southey to William Peachy, 4 October 1823, Letter 4066, discussing a proposed memorial tablet in St Kentigern’s church, Crosthwaite, for John Edmondson.[back]

2. James Stanger (1796–1866) and Joshua Stanger (1801–1854), both of whom had gone into their father’s old business in London.[back]

3. Isaac Denton (c. 1758–1820), Vicar of Crosthwaite, Keswick 1786–1820.[back]

4. Thomas Arnold (1795–1842; DNB), the educational reformer and Headmaster of Rugby School 1828–1842. He was a Fellow of Oriel College, Oxford 1815–1819, and had visited Southey in Keswick in 1818; see Southey to Herbert Hill, 2 October 1818, The Collected Letters of Robert Southey. Part Five, Letter 3199.[back]

5. Thomas Arnold’s sister, Frances Arnold (1790–1863), had married in 1816 the clergyman John Buckland (1785–1859), officiating Minister at St Mary’s, Hampton, Middlesex. The brothers-in-law set up a school in Laleham, Middlesex 1819–1828. John Buckland was the brother of William Buckland (1784–1856; DNB), clergyman, Reader in Mineralogy 1813–1856 and Geology 1818–1856 at the University of Oxford, and Britain’s foremost geologist.[back]

6. Charles Edward Henry (1807–1833), the younger of Peachy’s two stepsons.[back]

7. Unidentified.[back]

8. 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), the maternal uncle of the Charter sisters.[back]

9. The Central School in Baldwin’s Gardens, off Gray’s Inn Road, London, was a showpiece for Andrew Bell’s monitorial system of teaching.[back]

10. Davies Gilbert (1767–1839; DNB), the Cornish engineer, author, antiquarian, early patron of Humphry Davy and MP for Helston 1804–1806, and Bodmin 1806–1832. Southey may have met him before, at Bristol in 1799–1802, in connection with Davy and the Pneumatic Institution.[back]

11. Mary Williams Wynn had five daughters: Charlotte (1807–1869); Mary (1808–1869); Harriet (1812–1878); Emma (1814–1824) and Sidney (1818–1867). She also had two sons, Watkin (1816–1832) and Charles (1822–1896).[back]

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4096. Robert Southey to William Peachy, 28 November 1823

4096. Robert Southey to William Peachy, 28 November 1823

Notes

The Collected Letters of Robert Southey: Part Seven

Lynda Pratt, Ian Packer