4098. Robert Southey to [Caroline Bowles], Wednesday evening [probably 3 December 1823]
Endorsement: [illegible]
MS: British Library, Add MS 47889. ALS; 3p.
Unpublished.
Dating note: This letter was written on a ‘Wednesday evening’ in December 1823; as Southey had procured a frank for Caroline Bowles, he must have been in London, rather than Streatham, making 3 December the most likely date.
I have procured a frank for you, but alas it is not so easy to find time for filling it, in this abominable city. Would I that were out of it, – I had almost said never to return to it again.
My present plans are to start for Exeter on the third of January, & in about a fortnight afterwards set out from Taunton to Salisbury as the nearest way to you, consistent with my movements. If I find no ready conveyance from Salisbury, I will take chaise rather than lose time. How glad I shall be to set out upon that journey!
I asked your question of Blanco, but he is not acquainted with Naylor Burrard
& did not know the name.
It was John Coleridge into whose hands I put your two volumes that he might take care of them in the QR.
This he will do, & meantime he has done them a good office in the Christian Remembrancer,
& will do the like in the British Critic,
– for he is as much taken with them, as I expected & wished him to be.
The resemblance to Scotts Ivanhoe
– or rather the resemblance there to a plan which was dreamt of ten years at least before Scott wrote any of his tales, may easily be avoided & we may make the restoration of his estates depend upon the Barons war against King John.
I could also as the poem begins with the infancy of its chief personage – carry it on to his death. You will feel at once what may be done by describing the autumn & winter of an irregular life, – even in its most favourable form. But I have no time to say more – lest the postman with his bell should surprize me before I can fold up & seal
God bless you dear friend –
Yrs faithfully RS.
Wednesday evening.
