4117. Robert Southey to [John Taylor], [2 January 1824]

MS: Robert H. Taylor Collection, Princeton University Library. ALS; 2p.
Unpublished.
Dating note: This letter was written on the last Friday that Southey spent in London, before leaving for the West Country that evening, and visiting Nicholas Lightfoot in Crediton the following Wednesday, 7 January 1824.

Q. Anne Street. Friday Morning

My dear Sir

These are combustible sheets, & yet I do not see any thing which it is necessary to strike out.

⁽¹⁾

It does not strike me that any stroke is intended against the Old Testament:

⁽²⁾

allusions in the same spirit might be made by very religious men, & are in fact often found in such writers as Fuller, South & Warburton.

⁽³⁾

The argument in favour of tyrannicide may pass without danger. It is a question which in former times was regularly mooted in schools & Colleges; – & were I to declaim upon it, I should take Landors side of the question, – tho altogether opposed to his <intended> application of it. – But as he speaks only in generalities I would not expunge so fine a passage.

That speech of Cromwells he instanced in a letter to me, as a specimen of the manner in which (where it was possible) he endeavoured to make his characters think & express themselves, as they would have thought & spoken. – Will it not be sufficient to print it thus – In the name of the Lord, I will —— upon these firebrands.

⁽⁴⁾

& then no one will be surprized into reading the word aloud. I do not object to the manner in which the sentence begins because it is thoroughly characteristic, & every reader will perceive that it is so.

From Wednesday till Monday next I shall be at the Rev^d N. Lightfoot’s, Crediton, Devonshire. Thex After that day not stationary any where till the 21^st when I hope to return to London for 48 hours.

Yrs very truly
Robert Southey.

Notes

1. Southey was helping to censor Walter Savage Landor’s Imaginary Conversations, 2 vols (London, 1824) for publication. This section dealt with Dialogue V, I, pp. 55–65, between Oliver Cromwell (1599–1658; Lord Protector 1653–1658; DNB) and ‘Walter Noble’, Landor’s misnaming of his own ancestor, Michael Noble (1591–1649), MP for Lichfield 1640–1649. Their debate centred on whether Charles I (1600–1649; King of Great Britain 1625–1649; DNB) should be executed.[back]

2. Cromwell’s arguments made use of Old Testament allusions, including ‘if Moses and his prophets commanded me to this villainy, I would draw back and mount my horse’ (Landor, Imaginary Conversations, 2 vols (London, 1824), I, pp. 59–60).[back]

3. Thomas Fuller (1608–1661; DNB), Robert South (1634–1716; DNB) and William Warburton (1698–1779; DNB), Anglican controversialists, historians and theologians.[back]

4. This line was printed as: ‘In the name of the Lord, I must piss upon these firebrands before I can make them tractable’ (Landor, Imaginary Conversations, 2 vols (London, 1824), I, p. 60).[back]

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4117. Robert Southey to [John Taylor], [2 January 1824]

4117. Robert Southey to [John Taylor], [2 January 1824]

Notes

The Collected Letters of Robert Southey: Part Seven

Lynda Pratt, Ian Packer