3593. Robert Southey to
[Wade
Browne](people.html#BrowneWade),
28 December 1820Address: To/ Wade Browne Esqre/ Ludlow
Stamped: KESWICK/ 298
MS: British Library,
Add MS 47891. ALS; 4p.
Previously published: Kenneth Curry (ed.), New
Letters of Robert Southey, 2 vols (London and New York, 1965), II, pp.
219–221.[Keswick](places.html#Keswick).28 Dec. 1820 My dear Sir The watch,A present for
Edith May Southey that Browne had ordered from Paris; see Southey to Edith May
Southey, 25–29 April 1820, Letter 3470. for which I have to return [my daughter
Edith’s](people.html#SoutheyEdithMay) best thanks, has been safely delivered by [M](people.html#SenhouseHumphrey)r Senhouse; & is now awaiting
[Ediths](people.html#SoutheyEdithMay)
return from [M](people.html#WordsworthWilliam)r Wordsworths, where she has been upon a long visit, &
whither I am going early in the next week, for the purpose of bringing her home.
Thank you also for the liberal supply of Quassey seeds,Probably seeds of the shrub, Quassia
amara. – for which I must not forget that Mr
PonsonbyJohn Ponsonby (dates unknown),
a retired officer in the Royal Navy who lived at Ormathwaite. desires me to
return his acknowledgements. I have given some to [Calvert](people.html#CalvertWilliam), [M](people.html#CrothersMrs)rs Crothers & [Wordsworth](people.html#WordsworthWilliam), so that
you have stocked the country. This reminds me of your garden & by an easy
connection, of a question which I found lately in one of St
Pierre’s works, which & which your friend Mr
Andrew KnightThomas Andrew Knight
(1759–1838; DNB), of Downton Castle, Herefordshire. He was a
leading horticulturist and botanist, and President of the London Horticultural
Society 1811–1838. is more likely to explain than any other person: – how
is the common fact to be accounted for, that a peach-stone is frequently found broken
to pieces in the fruit, the fruit itself having received no injury? St Pierre asks if it is caused by “electricity, vegetable or animal,” – with
reference I suppose to some of his fanciful theories.Jacques-Henri Bernardin de Saint-Pierre (1737–1814),
Harmonies of Nature, 3 vols (London, 1815), II, pp.
85–86. The fact is common enough, & I wonder at not having wondered at
it & asked myself the question before. The possible solution which occurs to me
is that the kernel may have grown too large for its shell & burst it: – there
must be some reason why the stone instead of being smooth like that of other fruit is
fretted with hollow-work; – it would give way, I think, more easily because of that
formation, to an internal force.
My radical neighbours here behaved well in their triumph for the
Queens escape from justice: they illuminated their own houses but did not molest the
half-dozen persons in the town who put up no light on the occasion.Under extreme pressure from George IV, the Cabinet
had reluctantly agreed to introduce a Bill of Pains and Penalties into the House
of Lords to deprive the King’s wife, Caroline of Brunswick (1768–1821;
DNB), of the title of Queen and to dissolve her marriage to the
King. On the Third Reading of the Bill on 10 November 1820, the government
majority was only nine votes and it seemed very unlikely the Bill could pass the
House of Commons. Lord Liverpool, the Prime Minister, therefore had announced the
Bill would be withdrawn. As was customary when a national victory was celebrated,
many householders put lighted candles in their windows. This occurred at different
dates in different towns, mostly between 11 November and 16 November 1820; in
Keswick the celebrations occurred on 15 November 1820. I was glad when the
night was over, having hardly expected to escape without a few stones. At all times I
would face a mob, & should do it by day-light with as much confidence as
WesleyJohn Wesley (1703–1791;
DNB). Southey’s The Life of Wesley; and the Rise and
Progress of Methodism, 2 vols (London, 1820) had included many
anecdotes of how ‘Wesley … never, on any occasion, lost his calmness or his
self-possession’ (II, p. 31) when faced with an angry mob. himself; – but
the chance of making any impression upon them would be very much lessened by
darkness. The eye has as much power as the voice, perhaps more; – & besides you
see to whom you <to> address yourself. – This mention of Wesley brings to
my mind a communication which I have recently received concerning him from the Dean
of Worcester,John Banks Jenkinson
(1781–1840; DNB), Dean of Worcester, 1817–1825, Bishop of St
David’s 1825–1840. affecting his character seriously very
seriously. It is the copy of one of those letters which Mrs
Wesley carried off when she finally separated from him.Mary Wesley (1709/10–1781). She was a widow at the time of her
marriage to John Wesley in 1751. The relationship was troubled and on 23 January
1771 Mary left her husband for the final time. She took with her ‘part of his
Journals, and many other papers, which were never restored’, Southey, The
Life of Wesley; and The Rise and Progress of Methodism, 2 vols (London,
1820), II, p. 302. The Dean vouches for its authenticity, & has given
me references by which to authenticate it. The letter is from one of his female
disciples,Elizabeth Briggs
(1751–1822), whose family were devout Methodists and close friends of John
Wesley. & bears strong marks of authenticity, – I am sorry to say. She
was a virtuous <young> woman over whose mind he had obtained the most unbounded
influence, & with whose person he, at the age of sixty five, had taken the most
unwarrantable liberties, – such as both to shock & alarm her, while she yet
remonstrates in the strongest language of reverence as well as affection: – I put it
in a green bagThe
evidence, much of it relating to sexual misconduct, in support of the Bill of
Pains and Penalties to deprive Caroline of Brunswick of her title of Queen and
dissolve her marriage to George IV, was famously presented to parliament in two
green bags. before I laid it upon the Ladies table below stairs for their
perusal & judgement. Should it prove authentic (which I fear it will do) I cannot
avoid making the fact public, & a very great stir it will inevitably excite.Southey went to great pains to investigate
the authenticity of his information; see Southey to [Glocester Wilson], 29
December 1820, Letter 3596. He eventually decided the matter was unproven and did
not publish it.
At present I am enjoying the proof sheets of my History of the
War,Southey’s History of the
Peninsular War (1823–1832). having received the first four on
Christmas day. This is a great pleasure. I have also sent to the press the poem in
hexametersA Vision of
Judgement (1821). of which you saw the commencement: they who
bear me no good will, will abuse both the metre & the matter; – which they may do
till their hearts ache without in the slightest degree affecting my tranquillity. The
first proof has not reached me yet, & I am curious to see how such long lines
will look in print. As I have something to say concerning the metre in a
preface,A Vision of
Judgement (1821), ‘Preface’, pp. ix–xxvii. the book will be
thick enough to make something more than a pamphlett, & therefore to be put in
boards & take an upright place upon the shelf. I trust you will receive it in the
course of four or five weeks.
[M](people.html#FrickerEdith)rs
S. & her sisters[Sara
Coleridge](people.html#FrickerSarah) and [Mary
Lovell](people.html#FrickerMary). desire their kindest remembrances. They & the
children[Edith May](people.html#SoutheyEdithMay), [Bertha](people.html#SoutheyBertha), [Kate](people.html#SoutheyKate), [Isabel](people.html#SoutheyIsabel) and [Cuthbert Southey](people.html#SoutheyCharlesCuthbert). are
at present, thank God, tolerably well. Winter is only now setting in, with keen, high
winds, which visit me far too roughly by the fire side. I hope you have good accounts
from Wade.Wade Browne (1796–1851), only
son of Wade Browne and later a country gentleman at Monkton Farleigh in Somerset.
He had graduated from Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1819 and was travelling in
Europe and the Near East. We shall begin soon to think of Turkey as a good
settled government. – The great Powers have a difficult task at this time – My advice
would be to let Naples, as well as Spain alone, – & the condition of both
countries would soon serve as an aweful warning.A series of liberal revolutions in Italy had begun with a
mutiny in Naples in July 1820. An army mutiny in Spain in January 1820 had led to
the restoration of the Constitution of 1812 in March 1820. Both countries, though,
were in considerable turmoil. The revolution in Naples was crushed by Austria in
1821, and that in Spain was ended by French intervention in 1823. Remember
me most kindly to [M](people.html#BrowneMrs)rs Browne & your daughters,Browne’s three daughters by his first marriage: Lydia (c.
1789–1864); [Elizabeth](people.html#BrowneElizabethdau); and [Sarah](people.html#BrowneSarah). – not forgetting
Mary,Mary (dates unknown), Browne’s
only child by his second marriage. & believe me
my dear Sir, yours very truly Robert Southey.