The Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey
Robert Southey to C. W. W. Wynn, 7 December 1816
“. . . . . Is there not something; monstrous in taking
such a subject as the Plague in a
Great City?* Surely it is out-Germanising the Germans. It is like
bringing racks, wheels, and pincers upon the stage to excite pathos. No doubt
but a very pathetic tragedy might be written upon “the Chamber of the
Amputation,” cutting for the stone, or the Caesarean operation; but
actual and tangible horrors do not belong to poetry.
![]()
![]()
| 228 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 43. |
![]()
We do not exhibit George
Barnwell upon the ladder to affect the gallery now, as was
originally done; and the best picture of Apollo flaying Marsyas, or
of the Martyrdom of St. Bartholomew would be regarded as
more disgusting than one of a slaughterhouse or of a dissecting-room.
“What news to-morrow may bring of Monday’s
riots, God knows,—the loss of some lives, I expect; and this I am sure
of, that if Government refrain much longer from exerting those means which are
intrusted to it for the preservation of public security, the alternative will
be, ere long, between revolution and a military system.
“Dec. 8. 1816.
“I am more sorry than surprised to see so many sailors
in the mob. It has always been the custom to disband as many men as possible at
the conclusion of a war, but there has been often a great cruelty in this; and
in the present instance a great and glaring impolicy. The immediate cause of
that distress which was felt in the beginning of the year, was an enormous
diminution of the national expenditure; the war, a customer of fifty millions,
being taken out of the market, and consequently a great number of hands put out
of employ, Now surely to spend less, and turn off more hands, is only an Irish
way of remedying this.
“You, who know how much my thoughts have been led
towards the subject, will not be surprised to hear that I am writing Observations upon the Moral and Political State of
England. What I have ![]()
| Ætat. 43. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 229 |
![]()
at different times
written in the Quarterly has
sometimes been mutilated, and was always written under a certain degree of
restraint to prevent mutilation. But I have heard of these things from many
quarters, and seen that where the author was not suspected they have produced
an impression. And I am disposed to think it not unlikely that I may do some
present good, and almost certain that if the hope be disappointed for the
present, it must sooner or later take effect. There is plenty of zeal in the
country, and abundance of good intentions, which, if they were well directed,
might be of infinite service. There are great and sore evils which may
certainly be alleviated, if not removed; and there are dangers which we ought
to look fairly in the face. I have nothing to hope or fear for myself, and the
sole personal consideration that can influence me is the desire of acquitting
myself at least of the sin of omission. Better that a candle should be blown
out than that it should be placed under a bushel. Whether I am ripe in judgment
must be for others to determine; this I know, that I am grown old at heart. I
bore up under the freshness of my loss with surprising strength, and still
carry a serene front; but it has changed me more than years of bodily disease
could have done; and time enough has now elapsed to show how very little it
will ever effect in restoring my former nature. It is a relief and a comfort to
employ myself usefully, or at least in endeavouring to be useful. God bless
you, my dear Wynn!
Yours most affectionately,
R. S.”
John Wilson [Christopher North] (1785-1854)
Scottish poet and Tory essayist, the chief writer for the “Noctes Ambrosianae” in
Blackwood's Magazine and professor of moral philosophy at Edinburgh
University (1820).
Charles Watkin Williams Wynn (1775-1850)
The son of Sir Watkin Williams Wynn, fourth baronet; educated at Westminster and Christ
Church, Oxford, Robert Southey's friend and benefactor was a Whig MP for Old Sarum (1797)
and Montgomeryshire (1799-1850). He was president of the Board of Control (1822-28).
The Quarterly Review. (1809-1967). Published by John Murray, the
Quarterly was instigated by Walter
Scott as a Tory rival to the
Edinburgh Review. It was edited by
William Gifford to 1824, and by John Gibson Lockhart from 1826 to 1853.
