The Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey
Robert Southey to Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 12 March 1804
“Greta Hall, March 12. 1804.
“Your going abroad appeared to me so doubtful, or,
indeed, so improbable an event, that the certainty comes on me like a surprise,
and I feel at once what a separation the sea makes; when we get beyond the
reach of mail coaches, then, indeed, distance becomes a thing perceptible. I
shall often think, Coleridge,
Quanto minus est cum reliquis versari quam
tui meminisse! God grant you a speedy passage, a speedy
recovery, and a speedy return! I will write regularly and often; but I know by
Danvers, how irregularly letters
arrive, and at how tedious a time after their date. Look in old Knolles before you go, and read the siege of
Malta, it will make you feel that you are going to visit sacred ground. I can
hardly think of that glorious defence without tears. . . . .
“You would rejoice with me were you now at Keswick, at
the tidings that a box of books is safely harboured in the Mersey, so that for
the next fortnight I shall be more interested in the news of
Fletcher* than of Bonaparte. It contains some duplicates of the lost cargo; among
them the collection of the oldest Spanish poems, in which is a metrical romance
upon the Cid. I shall sometimes want you
for a Gothic etymology. Talk of the happiness of
* The name of a Keswick carrier. |
![]()
![]()
| 272 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 29. |
![]()
getting a great prize in the lottery! What is that to the
opening a box of books! The joy upon lifting up the cover, must be something
like what we shall feel when Peter the Porter opens the
door upstairs, and says, Please to walk in, sir. That I shall never be paid for
my labour according to the current value of time and labour, is tolerably
certain; but if any one should offer me 10,000l. to
forego that labour, I should bid him and his money go to the devil, for twice
the sum could not purchase me half the enjoyment. It will be a great delight to
me in the next world, to take a fly and visit these old worthies, who are my
only society here, and to tell them, what excellent company I found them here
at the lakes of Cumberland, two centuries after they had been dead and turned
to dust. In plain truth, I exist more among the dead than the living, and think
more about them, and, perhaps, feel more about them. . . . . Moses has quite a passion for drawing, strong
enough to be useful were he a little older. When I visit London, I will set him
up in drawing-books. He was made quite happy yesterday by two drawings of
Charles Fox, which happened to be in
my desk, and to be just fit for him. The dissected map of England gives him his
fill of delight, and he now knows the situation of all the counties in England
as well as any one in the house, or, indeed, in the kingdom. I have promised
him Asia; it is a pity that Africa and America are so badly divided as to be
almost useless, for this is an excellent way of learning geography, and I know
by experience that ![]()
| Ætat. 29. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 273 |
![]()
what is so learnt is never forgotten.
. . . . You would be amused to see the truly Catholic horror he feels at the
Jews, because they do not eat pork and ham, on which account he declares he
never will be an old clothes man. Sara
is as fond of me as Dapper is, which is saying a
good deal. As for Johnny Wordsworth, I
expect to see him walk over very shortly; he is like the sons of the Anakim. No
M. Post yesterday, none to-day;
vexatious after the last French news. I should not suppose Moreau guilty; he is too cautious a general to
be so imprudent a man. . . . .
Cid [Rodrigo D'Az de Vivar] (1030 c.-1099)
Spanish hero who defeated the Moors at Valencia; his deeds were recorded in the
twelfth-century
Poema de mio Cid and the play by Corneille.
Hartley Coleridge [Old Bachelor] (1796-1849)
The eldest son of the poet; he was educated at Merton College, Oxford, contributed essays
in the
London Magazine and
Blackwood's, and
published
Lives of Distinguished Northerns (1832).
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834)
English poet and philosopher who projected
Lyrical Ballads (1798)
with William Wordsworth; author of
Biographia Literaria (1817),
On the Constitution of the Church and State (1829) and other
works.
Sara Coleridge (1802-1852)
The daughter of Samuel Taylor Coleridge; in 1829 she married Henry Nelson Coleridge
(1798-1843); she translated, edited her father's works, and wrote for the
Quarterly Review.
Charles Danvers (1763 c.-1814)
Bristol wine merchant, a friend and correspondant of Robert Southey.
Charles James Fox (1749-1806)
Whig statesman and the leader of the Whig opposition in Parliament after his falling-out
with Edmund Burke.
Richard Knolles (d. 1610)
English historian and translator; author of
The Generall Historie of
the Turkes (1603).
Jean Victor Marie Moreau (1763-1813)
French general who defeated the Austrians at Hohenlinden (1800) and was later exiled by
Napoleon.
Emperor Napoleon I (1769-1821)
Military leader, First Consul (1799), and Emperor of the French (1804), after his
abdication he was exiled to Elba (1814); after his defeat at Waterloo he was exiled to St.
Helena (1815).
John Wordsworth (1803-1875)
The son of William Wordsworth, educated at New College, Oxford; he was the rector at
rector of Moresby, near Whitehaven (1828), Brigham (1832-75) and Plumblands (1840-75) in
Cumberland.
Morning Post. (1772-1937). A large-circulation London daily that published verse by many of the prominent poets of
the romantic era. John Taylor (1750–1826), Daniel Stuart (1766-1846), and Nicholas Byrne
(d. 1833) were among its editors.
