The Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey
Robert Southey to John Rickman, 15 August 1827
“Keswick, August 15. 1827.
“I am about to reprint in a separate form such of my
stray papers as are worth collecting from the Quarterly Review, &c., beginning with two
volumes of Essays, Moral and
Political. For this I have the ![]()
| 306 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 53. |
![]()
double motive of
hoping to gain something by the publication*, and wishing to leave them in a
corrected state. Shall I print with them your remarks upon the economical
reformers in the Edinburgh Annual
Register of 1810, and your paper upon the Poor Laws? Certainly not if you have any intention
of collecting your own papers, which I wish you would do. But if you have no
such intention, or contemplate it at an indefinite distance, then it would be
well that so much good matter should be placed where it would be in the way of
being read; and there I should like it to be as some testimony and memorial of
an intimacy which has now for thirty years contributed much to my happiness,
and, in no slight degree, to my intellectual progress. In this case I will take
care to notice that the credit of these papers is not due to me, either
specifying whose they are, or leaving that unexplained, as you may like best. .
. . . .
“Your foresight concerning poor Mr. Canning has been sadly realised. Sorry I
am for him, as every one must be who had any knowledge of the better part of
his character. But I know that his death is not to be regretted, either for his
own sake or that of the country, for he had filled his pillow with thorns, and
could never again have laid down his head in peace. I do not disturb mine with
speculating what changes may or may not follow; nor, in truth, with any
anxieties about them. Perhaps
* This hope was not realised; they never paid their
expenses! |
![]()
![]()
| Ætat. 53. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 307 |
![]()
it may be desirable that the Whigs should be allowed rope
enough, and left to plunge deeper and deeper in the slough of their Irish
difficulties. They can never satisfy the Macs and the great O’s without
conceding everything which those gentlemen please to demand, and that cannot be
done without bringing on a civil war.
“I am about to write a Life of General Wolfe*, which will be prefixed to his
letters. The letters will disappoint every one. Can you tell me or direct me to
anything that may assist me in it? There is the taking of Loisbourg, and the
campaign in which he fell. The rest must be made up by showing the miserable
state of the army; his merits as a disciplinarian, being in those days very
great; my memorabilia concerning Canada, abundance of which are marked in books
which I read long since, and by whatever other garnish I can collect. My pay
for the task-work is to be 300 guineas.
“God bless you!
George Canning (1770-1827)
Tory statesman; he was foreign minister (1807-1809) and prime minister (1827); a
supporter of Greek independence and Catholic emancipation.
John Rickman (1771-1840)
Educated at Magdalen Hall and Lincoln College, Oxford, he was statistician and clerk to
the House of Commons and an early friend of Charles Lamb and Robert Southey.
James Wolfe (1727-1759)
English military officer, the hero of the Battle of Quebec.
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.
