The Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey
Robert Southey to Margaret Holford Hodson, 16 November 1827
“Keswick, Nov. 16. 1827.
“My dear Madam,
“Mr. Charles Hodson may, perhaps,
have told you that I was likely to bring forward the rhymes of an old servant
for publication by subscription, and that, in that case, it was my intention to
solicit your assistance in procuring names for my list.
“The man’s name is John Jones,—it could not be a more unpoetical one, but he could
not help it,—the Muses have forgiven him for it, and so I hope will you. He
lives with Mr. Bruere of Kirkby Hall
near Catterick, and has served the family faithfully for twenty years.
Mr. Otter (the biographer of
Dr. Clarke) assures me of this.
Jones is just of my age, in his fifty-fourth year. If
I can get a tolerably good list of subscribers, I will offer the list and the
book to Murray, and get what I can for
it. The price may be from 7s. 6d.
to 10s. If we have any good success, something may be
obtained which would assist him in the decline of life.
“Do not suppose that I present him to notice as a
heaven-born genius, and that I have found another Bloomfield. There is enough to show that Nature had given him
the eye, and the ear, and the heart of a poet; and this is sufficient for my
purpose; quite so ![]()
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to render any reader satisfied that he
has bestowed his bounty well in subscribing to the volume. The good sense and
good feeling of the man are worth more than his genius; and my intention is to
take the opportunity for showing how much intellectual enjoyment, and moral
improvement in consequence, is within the reach of persons in the very humblest
ways of life; and this moral cultivation, instead of unfitting them for their
station, tends to make them perform their duties more diligently and more
cheerfully; and this I mean to oppose to the modern march of intellect,
directed as that is with the worst intentions and to the worst ends. This will
be the subject of my introduction, with some remarks upon the poetry of
uneducated men. Jones tells his own
story, and I am sure you will be pleased with it and his manner of telling it,
and with the simplicity and good sense of his letters.
“Reginald
Heber’s Journal (his East Indian one), will very soon be published. There
was a man whom the world could very ill spare; but his works and his example
will live after him. Alas! the works of the wicked survive them also; but the
example of thenlives too often is forgotten. My household desire their kindest
remembrances to you and Mr. Hodson, to
whom I beg mine also. We were some of us much the better for the Harrogate
waters, and, indeed, I myself continue to feel the benefit which I derived from
them.
Believe me, my dear Madam,
Yours with sincere regard,
Robert Southey.”
Robert Bloomfield (1766-1823)
The shoemaker-poet patronized by Capel Lofft; he wrote the very popular
The Farmer's Boy (1800).
William Sadleir Bruere (1780 c.-1831 fl.)
Of Kirky near Catterick in North Yorkshire; the son of William Bruere, Secretary of the
Government of Calcutta; educated at Harrow, Edinburgh, and Jesus College, Cambridge, he was
the employer of the poet John Jones. He was the brother-in-law of William Otter, Bishop of
Chichester.
Edward Daniel Clarke (1769-1822)
English traveler and collector, the younger brother of James Stanier Clarke; he was
professor of mineralogy at Cambridge (1808) and university librarian (1817). He published
Travels in various Countries of Europe, Asia and Africa
(1810-23) and corresponded with Byron.
Reginald Heber, bishop of Calcutta (1783-1826)
English poet and Bishop of Calcutta, author of
Palestine: a Prize
Poem (1807) and the hymn “From Greenland's Icy Mountains.” He was the half-brother
of the book-collector Richard Heber.
Septimus Hodson (1768-1833)
Educated at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, he was rector of Thrapstone,
Northamptonshire (1789-1828); his third wife was the poet Margaret Holford.
John Jones (1774-1836 fl.)
English poet and autodidact; the son of a gardener, he sent poems to Robert Southey in
1827, leading to the publication of
Attempts in Verse by John Jones, an
old Servant (1831).
John Murray II (1778-1843)
The second John Murray began the
Quarterly Review in 1809 and
published works by Scott, Byron, Austen, Crabbe, and other literary notables.
William Otter, bishop of Chichester (1768-1840)
Educated at Jesus College, Cambridge, where he befriended Thomas Malthus, he was
appointed by Lord Melbourne to the bishopric of Chichester in 1836. Sydney Smith described
him as “a thoroughly good and amiable man, and as liberal as a bishop is permitted to
be.”
