The Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey
Robert Southey to Philip Henry Stanhope, 12 May 1834
“Thank you for Sir Robert
Peel’s speech. I do not wonder at the effect which it
produced. But could it be believed of any ministers, except the present, that
in the course of a week after the close of the debate in which that speech was
delivered, they should have returned to their old base policy of complimenting
and truckling to O’Connell?
“In reading that entertaining paper upon the ![]()
| Ætat. 58. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 233 |
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modern
French drama in the last Quarterly
Review, I fancied that we were obliged to you for it. It is indeed,
curiously characteristic of the people and the times.
“You will, I think, be pleased with the forthcoming
play upon the history of
Philip van Artevelde. The subject
was of my suggesting, as eminently dramatic, and the first part (which is all
that I have seen), is written with true dramatic power. But so was the
author’s former tragedy, Isaac
Comnenus, which met with few readers, and was hardly heard of. To
obtain immediate popularity an author must address himself to the majority of
the public—and the vulgar will always be the majority,—and upon
them the finer delineations of character and of human feeling are lost.
“If you have not seen Zophiel* it is well worth your reading, as
by far the most original poem that this generation has produced. If
—— or —— had treated the same
subject, they would have made it most mischievously popular; but exceptionable
as it is, the story is told with an imaginative power to which the one has no
pretensions, and with a depth of feeling of which both were by nature
incapable. The poem has attracted no notice; the chief cause of the present
failure I suppose to be that it is not always perspicuously told. The diction
is surprisingly good; indeed, America has never before produced any poem to be
compared with it.
“The authoress (Mrs.
Brooks) is a New Englander,
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| 234 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 58. |
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of Welsh parentage. Many years ago she introduced herself
to me by letter. When she came to this place, and sent up a note to say she had
taken lodgings here, I never was more surprised, and went to call upon her with
no favourable expectations. She proved, however, a most interesting person, of
the mildest and gentlest manners, and my family were exceedingly taken with
her. Coming fresh from Paris she was full of enthusiasm for the Poles, for whom
the profits of this poem were intended if there should be any: and she had a
burning thirst for fame, which seems now to have become the absorbing passion
of her most ardent mind. I endeavoured to prepare her for disappointment by
moderating her confident hopes. She left her manuscript in my hands at her
departure. When I had failed to obtain a publisher for it, some of her American
connections engaged with a bookseller in Great Queen Street; and I corrected
the proof sheets.
“Believe me, my dear Lord,
Yours with sincere regard,
Robert Southey.”
Philip van Artevelde (1340 c.-1382)
The godson of English queen Philippa of Hainault who led a burgher's rebellion against
Count Louis II of Flanders; he is the subject of the tragedy by Henry Taylor (1834).
Daniel O'Connell (1775-1847)
Irish politician, in 1823 he founded the Catholic Association to press for Catholic
emancipation.
Philip Henry Stanhope, fifth earl Stanhope (1805-1875)
Historian and man of letters, the son of the fourth earl; he published
The History of England from the Peace of Utrecht to the Peace of Versailles,
1713-1783, 7 vols, (1836-53).
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.
