The Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey
Robert Southey to Horace Walpole Bedford, 13 November 1793
“College Green, Bristol, Nov. 13. 1793.
“. . . . . I lay down Leonidas to go on with your letter. It
has ever been a favourite poem with me; I have read it, perhaps more frequently
than any other composition, and always with renewed pleasure: it possesses not
the “thoughts that breathe and words that burn,” but there
is a something very different from those strong efforts of imagination, that
please the judgment and feed the fancy without moving the heart. The interest I
feel in the poem is, perhaps, chiefly owing to the subject, certainly the
noblest ever undertaken. It needs no argument to prove this assertion.
“Milton is above
comparison, and stands alone as much from the singularity of the subject as the
excellence of the diction: there remain Homer, Virgil, Lucan, Statius,
S. Italicus, and V. Flaccus, among the ancients. I recollect no
others, and amongst
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| 192 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 19. |
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their subjects you will find none so interesting as the
self-devoted Leonidas.
“Among the moderns we know Ariosto, Tasso,
Camoens, Voltaire, and our own immortal Spenser; the other Italian authors in this line, and the
Spanish ones, I know not. Indeed, that period of history upon which Glover’s epics are founded is the
grandest ever yet displayed. A constellation of such men never honoured mankind
at any other time, or at least, never were called into the energy of action.
Leonidas and his immortal
band,—Æschylus, Themistocles, and Aristides the perfect republican,—even the satellites of
Xerxes were dignified by Artemisia and the injured Spartan, Demaratus. To look back into the page of
history—to be present at Thermopylæ, at Salamis, Platæa—to hear the
songs of Æschylus and the lessons of
Aristides—and then behold what Greece
is—how fallen even below contempt—is one of the most miserable
reflections the classic mind can endure. What a republic! What a province!
“If this world did but contain ten thousand people of
both sexes, visionary as myself, how delightfully would we repeople Greece, and
turn out the Moslem. I would turn crusader and make a pilgrimage to Parnassus
at the head of my republicans (N.B. only lawful head), and there reinstate the
Muses in their original splendour. We would build a temple to Eleutherian
Jove from the quarries of
Paros—replant the grove of Academus; aye, and the garden of Epicurus, where your brother and I would commence teachers; yes, your brother, for
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| Ætat. 19. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 193 |
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not comb out the powder and fling away the
poultice to embark in such an expedition, he deserves to be made a German
elector or a West India planter. Charles
Collins should occupy the chair of Plato, and hold forth to the Societas scientium
literariorum Studiosorum, (not unaptly styled the ‘Society
of knowing ones’); and we would actually send for —— to represent
Euclid. Now could I lay down my whole
plan—build my house in the prettiest Doric style—plant out the
garden like Wolmer’s, and imagine
just such a family to walk in it,—when here comes a rascal by crying
‘Hare skins and rabbit skins,’ and my poor house, which was built
in the air, falls to pieces, and leaves me, like most visionary projectors,
staring on disappointment. . . . . When we meet at Oxford, which I hope we
shall in January, there are a hundred things better communicated in
conversation than by correspondence. I have no object of pursuit in life but to
fill the passing hour, and fit myself for death; beyond these views I have
nothing. To be of service to my friends would be serving myself most
essentially; and there are few enterprises, however hazardous and however
romantic, in which I would not willingly engage.
“It was the favourite intention of Cowley to retire with books to a cottage in
America, and seek that happiness in solitude which he could not find in
society. My asylum there would be sought for different reasons, (and no
prospect in life gives me half the pleasure this visionary one affords); I
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be pleased to reside in a country where men’s
abilities would ensure respect; where society was upon a proper footing, and
man was considered as more valuable than money; and where I could till the
earth, and provide by honest industry the meat which my wife would dress with
pleasing care—redeunt spectacula mane—reason
comes with the end of the paper.
Yours most sincerely,
R. Southey.”
Aeschylus (525 BC c.-456 BC c.)
Greek tragic poet, author of
Oresteia and
Prometheus Bound.
Ludovico Ariosto (1474-1533)
Italian poet, author of the epic romance
Orlando Furioso
(1532).
Aristides [the Just] (530 c.-468 BC)
Athenian statesman who apportioned the contributions to the Delian League.
Artemisia I of Caria (480 BC fl.)
After the death of her husband she led ships under Xerxes at the battle of Salamis in 480
BC.
Grosvenor Charles Bedford (1773-1839)
The son of Horace Walpole's correspondent Charles Bedford; he was auditor of the
Exchequer and a friend of Robert Southey who contributed to several of Southey's
publications.
Luis de Camoens (1524 c.-1580)
Portuguese poet, author of the national epic,
The Lusiads
(1572).
Charles Collins (1777 c.-1806 c.)
A school friend of Robert Southey at Westminster School; he afterwards attended Christ
Church, Oxford and died young. The Alumni Oxonienses confuses him with his son.
Abraham Cowley (1618-1667)
English royalist poet; his most enduring work was his posthumously-published
Essays (1668).
Demaratus, king of Sparta (480 BC fl.)
After being deposed as king of Sparta in 491 BC he joined forces with Xerxes, warning him
not to underestimate the Greeks.
Epicurus (341 BC-270 BC)
Greek philosopher who defined the object of his science as the pursuit of
happiness.
Euclid (300 BC fl.)
Greek mathematician who lived in Alexandria; his
Elements forms
the basis of geometry.
Richard Glover (1712-1785)
Poet and opposition writer, MP for Weymouth (1761-85); he published the heroic poem
Leonidas (1737).
Homer (850 BC fl.)
Poet of the
Iliad and
Odyssey.
Leonidas (d. 480 BC)
Spartan king who led the Greek forces against the Persians and was killed at the battle
of Thermopylae.
Lucan (39-65)
Author of the epic poem
Pharsalia about the Roman civil
wars.
John Milton (1608-1674)
English poet and controversialist; author of
Comus (1634),
Lycidas (1638),
Areopagitica (1644),
Paradise Lost (1667), and other works.
Plato (427 BC-327 BC)
Athenian philosopher who recorded the teachings of his master Socrates in a series of
philosophical dialogues.
Silius Italicus (28 c.-103 c.)
Roman poet, author of the epic
Punica in seventeen books.
Edmund Spenser (1552 c.-1599)
English poet, author of
The Shepheards Calender (1579) and
The Faerie Queene (1590, 1596).
Torquato Tasso (1554-1595)
Italian poet, author of
Aminta (1573), a pastoral drama, and
Jerusalem Delivered (1580).
Themistocles (524 BC c.-459 BC c.)
Athenian statesman who commanded the Greek fleet against the Persians at Salamis.
Virgil (70 BC-19 BC)
Roman epic poet; author of
Eclogues,
Georgics, and the
Aenead.
Voltaire (1694-1778)
French historian and man of letters; author of, among many other works,
The Age of Louis XIV (1751) and
Candide (1759).
Xerxes I, king of Persia (d. 465 BC)
King of Persia (485-465 BC); the son of Darius whose fleet was destroyed by the Greeks at
the battle of Salamis in 480 BC.
