132. Robert Southey to Richard Duppa, [12 July 1795]*

Poor Seward! I write to you Duppa with a strange sinking of the heart. he introduced me to you — he purified & strengthened my heart — & he has left a vacancy there which will not easily be supplied.

Of my Joan of Arc. the bookseller who has purchased the copy right will have a frontispiece.¹ & he talks of about thirty guineas as the expence of designing & engraving. will you get this done for me? you can enter into the design character & conceive my ideas, these are the lines as narrated by the Maid.

Last evening lorn in thought I wandered forth.Down in the dingles depth there is a brookThat makes its way between the craggy stonesMurmuring hoarse murmurs. on an aged oakWhose root uptorn by tempests overhangsThe stream, I sate & markd the deep red cloudsGather before the wind, while the rude dashOf waters rockd my senses, & the mistsRose round. there as I gazed a Form dim seenDescended, like the dark & moving cloudsThat in the moon-beam change their shadowy shapes.His voice was on the breeze. he bade me hailThe missiond Maid — for lo! the hour was come.Then was the future present to my viewAnd strange events yet in the womb of TimeTo me made manifest. I sate entrancedIn the beatitude of heavenly vision. ²

I should give you the lines expressing the character of Joan after she had once been awakened to patriotism.

From that night I could feel my burthend soulHeaving beneath incumbent Deity.I sate in silence musing on the daysTo come. anon my rapturd eye would glanceA wild prophetic meaning. I have heardStrange voices in the evening wind — strange FormsDimly-discoverd, throngd the twilight sky.They wondered at me who had known me onceA chearful careless Damsel. I have seenTheodore gaze upon me wistfullyTill he did weep. I would have told him allThe mighty future labouring in my breastBut that methought the hour was not yet come.

————

shunning every eyeI loved to wander where the forest shadeFrownd deepest, there on mightiest deeps to broodOf shadowy vastness such as made my heartThrob fast. anon I pausd & in a stateOf half expectance listend to the wind. ³

Underwood⁴ is in Bristol. & on seeing this subject he wishd Loutherbourg⁵ to design it. the size is quarto. & a good design well executed from such a subject would assist the work.

forgetting your number I enclose this to Bedford. will you be good enough to tell me if you can get this done for me & what you estimate the expence at. for artists use your own judgement & I am sure the design that you approve will please me.

God bless you.

what was it that killd my dear Edmund Seward? I wrote to him immediately on hearing of his illness. & William answerd it — for it arrived the very hour of his death. you know not how I esteemed & loved him nor the deep & lasting impression his death has made upon me.

direct to me at Mrs Sawiers. No 25 College Street Bristol.

the poem is in the press & will be deliverd on the first of January. I am anxious for its success — & a good deal is for Cottles sake the bookseller, a liberal worthy man. type & paper are very splendid. for the poetry I could say much myself.

yrs civically Robert Southey

I wish to have th a vignette engraved for a volume of poems. the subject from my Botany Bay Monologue.⁶ a female on the sea shore, at New Holland <gathering shells for lime>. Bedford will shew you the poem: Underwood thinks it a very good subject for Stodhart⁷ to design.

this is troubling you — but I believe you will feel pleasure in being busied for xxxxxxxx me

farewell.