1609. Robert Southey to Henry Herbert Southey, 30 March [1809]*
My dear Harry
I have rather foolishly delayed writing to you for some days in full expectation of hearing from you, – for my Uncle told me you were about to take a wife home, – & I therefore concluded that every post would bring me a letter saying you meant to bring her this way. Now however I shall defer no longer informing you that you have another niece, who remains in an anonymous state, till a name be found for her.
Having promised Scott to visit him in May, my purpose is after remaining a week with him, or at the very farthest ten days, to take the road from Edinburgh to Durham, by which means I shall see Berwick & other places worth seeing. I hope my Uncle has not misunderstood you, that Sealy1 has done the wisest thing he could do, & that when I arrive at Doctor Southeys door that eminent Physician may be no longer a batchelor.
Yesterday I had letters from Tom dated off Cadiz – he had gone there in pursuit of the French, & was on the point of sailing Westward – to touch as he supposed at Madeira, & then perhaps make for Buenos Ayres.
Nine & twenty sheets of my History are printed, & I expect to have the volume out in July.2 Walter Scott has reviewed the Cid badly enough in the Quarterly,3 casting a doubt upon things certain, & applying to history the laws of romance. Turners reviewal in the Annual is better,4 but the printer has placed the middle of the article at the end. No books are so carelessly printed as Reviews. I am often at a loss to discover my own meaning there. Two articles have been bespoken of me for the second Quarterly,5 one upon Portugueze Literature, & one upon the state of society in the United States.6 My floor is covered with books of reference for this latter subject. The way of carrying on this review is to chuse subjects for the articles, & then enquire for books which may serve as texts for them!
As soon as you inform me that there is a Mrs H Southey to whom they may be directed, I shall give orders to have my whole regiment of two & twenty volumes put in one livery, to ornament a hanging shelf.
God bless you RS.
Thursday March 30.
Notes
Address: To/ Dr Southey/ Durham
Stamped: KESWICK/ 298
MS:
Keswick Museum and Art Gallery, KESMG 1996.5.60. ALS; 4p.
Unpublished. Back
1. Richard Sealy (c. 1752–1821) a wealthy Lisbon merchant, the father of Mary-Harriet Sealy, who married Henry Herbert Southey in 1809. Back
2. The first volume of Southey’s History of Brazil was published in 1810. Back
3. Southey’s The Chronicle of the Cid (1808) was reviewed by Scott in the Quarterly Review, 1 (1809), 117–134. Back
4. Sharon Turner reviewed Southey’s Chronicle of the Cid (1808) in the Annual Review for 1808, 7 (1809), 91–99. Back
5. For Southey’s letter requesting to write on these subjects, see Southey to John Murray, 18 March 1809, Letter 1602. Back
6. Southey’s review of Abiel Holmes (1763–1837), American Annals; or, a Chronological History of America, from its Discovery in 1492 to 1806, Quarterly Review, 2 (1809), 319–337. His review of Extractos em Portuguez e em Inglez; com as Palavras Portuguezas Propriamente Accentuadas, para Facilitar o Estudo d’Aquella Lingoa (1808) was published in the Quarterly Review, 1 (1809), 268–292. Back