1685. Robert Southey to John Murray, 28 September 1809*
Keswick. Sept 28. 1809.My dear Sir
In making use of some packing paper which came from your house, a note of yours has just been discovered, which slipt between some of the inner sheets, & so escaped observation when the parcel was opened. It has vexed me, – because you will have naturally concluded that I have been blamably inattentive to its contents, in not returning Knox1 as you desired. I am very sorry for the accident.
Your third number I have not yet seen.2 Mr Gifford will probably have told you that it is not in my power to do any thing for the next,3 – nevertheless it is better that I should have some materials before me, for change of employment sometimes has the effect of relaxation, & I might at intervals be preparing for the fifth.4
I am in daily expectation of our friend Duppa.
Yrs very truly Robert Southey.
Notes
Address: To Mr Murray/ Bookseller/ Fleet Street/
London
Stamped: KESWICK/ 298
Postmark: E/ OCT2/ 1809
Watermark: shield, 1803, T BOTFIELD
Endorsement: 1809 Sept
28th/ Southey R –
MS: National Library of Scotland, MS 42550. ALS; 2p.
Unpublished. Back
1. Vicesimus Knox (1752–1821; DNB) had edited Elegant Extracts; or, Useful and Entertaining Pieces of Poetry (1809). Back
2. Southey reviewed in the third number of the Quarterly Review, 2 (August 1809): Transactions of the Missionary Society in the South Sea Islands, 24–61; George Annesley, Viscount Valentia (1770–1844), Voyages and Travels to India, Ceylon, and the Red Sea, Abyssinia and Egypt in the Years 1802, 1803, 1804, 1805, and 1806 (1809), 88–126. Back
3. In fact the next number carried a review by Southey held over from the second, of Abiel Holmes (1763–1837), American Annals; or, a Chronological History of America, from its Discovery in 1492 to 1806 in the Quarterly Review, 2 (November 1809), 319–337. Back
4. Southey reviewed James Stanier Clarke (c. 1765–1834; DNB) and John McArthur (1755–1840; DNB), The Life of Admiral Lord Nelson, K.B. from his Lordship’s Manuscripts (1809); John Charnock (1756–1806; DNB), Biographical Memoirs of Lord Viscount Nelson, &c., &c., &c.; with Observations, Critical and Explanatory (1806); James Harrison (d. 1847), The Life of Lord Nelson (1806); T. O. Churchill (fl. 1800–1823), The Life of Lord Viscount Nelson, Duke of Bronté, &c (1808), in the Quarterly Review, 3 (February 1810), 218–262. His article was later expanded into a full-scale Life of Nelson (1813). Back