383. Robert Southey to Charles Watkin Williams Wynn, 25 February 1799*

My dear Wynn

If I had not letters written by you of a late date & a frank so late as the 20th the newspapers would have indeed alarmed me. I have seen your name in the Sun, Star & Courier as being on board the Proserpine.1 − this is a dreadful circumstance. I also have apprehensions of the same kind for a brother of Edith. lately wrecked on the Spanish coast, & about to return from Porto by way of Dublin. weeks are elapsed since he ought to have been here, & from the continued winds, & the accounts of wrecks innumerable in the Irish Channel, I have <reason for> very serious fears.

I could not help being startled at seeing your name. the probability of your going had before occurred to me, & then I began to think of all the possibilities that you might <have> left London at the latest period. however it is palpably impossible, & yet I shall be glad to see your handwriting.

You ask me about law. in Coke & Blackstone2 every passage is familiar to my eyes, to my mind they are not familiar because I have not the opportunity of applying them. for any thing but a Lawyer, my professional knowledge would I believe be great, & as a part of general information I should neither wish or want more. but this is not Lawyers enough. since the weather has broke I am sensibly better, but very different indeed from what I was twelve months ago in bodily strength. at present no person can be more unequal to any kind of application.

I expect to send you my book3 tomorrow. it appears to me very odd that people should think me careless of correction after what has been done to Joan of Arc –4

God bless you – yrs affectionately R Southey.

Feby. 25. 99.

Have you seen the Inscription for an Oak – & the Wig of the Scarecrow?5 there is a story in Plutarchs Morals of Pausanias which will make a fine ballad.6

Notes

Address: To/ C W Williams Wynn Esqr/ 5. Stone Buildings/ Lincolns Inn/ London
Postmarks: BRISTOL/ FEB 25 99; FE/ 26/ 99
Endorsements: Feb. 25 1799; Mr. Wynn
MS: National Library of Wales, MS 4811D. ALS; 3p.
Unpublished. Back

1.  The frigate Proserpine had been wrecked off Heligoland on 31 January 1799. Although the London newspapers had reported the presence of a Mr Williams Wynn on board, Southey had confused his friend with his older brother, Sir Watkin Williams Wynn (1772–1840; DNB). The passengers had also included Wynn’s uncle, Thomas Grenville (1755–1846). For an account of the sufferings of the passengers and crew see A Narrative of the Loss of His Majesty’s Ship the Proserpine, James Wallace, Esq. Captain. Compiled by John Wright, First Lieutenant (1799). Back

2.  Edward Coke (1552–1643; DNB), author of the four-part Institutes of the Laws of England (1628–1644); and William Blackstone (1723–1780; DNB), Commentaries on the Laws of England (1765–1769). Back

3.  Either Poems (1799) or Letters Written During a Short Residence in Spain and Portugal (1799). Back

4.  Joan of Arc had been heavily revised for the second edition of 1798. Back

5.  Southey was being slightly premature: ‘Musings On the Wig of a Scarecrow’ and ‘Inscription Under an Oak’ were published anonymously in the Morning Post on 21 and 27 February 1799, respectively. Back

6.  Plutarch (AD 46–120), Greek historian; Pausanias (d. 471 BC), a Spartan general haunted by the ghost of a young woman he had murdered. For Southey’s planned poem, see Common-Place Book, ed. John Wood Warter, 4 series (London, 1849–1850), IV, p. 163. Back