657. Robert Southey to John Rickman, [started before and continued on] 17 February [1802]*

My dear Rickman

I have ordered the Magazines¹ & think Symmonds slow in getting them ready.² The Chancellor has been ill & invisible for three weeks – I call daily & duly at his door, but I must preface your papers with a note, as God knows when he will vouchsafe another audience. Of course I give him the books – it is enough that you give me leave so to do. At the years end, he will not be able to say he has got nothing by me – if he studies your lucubrations he will learn more than he already knows.

This removal of Mr Abbott will it remove you to England?³ of course – unless he nominates you to some post as the best legacy he can leave the country. The Speakers Secretary⁴ has a very pretty house annexed to his office, which looketh to the Thames, near Westminster Bridge. I should willingly shake you by the hand in London – but growl confoundedly at passing six months without you among the Patricians⁵ – & without employment – for of course I cannot remove many books for so short a stay. I am not well. neither this place, nor this climate, suit me.

Your have received John Woodville.⁶ I retain my first opinion. it is delightful poetry badly put together. an exquisite picture in a clumsy frame. Margaret is a noble girl – the other characters not so well conceived. A better imitation of old language I have never seen – but was the language of the serving men ever the language of nature? Lamb has copied the old writers – I suspect that they did not copy existing characters. those quaint turns of words & quainter contortions of thought never could be produced by ignorant men. the main incident of the play – (the discovery) is too foolish – the effect produced too improbable. Withal so beautiful is the serious dialogue that it more than redeems the story. most I like the concluding scene.

I am half amused & half provoked by the civilities which my Secretaryship procures me. & receive them with an accurate sense of their value. I on my part also am more civil perhaps than usual. my wish is to get abroad, & I am old enough never to kick away the stone which I may want to step upon. abroad I must go – so says my head & my whole intestinal canal & my inclination. Lisbon of course is the place desirable. I would compound for Madrid. it is a hateful city – & only its books can atone for a bad situation both as to earth & heaven. If in October however I see no near chance of a legation Southward – as the world will be before me I shall seriously think of taking root in Portugal, & seriously labour to get money enough for a land journey from Bilboa or St Sebastians thro Biscay to Madrid & thence elbow out of the straight road to Toledo & Cordova. These speculations <plans> you see are post-obit speculations for the natural death of my office may be calculated upon.

Did I tell you how Burnetts Tutorship is like my Secretaryship – a happy sinecure. that his pupils have both eloped, & that he receives his salary for eating & drinking with Lord Stanhope, & talking late after supper?⁷ the Historians ambition is gone by – a passion for the utilities has succeeded, & we have given him the new title Professor of Mathematics. the Lord who is of <not only> a good man, but a very clever one, has many mechanical inventions to bring forward of which I suppose some one will fall to the share of Burnett & so make him lazy for life by a valuable patent. He is as happy as the Great Mogul. Of the other George I have more doleful tidings. Mary Lamb & her brother have succeeded in talking him into love with Miss Bengey or Bungey or Bungay; but they have got him into a quagmire & xx cannot get him out again, for they have failed in the attempt to talk Miss Bungay or Bungey or Benjey into love with him.⁸ this is a cruel business. for he has taken the infection, & it may probably soon break out in sonnets & elegies.

Wednesday 17. Feby.

I have got the Magazines home to day, written an Index to all your aliases, & sent them to the Chancellor[Corry] with a recommendatory epistle. You will at some time or other I hope collect those papers into a volume, their extensive circulation could not fail of producing great good, & at present they must necessarily be little known. They are merged in the Magazine, which has not character enough to be in request – & the Readers cannot possibly pay that attention to scattered papers under a dozen signatures which they would do to the volume of one author, where they would feel a consistancy & continue continuousness of opinions. A six shilling volume would contain them, or they might be printed at a cheaper & more serviceable price. now – three Magazine volumes must be purchased – & in decorum the first also. but the neat article is what is wanted. they that buy beef must buy bones – tis however xxx only in Portugal that they throw in bare bones to make weight.

Cottles Methodist.⁹ Some of the Sect in Bristol took its irony as sober serious opinion, & declared that the Author of such a wicked poem ought to be burnt!

farewell yrs truly Robert Southey.

I have tried vainly at an epitaph.¹⁰

Edith continues exceedingly unwell.¹¹ she has now been confined to the house nearly a month. I must think of removing her from London, however inconvenient.