706. Robert Southey to Thomas Southey, [14 August 1802]*
Dear Tom
Your Agent has written to this effect. that he will honour your draft – that he will pay for the Charts when x called upon – & inform you when your journal is past. Moreover that your Copenhagen Prize Money is received.1 £16-0-6. which is just £8-0-3d a blow up, on your part not so bad a bargain if you recollect what it must have cost the Ordinance Office in cannon – without reckoning the expence of powder & shot. – Another letter which came the day of your departure I forwarded. here is also a note for you – from some gentleman at the Bush.2 perhaps I should have done well to open it – that if it were from Grove3 whom I now remember you expected here – I might have called upon him & shown him what civility lay in my power.
I have got your Spanish Grammar. you talked of sending it with some linen – but you have laid aside none. What will you have sent? let me know & it shall be shipped with the Grammar by the first Coach. that I may compleat the matter of business there only remains to mention Joe.4 Jaw as Bella5 calls him is out of spirits & wants his master sadly. What with this & his scurvy his appetite is very bad – we gave him milk this morning & he made a tolerable breakfast. King says his gums should be scarified – the operation I should as little like to perform as Jaw would to endure. Miss Phillott6 is gone to our loss – we found out the trees before she went. the rest of our acquaintance, including Smut,7 are as you left them. Wynn is drawing near me upon the Circuit & we shall probably meet somewhere – he wants the Mountain to go to Mahomet, but I wish Mahomet to come to the Mountain.8
In overhauling a cargo of old letters the two which I received from your Uncle are come to light – one upon my fathers death civil & short – the other in reply to what I had written at Taunton – to borrow money. In this he seems offended that I had never deigned to notice him before. odd enough. & he enters into a statement of his brothers9 conduct to him – in which they do not seem to have used him well. but that was not our fault. tis a hard hearted letter – yet rather produced by feelings that were hurt than indicating a want of feeling.
If you take a journey in the West go this route – over Quantock to Stowey – thence to Minehead 6 – Porlock 12 & Lymouth where is the Valley of Stones. I cannot direct you back – but there is a way thro Dulverton or Wivelscombe which is said to be beautiful. if Satanella the crooked-backed Mule were here I should like to meet you for that is a lovely country. Even the Lakes do not exceed Porlock. in going thence to Lymouth keep the road by the channel side instead of crossing Exmoor. you must have a guide. my stupid one took me over the Moor – & so I lost the finest part.10
farewell. I am going to Kehama11 – in which if the fit holds I shall soon make good progress. – tell me your goings on – & write soon that we may know what to send you. – King is going to analize the Boiling Well – & catch the air bubbles there.12 If I had a manufactory of such air as he has would I look after any other! –
God bless you – RS.
Saturday.
Notes
Address: To/ Thomas Southey Esqr / with John Southey Esqr / Cottage / Taunton
Postmark: 122/ BRISTOL/ AUG 1[illegible] 802
Endorsements: Bridens, Charing Cross
–; Prittock. Lord Kings to Lymouth. Culbone –; Remember your promise; 787 – Mrs Nollski,
Rijse journey/ 426 – Kotzebue journey to
Paris/ Count Rumford, Philistines/ Essays 672; 53/ 31.800/100/ 293/ 2500 [Editors
note: A list of books, possibly items from a
catalogue. Mrs Nollski, Rijse and Philistines are unidentified; August von Kotzebue
(1761-1819), probably an account of his journey
to Paris in 1790; Benjamin Thompson, Count Rumford (1753–1814; DNB), Experimental Essays, Political,
Economical, and Philosophical, possibly the new edition of 1802.]
MS: British Library, Add MS
30927. ALS; 4p.
Unpublished.
Dating note: Content indicates this letter was written on a Saturday in mid August
1802. Back
1. Tom Southey had taken part in the Battle of Copenhagen on 2 April 1801, as a Lieutenant on HMS Bellona. He was slightly wounded. Back
2. The Bush Tavern in Corn St, Bristol. Back
3. Samuel Grove (d. 1817), naval officer and colleague of Tom Southey’s. Back
4. Tom Southey’s dog. Back
5. The Southeys’ servant, she died in 1804. Back
6. A friend of Southey and his brother’s, she was probably a member of a prominent family of professionals and tradesmen centred on Bath. She later became a Methodist; see Southey to Tom Southey, 1-5 January 1806, British Library, Add MS 47890. Back
7. A dog that belonged to Danvers. Back
8. A phrase first used by Francis Bacon, 1st Viscount St Albans (1561-1626; DNB), in ‘On Boldness’, Essays (1625). Southey noted the idea in Common-Place Book, ed. John Wood Warter, 4 series (London, 1849–1850), IV, p. 20, and intended to use it in the epic on Muhammad (570-632), Prophet of Islam, that he planned to write with Coleridge. Back
9. Southey’s father Robert, and his uncle Thomas. The ill feeling may have been generated by the failure of their drapery business. Back
10. Southey had walked a similar route in August 1799; see Common-Place Book, ed. John Wood Warter, 4 series (London, 1849–1850), IV, pp, 520-522. Back
11. The Curse of Kehama, published in 1810. Southey had begun drafting Book 2 on 4 June 1802. Back
12. The Boiling-Well, a spring near Stoke’s Croft, Bristol. Back