779. Robert Southey to [Samuel Jackson Pratt], 5 May 1803*
Sir
I have to return you my thanks for a very elegant copy of verses in praise of an indifferent poem & the fine picture to which it has given rise.1 I am somewhat unwilling to send an unfranked letter of mere thanks – but that is better than to deserve an imputation of incivility.
I am Sir
yours very respectfully Robert Southey.
May 5. 1803. Bristol.
Notes
Endorsements: R Southey/ May 3; [later endorsement in a different hand] Dr Robert Southey/ Poet Laureate to/ W. IV. & Queen Victoria: author of the Book of
the Church; & the rise
of Dr. John Wesley,/ the pious & ilxxx & Xxxxed Relligionist
MS: Bodleian Library, MS Montagu d. 16. ALS; 1p.
Unpublished. Back
1. Samuel Jackson Pratt, Gleanings in England (London, 1803), p. 638. Pratt’s poem was in praise of Southey’s ‘Mary’, Poems (Bristol, 1797), pp. 163-170, and the picture it inspired by Thomas Barker (1767-1847; DNB). Back