2520. Robert Southey to Henry Herbert Southey, [c. 16 December 1814–]13 January 1815 ⁠* 

My dear Harry

I have got scent of the Squid-hound for whom I enquired in the Omniana. [1]  Cartwright heard of a sort of cuttle fish of this enormous size [2]  – there is a beast of this family on the xxx coast of Brazil which twines its suckers round a swimmer & destroys him, & Langsdorff who relates this refers with disbelief to a book which I wish you would examine for me. [3]  In the Histoire Naturelle des mollasques, par Denys Montfort. Paris. An 10 under the head of Le poulpe colossal, [4]  there must be an account of xx a fellow big enough to claw down a large three-masted vessel. [5]  Being a modern work of natural history I dare say the book will be at the Royal Institition, & I pray you to extract the account for me. I shall make use of it in an article about Labrador for the Quarterly. [6]  – Cartwright says he is told they xxx grow to a most enormous size, as big as a large whale & he evidently does not disbelieve it: he was not a <xxxxxx> credulous man & knew upon what sort of authority he was speaking. Xxxxx xxxx xxx xxxxx The description of the Kraken accords perfectly with this genus. [7]  You know Doctor that I can swallow a Kraken, – you know also that I a mortal enemy to that sort of incredulity which is founded upon mere ignorance.

______

Several weeks have elapsed since this letter was begun & in the interim to my no small satisfaction I have found one of these monsters dead & literally floating many a rood. The Frenchman De Menonville met with it between the Gulph of Mexico & S^t Domingo (See Pinkertons Coll. Vol. 13 p. 873) & knew not what to make of it. [8] 

13 Jan^y 1815

It is well that poor Mr Gonnes time is over. [9]  I learnt from John May & from Gooch how ill he was & therefore expected this termination.

I thought you had heard from me since Isabels recovery. She had so severe a bilious attack that I thought at one time all was over. At present she is in perfect apparent health but there is a discharge from the inside of one ear which I should be glad to see healed tho it is to very trifling & gives her no uneasiness. But it has continued above two months & she has been tormented with vain attempt to remove it. First merely milk & water was injected. then myrrh. This failing Edmondson put on a blister – for the ear now began to project from the head & <thus> to show that matter was forming which a poultice failed to bring forward. The blister did no good. He lanced it & matter came out – the sore was kept open as long as it would discharge anything. It has healed, – the ear still sticks out, & the discharge from the inside is just the same as ever, – a fetid ichor, very little in quantity, – just enough to stain the night cap – & to make the cavity appear moist when you look in. We leave it now to nature & only inject the myrrh once a day. But I think there must be matter forming by the projection of the ear. tho she certainly suffers no pain & can bear pressure upon the part.

About the review of your Opusculum [10]  you had better settle with Bedford, who is my Plenopetentiary with Gifford – either for Gooch to mend his article (in which case I will send him one or two memoranda that I have stumbled upon) or for it to be put into the hands of Domine Young. [11] 

I have heard from many quarters of Lord Byrons praise, – & regard it just as much as I did his censure. [12]  Nothing can be more absurd than the thinking of comparing any of my poems with the Paradise Lost. With Tasso, [13]  with Virgil, with Homer, there may be fair grounds of comparison but my mind is wholly unlike Miltons, & my poetry has nothing of his imaginative & distinguishing chraracter, – nor is are there any poet who has except Wordsworth, who <he> possesses it in an equal degree. And it is entirely impossible that any man can understand Milton, & fail to perceive that Wordsworth is a poet of the same class & of equal powers. Whatever my powers may be they are not of that class. From what I have seen of his minor poems I suspect that Chiabrera is the writer who as a poet I am most resemble in the constitution of my mind. His narrative poems I have never seen. [14] 

I have at last begun Oliver Newman & written the first section. [15]  It is in irregular rhyme – so I resolved after long vacillation; & believe that the resolution has been well made: it will this measure will allow me to fall to a lower key than any rhymeless metre would have done.

You see Flinders has found more of the great Birds nests in New Holland. [16]  It cannot be the Cassoways nest, but because that which Cook found was on an island, & the Cassowary neither flies nor swims. [17] 

I shall probably come south in the summer, God willing, – on my way to France: – but my time will depend upon meeting with a companion. About Paris I care little, – my but I will run down to the Pyrennes get into Switzerland & return by way of the Rhine & Holland. My hearts desire is to go to Spain, if the state of affairs there renders it prudent but of this there is no hope.

Remember me to Mrs Gonne – & give my love to Louisa. I dare say she thinks me somewhat old, grave & formidable for a brother, – & she will never properly know what sort of animal I am till she pays me a visit in my den.

God bless you.

RS.

The sale of Roderick [18]  is what I expected, neither better or nor worse. It is also just what I should desire, if profit were a matter of indifference to me, for I am perfectly certain that great immediate popularity can only be obtained by those faults which fall in with the humour of the times, & <which> are of course ultimately fatal to the poems that contain them.