1157. Robert Southey to Thomas Southey, 15 February 1806 ⁠* 

Feb^y 15. 1806.

Keswick.

Once more, my dear Tom, to the hopeless task of writing to one who never gets any of my letters! – Yours of Dec. 1. is just arrived – very long, as you perceive after date but that is to be attributed I suppose to its mode of conveyance, as it does not come by packet, & is not marked ship letter, but bears the London post mark.

A world of events have taken place since last I wrote, – indeed so as almost to change the world here. Pitt is dead, [1]  Fox & the Grenvilles in place, [2]  Wynn Under Secretary of State in the Home Office. [3]  I have reason to expect something, – of the two appointments at Lisbon which would suit me, whichever falls vacant first is asked for me. both are in Fox’s gift, & Lord Holland as well as Lady H. speak for me. It is likely that one or other will be vacated ere long, & if I should not succeed there, Wynn will look elsewhere. Something or other will certainly turn up ere it be very long. – I hope also something may some way or other be done for you. a brother of the Duke of Bedford is one of the Lords of the Admiralty [4]  – to whom I have given my Uncle a hint to apply thro the Duke. Gray is first Lord, [5]  – & it is not impossible that he may be got at thro James Losh. [6]  – You are mistaken about Tobins death – it is John Tobin who is dead, [7]  – I was promised letters from James to his brother long ago, & conclude they have been written, but will apply again when I see James which will probably be very soon. You shall lose nothing for want of application on my part.

S^t Vincent supersedes Cornwallis in the Channel Fleet. [8]  Sir Samuel was made Admiral in the last list of promotions. [9]  As for peace or war one knows not how to speculate. If I were to guess any thing it would be that by way of getting all parties out of the scrape with credit, Bonaparte may offer us Malta which he cannot take, as an indemnification for Hanover which we must lose. I should be glad this compromise were made. – You have news enough here to set you in a brown study for the rest of the day – I will only add an anecdote which I believe is not in the papers, & which sailors will like to know. The flag of the Victory was to be buried with Nelson, [10]  but the sailors when it was lowering into the grave tore it to pieces – to keep as relics. His reward has been worthy of the country, a public funeral of course & a monument, besides monuments of some kind or other in most of the great cities by private expence subscriptions. his widow made Countess with 2000 £. a year [11]  – his brother an Earl with an adequate pension, & 200,000 £ to be laid out in the purchase of an estate, never to be alienated from the family. [12]  Well done England!

They have made it a custom to give every Captain who is killed in a general action a monument, & a very foolish custom it is. Why has not Captain Hood as good a claim as if he had fallen on the first of June? [13]  & if Captains in the navy why not Colonels in the army? – it is making the honour too common. If a great column or pyramid were erected, on which their names were to be inscribed as on a marble gazette it would be very well. But upon this plan S^t Pauls will be turned into a mess room in the course of a war or two more. When you are fourscore you must contrive to go off in a blaze xxx & get there, – because by that time I shall be gone before you, & as I have a sneaking sort of a notion that by & by I may have a monument there myself, <one of these days> it will be very awkward if to find myself among so many sailors if I do <unless> you are xxx there to introduce me.

As several of my last letters have been directed to S^t Kitts [14]  I conclude that by this time one or other of them may have reached you. Yours is good news so far as relates to your health, & to the probability of going to Halifax, better summer quarters than the Islands. If you should go there such American books as you may fall in with will be curiosities in England – the New York publications I conclude travel so far north. Reviews & Magazines, novels or poetry, any thing of real American growth I shall be glad to have. Keep a minute journal there & let nothing escape you

I have long been hard at reviewing, & have this day begun my last article – which is upon the authenticity of Ossian, concerning which all the evidence has at last been produced, – & the question is as much at rest as any such question ever can be. Macpherson has forged nineteen twentieths of the whole, & altered the other half t half-title. Of this you will be satisfied when you see my statement in the fourth Annual, [15]  – but there will always be a set of people whom it is impossible ever to convince of what they do not chuse to believe. With this my reviewing concludes – I trust – for ever: except any occasional article which I may volunteer for a friends books or upon a favourite subject –but as a regular employment I have done with it. It took up more time than any other species of composition, because it was the least interesting of all. Next winter it would have been impossible for me to bear a part in the volume, as I shall be abroad; & as things now promise, I shall either remain abroad with an appointment which will supersede the necessity of publishing at all for the sake of the profits, or shall return from thence with the first volumes of my History in a state for immediate publication. [16]  At present then my engagements stand thus – in the course of a week this reviewal will be finished. A month will then be given up to finish Espriellas letters [17]  as far as they can be finished here – after which I go to London, to compleat them, & to compleat also the Specimens over which Bedford – to my sore vexation, sore inconveniences, & loss of gain, has dawdled two whole years. [18]  I shall remain a month there with Rickman, – see the Spaniard fairly in the press, from whence he will not be very long coming out in two or three pocket volumes, full of miscellaneous & stimulating matter. If Wm Taylor does not meet me in London, I have promised to go to xxx Norwich out of my way home & stay a week with him. At all events I shall be home (barring accidents) by the end of May. Early in October is the time fixd in my own mind for my voyage to Lisbon, – I may be sent sooner by good fortune – or prevented by the expulsion of the factory from going at all, [19]  – but if nothing occur either way, then I go. During the summer my history will be my employment, & to fit for the press the Life of the Cid. [20]  Do you meantime continue to write here, which is a safe direction, from whence your letters will be forwarded, if Edith should not be here to receive them first, for if I go with the probability of soon returning she will not accompany me – & indeed there is some reason for supposing that she will not be able.

You have now all I know of myself & of my own plans. Harry is preparing for his examination in April which will enable him in June to receive his title, & touch the pulses & pockets of his majesty’s subjects. [21]  You ask always about Edward – & I as constantly repeat bad news – nothing have I heard since the story that he affects to have turned Roman Catholick – a farce which will last no longer than it serves to dupe somebody or other. If ever there was a thorough rogue it is our unlucky brother, he is utterly without any feeling of common honour or common honesty. – To turn to better subjects you would delight in my daughter who is all life & quickness. she is very stout & strong being larger in all her limbs than her cousin Sarah who is twenty months older. She has the Southey jig, [22]  is very passionate, but neither peevish nor obstinate, & a look of displeasure makes her cry. You would soon love her very dearly, for she is a favourite with every body. Here she comes – as usual every evening – to see the print of the Arabian Nights Entertainments in the Novelists Magazine, [23]  before she goes to bed.

Did I tell you that I have promised to supply the biography <lives> of the Spanish & Portugueze authors in the remaining volumes of Dr Aikins great General Biography? [24]  This will not interfere with my own plans & is for the most part <where it does it is> little more than printing the skeleton of what is hereafter to be enlarged. I can tell you nothing of the sale of Madoc, except that Longman has told me nothing, which is proof enough of slow sale, – but if the edition goes off in two years or indeed in three, it will be well for so costly a book. [25]  There is a reaction in these things, my poems make me known first, & then I make the poems known, – as I rise in the world the books will sell. – I have occasional thoughts of going on with Kehama now when my leisure time approaches, to keep my hand in, & to leave it for publication next winter. [26]  Not a line has been added to it since you left me.

Danvers goes on comfortably at Bristol, living with the two Maddox’s in Park Street. [27]  King as usual always in a hurry, – he has two little girls, who, unhappy children! have been christened or rather heathenized, the one Zoe to please her mother, [28]  the other Psyche to please her grandfather! [29]  I make regular enquiries after Joe, & preserve your right & title to him by paying the tax: you have learnt by my former letters if any have reached you, poor Cupids disgraceful end, the consequence of his evil courses. [30]  poor fellow – I do not think of him, & of his family grin, without sorrow. No news yet of Coleridge – we are seriously uneasy about him, it is above two months since he ought to have been home – our hope is that finding the continent overun by the French he may have returned to Malta. –  [31] 

Ediths love – God bless you Tom

RS