1189. Robert Southey to William Taylor, 27 May 1806 ⁠* 

My dear friend

I sate five times in the velvet chair, & each time little less than three hours, tho the law is satisfied with one hour in the pillory & at the gallows. O.P.  [1]  will perhaps complain; if he does, put him in the thirtieth chapter of the Book of Proverbs, as the fifth of those things which are never satisfied. [2]  You I hope will like the picture, as every person who has seen it is much pleased.

I cannot express to you how strongly I am displeased with Jeffrays conduct about Nathan. [3]  It was at his option to review it civilly or not, as the laws of courtesy & due decorum are not compulsory; – but it was not at his option to publish the name of the translator after the sort of language which he had thought proper to use. [4]  This was a breach of confidence. I am the more angry because it is a rascally hypocritical article; – when Scotch metaphysicians raise a cry for faggots they richly deserve the fire themselves. I knew the man wrote like a scoundrel as well as a coxcomb – but xxxx being a Scotchman that was to be expected; – still there was a sort of gentlemanly decorum from which I did not think he conceived himself exempted, & this he has broken thro.

You have heard of the rupture between Dr Aikin and Phillips, [5]  – the greatest piece of news since the Prussian war. It happens luckily for Longman, & I do not doubt that his Magazine will start under the Doctor with the next new year. [6]  Phillips will rue this, tho the Monthly is well established & must needs continue <to flourish>; but he will lose much of the dissenting sale among the dissenters. I shall lend a hand at the outset, &, I trust, have you for a fellow labourer.

I was exceedingly unwell in London; this however furnished me with a pretext for keeping within my own circle, so I saw more of my friends & less of my acquaintance than on any former visit to the metropolis. The most interesthingting thing which came in my way, was a Welsh Romance of the Round Table, a part of the Mabinogion, its title Peredur, its character as unquestionably savage as barbarous manners, & want of connection can make it. [7]  I am afraid the translation of these highly curious tales will be at a stand, for – sad to say – Owen thinks of x nothing now but Joanna Southcote, – of whom if you do not know much Espriella in good time will tell you all. [8]  He has mixed up her xxx roguery with his own Bardism & poor Turner is applying every sound reason to cure a complaint for which reason has rarely or never been found effectual. I want Turner to add a Welsh to his Saxon history, [9]  & have prest him so to do; urging as my main argument that that he possesses the requisite knowledge, which it never <will> be worth any persons while to acquire for that specific purpose, & that from born Welshmen we have never any thing but crude materials to hope. He has promised to think of the thing, [10]  waiting till he sees what new documents the Archæologia [11]  may supply in its progress. He tells me much of the difficulty of the poems, which seem like the Hebrew to be fairly without syntax – leading words to which you must supply the connecting particles at your discretion. Turner wants a little of the poets & a little of the philosophers feeling, – he does not understand the value of barbarous history.

George Ellis dined at Longmans to meet me – for the first time. I liked him less than I expected – & yet my expectation was not very high: – a little too much of the air of high life, a little too much of the conversationist, eyes too small, a face too long, & something in his manners which showed or seemed to show that it was a condescension in him to be a man of letters. This <opinion> may be uncharitably formed, & it is very likely that with my inside full of fog & phlegm as it then was, I may have seen him unfairly thro a misty atmosphere. But there is certainly that something about him which would always make me greet a man with a distant bend of the body, & a smile which <that> lay no deeper than the muscles which fashioned it, instead of a glad eye & a ready shake of the hand. – You are right in what you say about the preference of talents to integrity; but there <might> be a certain quantity of right thinking & good feeling about a man, & manifestly about him, to make his society desirable.

I saw Manning [12]  several times – particularly the last evening but one before his departure, & was much impressed with a sense of the probability that we might never meet again. He has not made himself acquainted with all that has been written about China as he ought to have done. I have mentioned several books, some of them in my own possession of which he had not heard. This is unlucky: he should have known what other people had communicated to save himself trouble, & direct his own inquiries profitably. His project is to learn the language at Canton, & then if he cannot enter at that quarter to try on the side of Tartary; but to have joined the Russian embassy till he had acquired the language he thought of little use. I have written to my Uncle to procure his recommendations to the Portugueze at Macao & to their Missionaries at Pekin [13]  – the letters are to follow him to Canton, & may be serviceable.

You had not read that ballad of little or no worth about S^t Michaels Chair, for some time before you criticised it, or you would have seen that M^rs Penlake was a shrew, that her vow was made with a reference to her favourite wish, & that her husband did not jest upon her death, but simply did not affect to grieve at it. [14]  Nothing in Bishop Hatto is meant to be ludicrous, his scoff at the people whom he had burnt is the hinge of the story, rats he called them, & <therefore> rats eat him. [15]  All those Ballads – indeed all the poems in the volume except the Eclogues [16]  & the Tale of Gualberto [17]  were written for the Morning Post, [18]  which was my grand apprenticeship to the craft & m[ystery] of verse-making, & the reason why that foolish story of Charlemagne is the worst written is that it was the first, before I knew how in what xxxx ballads ought to be written <cast>. [19]  I hit the tone accidentally in B. Bruno, & [MS torn] hit it knew it was the right one. [20]  Neither the Monodrama [21]  nor the American Songs [22]  had any other reference to Madoc than that the subjects were supplied by reading for it. One of those Songs I think a good one – the Old Chikkasah, – the best images are transplanted into Thalaba & Madoc, [23]  – that sort of but I like the rhythm & spirit of the whole well enough to let it stand. I wish you had drawn out for notice the Pig, [24]  the Filbert [25]  & the Dancing Bear, [26]  because there is a character of originality in them, – a sort of sportive seriousness which is one of my predominant moods of mind. That volume sells – between six & 700 hundred went within a year & I received 22£ profit. single small volumes are purchased for presents.

If I do not winter in England Kehama [27]  must supply my ways & means instead of the Annual Review. [28]  I shall send you the first part of it, interspersed with rhymes ad libitum, [29]  that you may tell me whether to rhyme on or not.

Pray remember me to your Mother. I do not think of you without thinking of her, & there are few persons whom I remember so often.

God bless you

You ask of Burnett. he is at his extracts & I have made a bargain for them with Longman which may keep him till the end of the year from starving. [30]  But whether he will compleat the book or prefer opening his mouth like a young Jackdaw, in expectation that food will be put into it Heaven knows. Pride will stand in the way of <his> return to Filby, [31]  & supply the place of principle. It is the only situation for which he is fit

May. 27. 18076.  Keswick

I open the letter to ask of you something which I do not like to ask, & yet cannot well help asking: You know I have certain Specimens in the press. that W. B. Stevens [32]  whose poems Dr Sayers comes in the series – & I could not find his volume in London to put into the hands of the transcriber. Will you transcribe for me any one of the Indian odes – whichever you like best – & then forgive me for asking so troublesome a task. when done direct it in a letter to G. C. Bedford Esq. Exchequer. Westminster.