504. Robert Southey to George Dyer, 27 March 1800

504. Robert Southey to George Dyer, 27 March 1800 ⁠* 

My dear Dyer

I am sorry my boxes should so long have encumbered you. a friend of mine by name Rickman who is speedily coming to London will call at your rooms & inspect them to see if they are safe from worms, & if you find them inconvenient, will remove them. I would not have them taken out they are mingled with linen – letters &c &c –, & to disorganize the arrangement would be doing mischief. you will be pleased with Rickman. He is a singular man, of uncommon talents, whom I greatly esteem.

Thank you for the subscribers. [1]  of course the Booksellers must have them at their own price. my plan is to raise an annuity by the subscription – profits – & any exertion to increase [MS torn] the list I feel as a personal favour. we have now about 240 copies subscribed for.

Your Democritus Junior I have thankfully reprinted. [2]  it is a good poem. your sonnet was printed & cancelled because – it was no sonnet – being sixteen lines long. in the course of next week the [MS torn] Anthologies will be sent to London.

Let me hear from you when I am in a foreign land. my direction will be with the Reverend Herbert Hill. <Lisbon.> my friends must not forget me – & I will not forget them.

God bless you.

yrs affectionately

Robert Southey

If you pass thro Gracechurch Street – be good enough to call on Arch [3]  the bookseller. & tell him I shall have an opportunity of sending him the 2£-5- which I owe him, by a friend, before my departure. I shall not remain here more than a fortnight.

Stokes Croft. Bristol. March 27. 1800


Notes

* Address: To/ George Dyer/ 6. Cliffords Inn/ Fleet Street/ London
Postmark: March 28/ 1800
Watermark: [partial] H
MS: Department of Rare Books, Special Collections and Preservation, River Campus Libraries, University of Rochester, Robert Southey Papers A.S727. ALS; 2p.
Previously published: R. Baird Shuman, ‘Southey to Dyer: An Unpublished Letter’, Notes and Queries, 206 (1961), 14–15. BACK

[1] Dyer had been collecting subscribers to Southey and Cottle’s The Works of Thomas Chatterton (1803). BACK

[2] George Dyer, ‘Democritus Junior, or the Laughing Philosopher’, Annual Anthology (Bristol, 1800), pp. 284–286. BACK

[3] John and Arthur Arch, publishers (fl. 1792–1838) at this time based in Gracehurch St, London. BACK

People mentioned

Rickman, John (1771–1840) (mentioned 2 times)
Hill, Herbert (c. 1749–1828) (mentioned 1 time)

Places mentioned

Stokes Croft (mentioned 1 time)