699. Robert Southey to Charles Watkin Williams Wynn [fragment], 26 July [1802]
699. Robert Southey to Charles Watkin Williams Wynn [fragment], 26 July [1802] *
My dear Wynn
Your letter & its contents have just reached me – I wish there were a form of words that would fitly acknowledge the receipt – the paper has lain this ten minutes in waiting with the pen upon that dash there above. thank you!
I had heard of the brawn receipt [1] from Turner who read it in the original which is printed in the Archaiology. [2] it is true because men do not invent such oddxxx <lies> & because it tallies with half a hundred stories which Rickman & I used to laugh over at Dublin Castle & talk of collecting one day into an Anthologia Hibernica.
You shall <have> the dog story [3] which I will try to translate ere long. it is not from the Araucana [4] – but from a poem which seems to be written in imitation of it – by a man who like Ercilla had served in the wars which he sung. A worse poem in every respect – yet with some passages that amply repaid me for reading above 10,000 verses. I have seen Miss Sewards letter: its main drift seems to be a wish to vindicate the versification of her own sonnets. [5] my versification she does not understand & to her has not learning enough to know that as far as precedent be good for anything upon such subjects, it is justified by Greek – German & Italian authority. one would think she wished to provoke a controversy by twice [6] setting at me in public. the best argument I ever heard against that metre was from Sotheby. [7] he said there was a danger of its becoming monotonous – & not having the various harmony of blank verse. that it was <a> more plain & palpable metre he fully allowed.
Lambe I see is returned for Rye [8] – & probably in the high road to place.
I have received a Portugueze glossary [9] from Lisbon lately. a wretched book – but still of great use. to day I shall finish the ninth reign [10] in its second state. in the next begins the great period of discovery & victory. the chapters of manners &c I cannot write till the oldest codes reach me – & my Uncle & I have had a heavy loss at Lisbon in the death of the only honest & intelligent bookseller. [11] a young man with the best physiognomy almost that I ever saw
God bless you.
R S.
July 26.Notes
* Address: To/ C W Williams Wynn Esqr M.P./ Wynnstay/
Wrexham
Postmark: 122/ BRISTOL/ JUL 26 1802
Endorsement: July 26 1802
MS: National Library of Wales, MS
4811D. ALS; 3p.
Unpublished. BACK
[1] A recipe for brawn – a seasoned, jellied meatloaf, made from the head and feet of a pig or calf. BACK
[2] The Myvyrian Archaiology of Wales (1801-1807), edited by William Owen Pughe, printed many medieval Welsh manuscripts for the first time. BACK
[3] The ‘dog story’ came from Gaspar Pérez de Villagrá (1555-1620), who served as a captain in the 1598 expedition that first colonised New Mexico. His epic Historia de la Nueva México (1610), Canto 19, lines 221-244, described how he was forced to kill his dog for food. However, he then found he was unable to eat the animal. BACK
[4] Alonso de Ercilla y Zuniga (1533-1594), Spanish soldier and author of La Araucana (1569-1589). BACK
[5] For the letter sent by Anna Seward see The Poetical Register, and Repository for Fugitive Poetry, for 1801 (London, 1802), pp. 475-486. BACK
[6] Seward had authored a widely published attack on Joan of Arc, ‘Philippic on a Modern Epic’ (1797). BACK
[7] The poet and translator William Sotheby (1757-1833; DNB) on the metre of Thalaba the Destroyer (1801). BACK
