797. Robert Southey to Thomas Southey, 14 June 1803
797. Robert Southey to Thomas Southey, 14 June 1803 *
Day after day Tom do I look to the Portsmouth news to see “Saild the Galatea”. [1] but the Galatea saileth not. however I suppose you are glad enough to have escaped being fixed in a floating battery off Guernsey. Spithead & hope is better than that.
Our last letters crossed each other on the road. since that time nothing has occurred here worth mentioning. Joe [2] the same vagabond. Cupid [3] the same mighty hunter – Margary the same Doctor Dodd. [4] only more alive, & more kicking than ever. Tobin is in town. King will soon have a Prince or a Princess. Your namesake has lost his old friend Mrs Oliver [5] & that is all the news. Except indeed you have heard enough of Bill Coates [6] & Underwood [7] to be interested by hearing that they are prisoners of war in France.
Six week ago I said you might expect Amadis [8] in that space of time – & there you may expect, & if you stay six weeks <more> which good fortune forbid! perhaps you may expect on as much longer. the whole of the two first Volumes is done, preface index & all. 3/4 of the third & 1/4 of the fourth. yesterday I had a letter from Longman & Rees who had just heard of that other Amadis. [9] they wrote to introduce Dallas to me – the Author of the History of the Maroons. [10] & they say that because of this other book they will put another printer to work upon mine, which if they do they may get it finished in a fortnight.
My Uncle tells me their old alarms are come upon them again at Lisbon. for himself he should be indifferent but he wishes to remain there for the facility of procuring books for me. since the Amadis & the Reviewing have been cleared off I have indeed done wonders in history, [11] & am daily at it, in some shape or other, morning noon & night: exclusively – for politics fill up the Morning Post, & leave me nothing to do there.
& so I call her a very worthy child. & a most excellent character.
And so good brother mine
A Dios – A Dios [12] – in Spanish & rhyme
R Southey
My picture is not a Miniature. it is the one which Keenan [13] took when I was last in London – I – & a great book, & my desk, & my desk carpet – poor Mrs Danvers’s work – who – poor woman, was greatly pleased to hear that her carpet was sitting for its picture
Notes
* Address: To/ Lieutenant Thomas Southey/ H. M. S. Galatea/ Spithead/ Single
Postmark: [partial] BRISTOL/ JUN 14
MS: British Library, Add MS 30927. ALS; 4p.
Unpublished. BACK
[4] William Dodd (1729-1777; DNB), a writer who was hanged for forgery ‘alive and kicking’; hence, an appropriate nickname for the infant Margaret Southey. BACK
[5] Tom’s namesake is probably his uncle Thomas Southey. Mrs Oliver (d. 1803) was possibly a member of the family that ran the Bristol linen drapers Oliver, Ridout and Oliver. She may have been related to William Oliver (1775-1830) of Hope Corner, Taunton, to whom Thomas Southey left his fortune. Thomas Southey had himself once been a draper, in partnership with Robert and Tom Southey’s father. BACK
[6] William Coates (dates unknown), was a Clifton resident. He was known to Davy and Coleridge and was a subscriber to a number of Bristol literary works. His brother was Matthew Mills Coates (d. 1819) of the law firm Morgan and Coates, Small St, Bristol. Both brothers were radicals and may have been related to John Prior Estlin’s first wife, Mary Coates (1753-1783). BACK
[7] Thomas Richard Underwood (1772-1835; DNB), watercolourist and geologist. A proprietor of the Royal Institution, he had been instrumental in Humphry Davy’s appointment as assistant lecturer in 1801. His circle included Southey, Wordsworth and Coleridge (who nicknamed him ‘Subligno’). In 1803 Underwood accompanied Thomas Wedgwood on a European tour. After hostilities resumed on 16 May 1803, Wedgwood managed to make his way home, but Underwood was arrested at Calais. His detention in France lasted until 1814. BACK
[9] William Stewart Rose (1775-1843; DNB), Amadis de Gaul, a Poem in Three Books, Freely Translated from the First Part of the French Version of Nicholas de Herberay, Sieur des Essars, with Notes by William Stewart Rose (1803). BACK
