3629. Robert Southey to
[Walter Savage Landor](people.html#LandorWalterSavage),
8
February 1821Address: To/ Walter Savage Landor Esqre_/
Pisa/ Italy
Stamped: KESWICK/ 298; ANGLETERRE; CHAMBERY; CORRISPZA ESTER DA GENOA
Postmarks: PAID/ 12
FE 12/ 1821; F/ 106/ 21; [partial] 28 FEBBRA
MS: National Art Library, London, MS Forster 48 D.32 MS 36. ALS; 4p.
Previously published: John Forster, Walter Savage Landor. A Biography, 2 vols (London, 1869), I, pp.
470–471.[Keswick](places.html#Keswick). 8 Feby. 1821 I have this day received your Latin volume, & in cutting open the leaves (while the other contents of the parcel
are left unexamined) I find my own name is mentioned in prose & verse in that manner which brings with it the greatest
gratification at present, & will bear with it the greatest weight hereafter.Landor’s
Idyllia Heroica Decem Phaleuciorum Unum Partim jam Primo Partim Iterum atq Tertio Edit Savagius Landor (Pisa,
1820), no. 1598 in the sale catalogue of Southey’s library. It contained two poems addressed to Southey: ‘Ad Sutheium’ (p. 123), and
‘Ad Sutheium Quum Interciderant Epistolae’ (p. 157). The first poem concerned the death of Herbert Southey. Southey returned the
compliment by quoting from Landor’s book (p. 197) in A Vision of Judgement (London, 1821), pp. xix–xx. – The
copy which you de intended for [my Uncle](people.html#HillHerbertUncle) is sent to me,
x but I shall soon have an opportunity of transmitting it to him; – & there is a packet of the same shape & size
directed to [Wordsworth](people.html#WordsworthWilliam), which I guess to have the same contents, & which
will be despatched to him tomorrow.
I am printing my History of the Peninsular War.Southey’s History of the
Peninsular War (1823–1832). And I am endeavouring to find how to send you a poem which will be published in about
a fortnight, the title is A Vision of Judgement: – the personage brought to judgement is the late King, & the verse is a metre
constructed in imitation of the hexameter.A Vision of Judgement (1821), prompted
by the death of George III (1738–1820; King of Great Britain 1760–1820; DNB). The principle of adaption is
that, as by the Germans, the trochee is used for the spondee, with the farther alteration of employing any foot of two or three
syllables in the first place in the verse (for the sake of beginning with a short syllable) & occasionally, but with a rarer
license, in the second, third or fourth place. I have satisfied my own ear, & that of every person, learned or unlearned upon whom
the measure has as yet been tried. There is no one <of> whose opinion I stand so much in doubt, as of yours, who for you
have made yourself “an antique Roman”Hamlet, Act 5, scene 2, line 374. Landor,
in his reply of March 1821, announced that Southey’s Vision had made him ‘a convert to the measure’, John Forster,
Walter Savage Landor. A Biography, 2 vols (London, 1869), I, p. 471. in these things: – take however the
opening of the poem.
Twas at that sober hour when the light of day is receding,And from surrounding things the hues wherewith day had adornd themFade, like the hopes of youth, till the beauty of earth is departed.Pensive, but <tho’> not in thought, I stood at the window, beholdingMountain & lake & vale; the valley disrobed of its verdure,Derwent retaining yet from eve a glassy reflection,Where his expanded breast, then still & smooth as a mirror,Under the woods reposed; the hills that calm & majestic,Lifted their heads in the silent sky, from far Glaramara,Bleacrag & Maidenmawr, to Grizedal & westermost Withop.Dark & distinct they rose; the clouds had gatherd above themHigh in the middle air, huge, purple, pillowy masses,While in the west beyond was the last pale tint of the twilight; –Green as a stream in the glen whose pure & chrysolite watersFlow oer a schistous bed, & serene as the age of the righteous.Earth was hushd & still; all motion & sound were suspended;Neither man was heard, bird, beast, nor humming of insectOnly the voice of the Greta, heard only when all is silence.Pensive I stood & alone, the hour & the scene had subdued me,And as I gazed in the West, where infinity seemd to be open,Yearnd to be free from time, & felt that this life is a thraldom.Thus as I stood, the bell which awhile from its warning had restedSent forth its sound again, toll, toll thro the silence of evening.Tis a deep dull tone that is heavy & mournful at all times,For it tells of mortality always; but heavier this dayFell on the conscious ear its deeper & mournfuller importsYea in the heart it sunk; for this was the day when the heraldBreaking his wand, should proclaim that George our King was departedThou art released, I cried; thy soul is deliverd from bondage!Thou who hast lain so long in mental & visual darknessThou art in yonder Heaven; – thy soul is in light & in glory!Come & behold! methought a startling voice from the twilightAnswerd. &c – A Vision of Judgement (1821), Canto 1, lines
1–33. You have here a sample of the measure; – the poem is long enough for any the reader to become accustomed to
it, & lose the first sense of its strangeness It is something more than 600 lines. I expect a hurricane of abuse, – hurricane-like
from all quarters: for among the Worthies of the late reign I have placed neither Pitt nor [Fox](people.html#FoxCharlesJames).William Pitt (1759–1806; DNB),
Prime Minister 1783–1801, 1804–1806, who along with Fox was excluded from the tenth canto of A Vision of Judgement
(1821), ‘The Worthies of the Georgian Age’. The spirits whom I have confronted with the King are Wilkes, Junius &
Washington.John Wilkes (1725–1797; DNB), radical journalist and politician,
condemned in A Vision of Judgement (1821), Canto 5, lines 35–57; and the unknown author of the anti-government
‘Junius’ Letters, published in the Public Advertiser, 21 January 1769–21 January 1772, criticised in A Vision
of Judgement (1821), Canto 5, lines 58–69. In contrast, A Vision of Judgement (1821), Canto 6, lines
17–22, flatteringly compared George Washington (1732–1799; President of the United States 1789–1797), to: Quintus Fabius Maximus
Verrucosus Cunctator (c. 280–203 BC), defender of Rome against Carthage; Aristides (530–468 BC), Athenian statesman; Solon (c.
638–558 BC), lawgiver of Athens; and Epaminondas (418–362 BC), Theban general. If you can tolerate the measure, the rest will
be sufficiently in accord with your feelings. I shall see if I can get a copy sent to you thro the Foreign Office.
My family thank God, are well, – but I have recently sustained a great shock in the death of [my poor friend Nash](people.html#NashEdward), who was with me at Como,During
his continental tour Southey had visited Landor at Como in Italy on 17–20 June 1817, in company with Nash and Senhouse. &
who at home & abroad had spent more than one year out of the last four with me. – [My little boy](people.html#SoutheyCharlesCuthbert) thrives, & is a fine creature. These are such precarious
blessings that I hardly do not enquire concerning yours without some degree of fear? –
Your letter was inserted in the Times.See Southey to Walter Savage Landor, 29
October 1820, Letter 3546. Landor’s letter had appeared in The Times on 4 December 1820. It related to the conduct of
Caroline of Brunswick (1768–1821; DNB), the estranged wife of George IV, during the time she was living in Como. In
it, Landor insisted, ‘whatever I may have heard relating to the Queen, I know nothing positive, and never made a single inquiry that
either could inculpate or acquit her in the cause now pending’. The letter had reached The Times via Landor’s friend
and mentor Samuel Parr (1747–1825; DNB), clergyman, schoolmaster, writer, Whig and supporter of Queen Caroline.
Some parts of it you would have altered if you had seen fair statements of the case.In
November 1820 Landor had sent Southey a copy of his letter on Caroline of Brunswick, asking him to send it to the
Courier, John Forster, Walter Savage Landor. A Biography, 2 vols (London, 1869), I, pp. 466–467.
Southey, who disagreed with what it said and who took a stance that was violently opposed to Caroline, refused to do so and
suppressed it; see Southey to Herbert Hill, 8 January 1821, Letter 3602. The madness is now abating;i.e. the public agitation surrounding government attempts to deprive Caroline of the title of Queen and to dissolve
her marriage to the King. The Bill of Pains and Penalties that would have accomplished this was withdrawn after its Third Reading in
the House of Lords on 10 November 1820, when the government majority of only nine votes had made it very unlikely the Bill could
pass the House of Commons. still this is the time for the Catholics to attempt the reestablishment of their religion,Catholic Emancipation, to which Southey was violently opposed. for if the people of
England chuse to have such a Queen, they cannot possibly object to the Whore of Babylon.Revelation 17–18; the ‘Whore of Babylon’ was a commonplace way of referring to the Roman Catholic Church in
Protestant polemics. Our ministers want decision & firmness, but I believe it is not possible for men to act with better
intentions, nor more uprightly. The Whigs are acting as basely as they did in the days of Titus Oates.The Whigs had supported Titus Oates (1649–1705; DNB) in his fraudulent claims of a ‘Popish Plot’
(1678–1681) against Protestantism in order to discredit the Stuart monarchy. –
God bless you RS.