64. Robert Southey to Charles
Collins, 30 October–7 November
1793
*
Bristol. College Green.
Wedn. <October> 30. 1793.
——————
To those sage banks where lay-hymnd Isis glides
Where sober Science in each dome presides
With virtuous Wisdom loves the cell to share
And trim the midnight lamp with studious care —
Where mighty Taste despotic Genius rules
And monkish Aristotle curbs the schools
Unworthy offering to his X church friend
The
Balliol
truant this presumes to send
These lines produced by Indolence & Haste
Formd by no rules & fashioned by no Taste —
Like the new spring whose waves along the mead
Meandring gayly on their course proceed
Paint with springs earliest flowers the moss mixd
<grass>
And owe their beauties to the scenes they pass.
No more my friend shall Fancy range
To pretty Pipe & pretty Grange
Nor sportive Folly shall beguile us
To liken you to little Hylas
[1]
Nor warn you of the dolphins dwelling
Or the mandrake hideous yelling
Or Fashions rage that you bewitches
To wear those beastly black silk breeches
Nor since our cautions are not reckond
Will I declaim on Jack the Second.
[2]
No no my friend in serious mood again
Gently I take the unoffending pen
Believe me
Collins I will laugh no more
At X church taste or Oxfords monkish lore
But humbly gaze at distance & adore —
So Egypts pious children bow the knee
And own the presence of their deity
Give the good priest the destind price of sin
And fear the Monkey or the ass within.
Will you my friend one hour so idly waste
So deign to spend the time designd for taste
So from your learned lofty height descend
To write a line to please a
Balliol friend —
Tell
Wynn that I
can now at last remind
A book he left at Westminster behind
The Gesta Romanorum
[3] — nor neglect
Say to the King thus says his subject now
(But first bend down & make a duteous bow)
I wrote to him a very long epistle
And shall be glad to hear from him at Bristol.
Of such nonsense enough — to a metre more gay
Less absurd must I bend my unsettled wild way
I cannot stalk on in so serious a stile
And with nonsense & folly the moments beguile —
Tell
the King he
must write & acknowledge my letter
Tell
Wynn of the
book. & remain not my debtor
But spread on the table your pretty casette
Shake your hands shrug your shoulders & <pay
the due debt.>
And moreover tell
Wynn — but stop — let me see
Ευργκα
Ευργκα
[4] — a
good simile
As the smith in his furnace throws in the old metal
Nails pot hooks swords razors pot gridiron &
kettle
Whatever lies near they melt up in one stew
And make what went in old — come out neat & new —
So tell my good friend I have melted my odes
But as they are now coming on on the roads
I can send none to Oxford — nor indeed were they
<here>
That I should transcribe them to him is quite clear
Since he’s grown wise & prudent & like not to
write
To old correspondents & friends
But to one who has never been blest with his sight
Each week an epistle he sends.
Tis a fortnight ago since from
Brixton departed
I trudgd on my way quite dismayd & dishearted
Unwilling to go yet unable to stay
To Bristol I bent as commanded my way
And doubtful of loitering this term thus in waste
Was obliged to mount coach & put on in great
haste.
Since that period my baggage is kept on the roads
All my cloaths — Joan of Arc
[5] & my
excellent odes
And should some nasty beast whose taste is not quite ripe
With my valued productions first read & then wipe
I shall lose all my senses — run stark staring mad
At his usage so vile & my fortune so bad
O Joan Joan Joan Joan Joan Joan Joan Joan Joan Joan
Thy loss sure would melt een a hard heart of stone
To lose thee when finishd — to think that a rascal
So vilely should use my delectable task all.
Wear my cloaths — in his pockets should carry my Joan
And read it & use it when he is alone —
And moreover — oh pity the sorrowful notes
I shall soon — very soon be un vrai sans culottes!
Such misfortunes are mine such sad Fate me bewitches
You go without linings — but yet you have breeches
But for me — sad to say — as my brogues are wore out
I both breeches & linings shall soon be without
Alas Alas
All breeches are but grass
So enough of my sorrows & follies God knows
(Tis a rhyme of your own) & I’ll now write in
prose
But remember my friend — you have once used your pen
And I beg you will send me some verses again.
Thurs. Nov. 7.
a long time my dear friend has elapsed since I began my letter
with those villainous verses which can only amuse you from their badness. you
know me too well to suspect me of dispraising myself to gain a compliment. the
lines are bad & I can write better. but Nemo omnibus horis &c.
[6] I wrote them with agreable company in the room to
whom most of my attention was diverted & C Collins will excuse the faults
occasioned by politeness.
in this interval however my baggage has arrived & no poor
devil at the foot of the gallows was more overjoyd at a reprieve than I was at
the recovery. I have begun to transcribe Joan of Arc — read Enfield History of
Philosophy. [7] Gillies History of Greece [8] V.2nd & begun Adam
Smith [9]
since my return so you see Bristol does not make me idle. I may not form a taste
here but I can increase a stock of useful knowledge and you know the prettiest
nosegays are formed of various flowers. Oxford would have been very dull this
term to me as none of my Balliol
friends reside & it <is> with them that I mostly live. we
shall meet again in January & college will have something like novelty
to recommend it. with my friends at Christ Church I could not have lived always
— they are but very few & have numerous acquaintance so this term must
have past mostly in solitude. at Bristol I can be as well employed, at least in
my own opinion & you know, to me, that is the most material.
Time passed pleasantly at Brixton. the last Sunday Grosvenor went with me to
Maize Hill intending to breakfast
with your good family. I rose in time but you know our friends invincible
indolence. he never left Brixton till
near nine & then with mulish obstinacy would go wrong & put up
the chaise a mile out the way, so that we found your father & mother
drest for church & troubled them for a second breakfast. we returned to
dinner in spite of the friendly intreaties of Mr &
Mrs C & indeed of <our> own wishes
but Grosvenor had
promised to return & as I had prophesied, repented of his promise. the
Doctor was not with
us.
I am in hopes to see Horace at Balliol the next term — he seems
to have fixd his choice unalterably. in fact for what profession is he fit but
the church? at Brixton he is ruining
himself as you well know — contracting habits peevishness &
particularities all which a little society would cure him of. I want to rub him
down — you to perform the same friendly office upon me & Grosvenor upon you — each
sees his neighbours mote — thus wags the world away. when you write to himself <touch> upon this subject
& tell him what service a few years at college would do him. he will
sweat away his consitution & abilities in the collection room unless he
very soon is settled.
if you should happen to meet Burnet I will be much obliged to
you to enquire if any letters are expecting me at Balliol. I expect one which I wish
much to receive. will you be good enough if you chance to see him, to take the
letters & direct them — scratch out the old direction & put Miss Tylers Bristol.
remember me to Wynn
& tell him of the Gesta Romanorum which I will bring to Oxford next
term. I have much for his perusal. perhaps all my writings are owing to my
acquaintance with him he saw the first & I knew the value of his praise
too much to despise it — for head & heart I do not know his equal. Wynn will like many parts of my
Joan but he will shake his head at the subject, with propriety if I had designd
it for publication — but as the amusement of my leisure I heeded no laws but
those of inclination. he will be better pleasd to hear I have waded thro the
work of correcting & expunging my literary rubbish. there is something
very vain in thus writing of myself, but I know the regard which Wynn entertains for me whilst he
sees the vanity will make him pleasd with the intelligence.
is Lamb arrived
at Oxford — desire his Majesty to
give me a little information relative to our friend Tom. I wrote the King a long letter but whether he
ever receivd it I know not. his
Highness will honour Bath with his presence at Xmas I suppose if so we
may perhaps meet. & now when I have enquired for Peckwell & Martin Butt I have run thro the
list of my friends
let me hear from you as soon as you can spare time. you have at
last if not a rational certainly a harmless letter, & did you know the
self satisfaction we felt at our joint production you would certainly endure a
little horse raillery for the sake of so delighting your friends.
Grosvenor & I
used to fall out about politics (that is quarrel amicably) he is as visionary as
I am & the old fable of the pot & the kettle may well be applied
to us. as for the Doctor he
would stare thro his spectacles in silence. I must laugh at him upon the subject
& you know how he dreads my raillery — Southey Southey for Gods sake
dont put that in the life &c &c — o nunquam reditura dies! [10] but I <shall> grow as learned as you &
quote scraps like Grosvenor.
Horace means to leave off
spectacles if he comes to Oxford — he now understands the theory of
shortsightedness & talks of it most eruditely — of course we laugh at
him — then comes pish fool blockhead contemptible stuff, & I laugh the
more. but Horace has a
thousand good qualities to counterbalance a few failings occasiond by seclusion.
do you know I have almost cured him of rhapsodizing — now you will exclaim
Physician cure thyself — I am dosing myself with philosophy &
calculations to get rid of the rhapsody fever — & you will see some of
this is written in a lucid interval — I am now going out & must dress —
laugh at the expression in me — but I must change my cloaths so farewell.
yrs most sincerely
RS.
<write in verse since you can no longer>
<plead inability.>
Notes
* Address: X post/ Charles Collins Esqr-/
Christ Church/ Oxford/ Single
Stamped: BRISTOL
Endorsements: Nov 9.
——; Answered Dec 23
MS: Huntington Library, HM 44802
Previously
published: Roland Baughman, ‘Southey the Schoolboy’, Huntington
Library Quarterly, 7 (1944), 276–280 [prose in full, but the
verse in part]; Charles Cuthbert Southey (ed.), Life and
Correspondence of Robert Southey, 6 vols (London, 1849–1850), I,
pp. 188–189 [in part; one paragraph from 7 November 1793 section, which is
misdated 30 October 1793]. BACK
[1] In Greek mythology, Hylas was one of the Argonauts. He
was dragged into a spring by a water nymph, who had seen and fallen in
love with him. BACK
[2] Johannes Secundus (1511–1536), whose Liber Basiorum (Book of Kisses)
was published in 1541. BACK
[3] A
collection of Latin anecdotes and tales, probably compiled in the late
thirteenth or early fourteenth centuries. The book referred to is likely
to be the 1703 edition listed in the sale catalogue of Southey’s
library, Sale Catalogues of Libraries of Eminent
Persons, gen. ed. A. N. L. Munby, vol. 9 Poets and Men of Letters, ed. Roy Park (London, 1974), p.
56. BACK
[4] The Greek can be translated as ‘I’ve
found it, I’ve found it’, recorded by Plutarch as Archimedes’ cry upon
discovering the formula for displacement of bodies in water. BACK
[5] The first version of Southey’s epic had been written at
the Bedford family’s home in Brixton in summer-autumn 1793. BACK
[6] Part of the commonplace ‘No man is
wise at all times’. BACK
[7] William Enfield
(1741–1797; DNB), History of
Philosophy, From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Present
Century, 2 vols (1791), was an abridgement and translation of
Johann Jacob Brucker’s Historia Critica
Philosophiae. Southey borrowed both volumes from the Bristol
Library Society, volume one between 22–25 October 1793 and volume two
between 25–28 October 1793. BACK
[8] John Gillies (1747–1836; DNB), The History of Ancient Greece, 2
vols (1786). Southey borrowed volume two from the Bristol Library Society
between 28 October and 4 November 1793 and volume one between 29 January and
10 February 1794. BACK
[9] Adam Smith (c. 1723–1790;
DNB), An Inquiry into the
Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, 2 vols (1776).
Southey borrowed volume one from the Bristol Library Society between 4 and
18 November 1793 and volume two between 18 and 25 November 1793. BACK
[10] The Latin translates as ‘O day never to
return’. BACK
