WORDSWORTH RECOMMENDING A LIVING FOR SOUTHEY'S SON AS A MEMORIAL FOR HIS FATHER WORDSWORTH (William, 1770-1850, Poet Laureate)

Excellent Autograph Letter Signed to "My dear Sir Robert" forwarding a letter "from the Revd Cuthbert Southey, our deceased friend's only son ... It proposes as you will see, that a Memorial should be presented in his behalf to the Lord Chancellor with a view to obtaining a living from his Patronage - As his Father's Genius and literary merits are universally known and admitted, I thought, and told my Young friend so in my answer, that instead of proceeding in the formal way he proposed, it would be better at least at first to make privately through some friend of his Father a representation to the Lord Chancellor in his favor - and I said further that I would write to you upon the subject in the hope that you might be able to serve him, or if not could give him advice. Mr Southey was educated by his Father, and went from him to Queen's College Oxford. He married very young and has three children. Upon his going into orders about 4 years ago the late Lord Lonsdale presented him to a Lectureship which his Lordship has recently attached to the Church of Wethermouth stipend £100 per ann. - this he still holds with a small sum besides ... a few miles distant but which obliges him to keep a horse from Wethermouth. I have nothing further to add than that my young friend is exemplary in discharge of his duties as a Clergyman and has also been eminently useful by establishing a School where it was wanted and by superintending it himself ..." with a postscript that as he has "said all that is necessary - I need not trouble you with Mr Southey's letter ...", 4 sides 8vo., Rydal Mount, 17th May

Robert SOUTHEY(1774-1843) was an English poet of the Romantic school, one of the Lake Poets with William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and England's Poet Laureate for 30 years from 1813 until his death in 1843. Although his fame has been eclipsed by that of Wordsworth and Coleridge, his verse still enjoys some popularity.
Charles Cuthbert SOUTHEY (1819-1888) was last, unexpected, child of Robert and Edith Southey, and their only surviving son, he was always known as 'Cuthbert' to his family. He was embarrassed by many of his father's views, including his religious unorthodoxy, enthusiasm for wine and virulent condemnation of some public figures. All of these aspects of Southey's life were suppressed or explained away in Cuthbert's edition.

Item Date:  1846

Stock No:  40619