BIB_ID
316113
Accession number
MA 1005.7
Creator
Southey, Robert, 1774-1843.
Display Date
[1813 Sept. 21].
Credit line
Purchased by J.P. Morgan, Jr., 1924.
Description
1 item (2 p., with address) ; 22.6 cm
Notes
A note at the very top of p. 1, most likely by Croker, says "I saw him."
Address panel with seal and addressed to "John Wilson Croker Esq / &c &c &c / Admiralty."
Date of writing written in pencil at the top of p. 1 in an unknown hand.
Part of a collection of letters from Robert Southey to John Wilson Croker. Letters in this collection have been described individually in separate catalog records; see collection-level record for more information.
The letter refers to the offer of the poet laureateship to Southey following Scott's refusal to accept the honor and Scott's recommendation of Southey to the Prince of Wales.
Address panel with seal and addressed to "John Wilson Croker Esq / &c &c &c / Admiralty."
Date of writing written in pencil at the top of p. 1 in an unknown hand.
Part of a collection of letters from Robert Southey to John Wilson Croker. Letters in this collection have been described individually in separate catalog records; see collection-level record for more information.
The letter refers to the offer of the poet laureateship to Southey following Scott's refusal to accept the honor and Scott's recommendation of Southey to the Prince of Wales.
Provenance
Purchased by J.P. Morgan, Jr. from E.H. Wells in 1924.
Summary
Informing him that he has just had a letter from Scott [Sir Walter Scott] and that "its contents were not altogether unexpected, & having half-anticipated such a result, I had to give the matter its due consideration. Twenty years ago when I had a reputation to win it would have been easy for me to furnish odes upon demand on any subject. This is no longer the case. I should go to the task like a school boy, with reluctance & a sense of incapacity for executing it well; but unless I could so perform it as to give credit to the office, certain it is that the office could give none to me. But if these periodical exhibitions were dispensed with, & I were left to write upon great events, or to be silent, according as the spirit moved, I should then thankfully accept the office as a mark of honourable distinction which it would then become. I write to you, not as proposing terms to the Prince, an impropriety of which I should be fully aware, but as to a friend who has more than once shown me acts of kindness which I had no reason to expect & by whose advice I would be guided;" asking if he could call on him at the Admiralty on Monday.
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