A Letter Book / Selected with an Introduction on the History and Art of Letter-Writing

ROBERT SOUTHEY (1774-1843)

One of the strangest things met by the present writer in the course of preparing this book was a remark of the late Mr. Scoones—an old acquaintance and a man who has deserved most excellently on the subject—in reference to Southey's letters, that they show the author as "dry and unsympathetic." "They contain too much information to be good as letters." Well: there certainly is information in the specimen that follows: whether it is "dry" or not readers must decide. The fact is that Southey, despite occasional touches of self-righteousness and of over-bookishness, was full of humour, extraordinarily affectionate, and extremely natural. There is moreover a great deal of interest in this skit on poor Mrs. Coleridge: for "lingos" of the kind, though in her case they may have helped to disgust her husband with his "pensive Sara," were in her time and afterwards by no means uncommon, especially—physiologists must say why—with the female sex. The present writer, near the middle of the nineteenth century, knew a lady of family, position and property who was fond of the phrase, "hail-fellow-well-met," but always turned it into "Fellowship Wilmot"—a pretty close parallel to "horsemangander" for "horse-godmother". Extension—with levelling—of education, and such processes as those which have turned "Sissiter" into "Syrencesster" and "Kirton" into "Credd-itt-on", have made the phenomenon rarer: but have also made such a locus classicus of the habit as this all the more valuable and amusing. It may be added that Lamb, in one of his letters, has a sly if good-natured glance at this peculiarity of the elder Sara Coleridge in reference to the aptitude of the younger in her "mother-tongue." Southey has dealt with the matter in several epistles to his friend Grosvenor Bedford. The whole would have been rather long but the following mosaic will, I think, do very well. Dr. Warter, the editor of the supplementary collection of Southey's letters from which it comes, was the husband of Edith May Southey, the heroine of not a little literature, sometimes[116] in connection, not merely as here with Sara Coleridge the younger, but with Dora Wordsworth—the three daughters of the three Lake Poets. She was, as her father says, a very tall girl, while her aunt, Mrs. Coleridge, was little (her husband, writing from Hamburg, speaks with surprise of some German lady as "smaller than you are").

30. To Grosvenor C. Bedford Esq:

Keswick, Sep. 14, 1821

Dear Stumparumper,

Don't rub your eyes at that word, Bedford, as if you were slopy. The purport of this letter, which is to be as precious as the Punic scenes in Plautus, is to give you some account (though but an imperfect one) of the language spoken in this house by ... and invented by her. I have carefully composed a vocabulary of it by the help of her daughter and mine, having my ivory tablets always ready when she is red-raggifying in full confabulumpatus.

31. To Grosvenor C. Bedford Esq:

Keswick, Oct. 7, 1821.

My dear G,

I very much approve your laudable curiosity to know the precise meaning of that noble word horsemangandering. Before I tell you its application, you must be informed of its history and origin. Be it therefore known unto you that ... the whole and sole inventor of the never-to-be-forgotten lingo grande (in which, by the bye, I purpose ere long to compose a second epistle), thought proper one day to call my daughter a great horsemangander, thinking, I suppose, that that appellation contained as much unfeminine meaning as could be put into any decent compound. From this substantive the verb has been formed to denote an operation performed by the said daughter upon the said aunt, of which I was an astonished spectator. The horsemangander—that is to say, Edith May—being tall and strong, came behind the person to be horsemangandered (to wit, ...), and took her round the waist, under the arms, then jumped with her all the way from the kitchen into the middle of the parlour; the motion of the horsemangandered person at every jump being something like that of a paviour's rammer, and all resistance impossible.

32. To Grosvenor C. Bedford Esq:

Keswick, Oct. 8, 1821.

*** **

P.S. The name of the newly-discovered language (of which I have more to say hereafter) is the lingo grande.

33. To Grosvenor C. Bedford Esq:

Keswick, Dec. 24, 1822

Dear Stumparumper,

So long a time has elapsed since I sent you the commencement of my remarks upon the peculiar language spoken by ... which I have denominated the lingo-grande, that I fear you may suppose that I have altogether neglected the subject. Yet such a subject, as you must perceive, requires a great deal of patient observation, as well as of attentive consideration; and were I to flustercumhurry over it, as if it were a matter which could be undercumstood in a jiffump (that is to say in a momper), this would be to do what I have undertaken shabroonily, and you might shartainly have reason to think me fuffling and indiscruckt. Upon my vurtz I have not dumdawdled with it, like a dangleampeter; which being interpreted in the same lingo is an undecider, or an improvidentur, too idle to explore the hurtch mine which he has had the fortune to discover. No, I must be a stupossum indeed to act thus, as well as a slouwdowdekcum, or slowdonothinger; and these are appellations which she has never bestowed upon me; though, perhaps, the uncommon richness, and even exuberance of her language has not been more strikingly displayed in anything than in the variety of names which it has enabled her to shower upon my devoted person.

*** **

And so-o-o,
Dear Miscumter Bedfordiddlededford,
I subcumscribe myself,
Your sincumcere friendiddledend and serdiddledeservant,

Robcumbert Southey diddiedouthey.

Student in the Lingo-Grande, Graduate in Butlerology, Professor of the science of Noncumsensediddledense, of sneezing and of vocal music, P.L. and LL.D. etc etc.

FOOTNOTES:

[116] See Wordsworth's Triad.

Clyx.com