SOUTHEY, Robert (1774-1843). Poet.
Autograph Letter Signed to John Willis at the Hare & Hounds, 1 page 8vo with address-leaf, 'Wednesday Evening', with an Autograph Poetical Manuscript , 4 pages 8vo. The letter is a fairly simple invitation to visit, but the poetical manuscript is more substantial, comprising eight 8-line stanzas, three of 6 lines and one of 4. In a cloth folding case gilt-lettered to the cover.
The first piece is headed by Southey 'Ballad / supposed to have been written about the time when Prince Eugene gained some considerable victories over the Turks. / from the European magazine for Sept. 1786. It is there printed with a few songs, from an old M.S.S. music book, dated 1698.'

'Brave Mars begins to rouse
Sternly he bends his brows
And blows up Etna's fire;
Tho he may lose the field
Let the soldiers never yield,
Tho thousands be beside him killd
Let the soldier still aspire'...'

The second, headed 'Song / from the same M.S.S. by apparently older', occupies the fourth page.

'The lowest trees have tops, the ant her gall,
The fly her spleen, the little spark its heat;
The slender hairs cast shadows tho but small;
And bees have stings altho they be not great;
Seas have their course, & so have little springs,
And love is love in Beggars as in Kings...'

This is followed by the two stanzas of 'The Lady's answer':

'Bushes have tops, but Cedars rise far higher ...'

The Ballad is not recorded by Margaret Crum (First-Line Index of English Poetry 1500-1800 in the Manuscripts of the Bodleian Library), but the second (although not, apparently, the response) is evidently related to Crum's T974 (Vol II, page 866):'The lowest shrubs [sic] have tops, the ant her gall' , first published in A Poetical Rhapsody, 1602, and variously attributed to Sir Edward Dyer and Sir Walter Ralegh.

£1500 [No: 23675]