A Poet in the Circle of John Keats: Charlotte Cox, Mrs Reynolds 1808

 

J M F Dovaston after Thomas Bewick

Well, this friend whom so pleasingly you introduce Is an uncommon pleasant agreeable Goose

“Everybody now must ‘move in a circle’” observes Jane Austen in her unfinished 1817 novel Sanditon and for a period Mr and Mrs Reynolds and their children, most notably John Hamilton Reynolds, moved in the circle of John Keats. The Reynolds’s also had a link to John Milward Freeman Dovaston, the naturalist and poet who is the recipient of this letter; he was a former pupil of Mr Reynolds at Shrewsbury School. But Keats came to dislike Mrs Reynolds and her daughters and Dovaston distanced himself too.  In her 1981 book Letters from Lambeth, Joanna Richardson thought the problem in both cases was Mrs Reynolds’ excessive desire to please combined with jealous behaviour in which her daughters joined. The poem transcribed here can be read as supporting the truth of the former complaint.

In rhyming couplets over two sides Charlotte Reynolds thanks Dovaston both for the gift of a poem and of a live goose which is going to be eaten. There was indeed a poem, the twin of this one, which Dovaston published later in 1811 with the title, “TO MRS. REYNOLDS, OF LAMBETH, with a Goose.” It can be found online and I will leave it there; one poem about a sacrificial goose is quite enough.

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Transcription

Addressed to John Dovaston Esq^r Jun^r  The Nursery    near Oswestry Salop

Datelined: Jan/y 13^th 1808

To yourself my good friend, as well as your Muse

I beg my best thanks for her verse, & your Goose

With both I am pleas’d, as they fully express

Strong motives of kindness to say nothing less

And proves, “out of sight, out of mind” not quite true

An adage, of old, but not strengthnd in you.

Well, this friend whom so pleasingly you introduce

Is an uncommon pleasant agreeable Goose,

For as soon as she enterd, the intelligent Bird

Began   bustling & cackling, in strains yet unheard,

Her master she said, in remembrance held dear

The hours he had spent in much cheerfulness here

Of Friendship she prated, but seemd rather hoarse

But that might arise from her journey of course.

Then good manners in every sense she expressd

And no doubt she will charm, when once she is dress’d

Oh so warmly, so wily, she chanted your praise

And with such pride & pleasure, deliverd your lays,

That George [her husband], & myself, at once felt the charm,

Of Friendship express’d, in language so warm.

But the best thing of all that we could discern

From her notes, were, that quickly you meant to return.

For this welcome news – respect also to you,

I entreated her stay, t’was the least I could do

She graciously bow’d to my kind invitation

And next Thursday at Table will fill up her station.

When to give her the meeting I mean to engage

The serious, the witty, the young & the Sage.

With mirth, song, & reason, to temper the jest

To which good Madame Goose will no doubt give zest.

When your health shall be drunk at this little carouse

But one thing will be wanting – oh – sweet Pinky House

For what more can please than such music as thine

Admir’d & enjoy’d, by a family circle like mine.

Our girls are all charm’d, our Boy is delighted

Whenever they hear that friend Dov is invited

But I think it high time, I should make some excuse

For say’g so little, in regard to your muse

Who tho, I acknowledge, must needs be admir’d,

Yet, her praises on me are too high – too much fir’d.

In my life, I was never so finely bespather’d

Tho a theme t’was, in which, I can bear to be flatterd

But allow me to smile, that so late in the day

My name should be sung as tho it were May

So good Lady Muse, let me, ere I adjourne

Present my regards as a grateful return

And that you may remain is my ardent Petition

Chear as ye are – not in hobbling condition

As my humble Muse - who in rhyming or prose

Cannot even earn Glasses to wear on her nose.

This premis’d I don’t find I have further to say

Than our kindest remembrance to self, & to ….

In which Jane, John [Hamilton Reynolds], & Mary, Eliza & Lot [Charlotte Reynolds junior] most earnestly beg, they may not be forgot

Charlotte Reynolds

All arriv’d safe and well & were excellent