2250. Robert Southey to John May, 23 April 1813 ⁠* 

Keswick. April 23. 1813

My dear friend

I am at present giving up all the intervals I can spare from the pressing occupation of the Register, [1]  to M^r Walpoles papers; [2]  – & as soon as that work is compleated these papers shall be my main employment. They shall then be immediately dispatched according to your direction. Coxes [3]  labours will no in no degree interfere with mine. He is a very laborious & useful writer, & his proposed life of King José, tho it will not save me an hours mor trouble, will certainly be of some advantage in giving me his view of things, & serving as a map of the country over which I am to travel. [4]  I read his history of Austria [5]  a year or two ago; – xxxx the latter part of it may almost be called a new species of history; – he has been so accustomed to diplomatic papers that it is a history of the intrigues of Embassadors, & he writes as if mere diplomacy were the moving principle of the revolutions of empires.

The reviewal of D’Israeli [6]  is mine as you supposed. – I shall get to the press in the course of the summer with my Brazil; – you can hardly conceive how I long to compleat this work. [7] 

Perhaps I may one day be near enough to drink your wine myself, [8]  – & rich enough to drink it daily: meantime at present you can only have my best wishes, for & a good word, which I fear is of little more value than mere good will. – Heber is a man of whom his acquaintance say there is one place in which they will never see him, – at the head of his own table. The fact is that he lives upon the move, & his establishment in Shropshire has nothing to fix a batchelor there, & his home in town is a mere wareho receiving-house for books, where he has barely room for a small breakfast table.

I hope Mrs May is thoroughly recovered. We are going on well as far as concerns ourselves; – but Edith has a brother here, – who came to us for a visit, & is likely to find his last home here. He is labouring under a complicated disease of <the> liver & lungs, which must bring him to the grave. – I see him but little, for I am rarely out of my library except at meal-times; & never sit after dinner except but at such times as I have guests. Still I cannot help feeling a heavy depression of m spirits; & as soon as possible I shall run into Durham for a week or two, for the mere purpose of endeavouring to shake off the effects of this sight of death.

Edith joins me in remembrances to Mrs May –

believe me my dear friend

yrs very affectionately

Robert Southey.