1181. Robert Southey to John Rickman, 16 May 1806

1181. Robert Southey to John Rickman, 16 May 1806 ⁠* 

My dear Rickman

I thank you for sending the Proof – which surely I had requested you to do from time to time, unless my memory much deceives me. This I have returned for John [1]  to drop in the two-penny post, because the leaves being cut it cannot be sent by the strait conveyance; for tho there is a great fitness in your saving me eightpence upon every sheet, there is no reason why you should be troubled for Our Fathers [2]  with the return.

This is the first fine day since my arrival & I have been heartily enjoying it. In spite of a cold picked up upon the road I have an appetite equal to the Fat Mans or the Irish Giants. [3]  Certainly this mountain air agrees with me better than that composition of smoke, dust, fog & filth which serves for an atmosphere in London.

I shall trouble you with an inclosure of copy tomorrow. My campaign will be a pretty brisk one – So much the better.

My remembrance to Mrs R.

yrs truly

RS.

Friday 16 May. 1806

Notes

* Endorsement: RS./ 16 May 1806
MS: Huntington Library, RS 89. ALS; 2p.
Unpublished. BACK

[1] Rickman’s servant (last name and dates unknown). BACK

[2] A jokey reference to Southey’s publisher Thomas Norton Longman, who had premises in Paternoster Row (‘Paternoster’ meaning ‘Our father’) in London. BACK

[3] Daniel Lambert (1770–1809; DNB), a man of over fifty stone (700lbs), who exhibited himself in London in 1806; Charles Byrne (1761–1783; DNB), also known as Charles O’Brien or ‘The Irish Giant’, nearly eight feet in height, was exhibited as a human curiosity in London in the 1780s. BACK

Addressee

Rickman, John (1771–1840)

People mentioned

Longman, Thomas Norton (1771–1842) (mentioned 1 time)

Places mentioned

Paternoster Row, London (mentioned 1 time)
The Collected Letters of Robert Southey, Part Three
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