1208. Robert Southey to Charles Watkin Williams Wynn, 8 August 1806.

1208. Robert Southey to Charles Watkin Williams Wynn, 8 August 1806. ⁠* 

My dear Wynn

Your draft arrived yesterday in an inclosure so hastily fastened that the wafer & paper seemed never to have touched each other.

The days of franking at St Stephens are over. [1]  If you are not about to leave town – slip a note into the inclosed (which is left unsealed) directing Taylor to send the proofs to you. The proof sheets of Madoc cost me two thirds of my gross profits. [2]  But I hope for your own sake & for Mrs Wynns that you may be about to take wing for the country. Bunbury tells me that Lady Williams [3]  is not coming here – in consequence of your Uncles appointment. [4] 

Ld Holland has sent me his book. [5]  I am better pleased with the civility – & with the book itself, than with the necessity of writing him to thank him for it. [6] 

God bless you

RS

[MS torn]day Aug 8. 1806.


Notes

* Address: To/ C W Williams Wynn Esqr M. P. Whitehall/ London./ Private
Stamped: KESWICK/ 298
Postmark: FREE/ AUG11/ 1806
MS: National Library of Wales, MS 4812D. ALS; 2p.
Unpublished. BACK

[1] John Rickman was a resident of St Stephen’s Court, New Palace Yard, Westminster. Parliament no longer being in session, Rickman’s franking privileges as Secretary to the Speaker of the House of Commons were suspended. BACK

[2] Southey’s poem Madoc was published in 1805. BACK

[3] Charlotte Grenville (1754–1832), second wife of Watkin Williams Wynn, 4th Baronet (1749–1789) and mother of Charles Watkin Williams Wynn. BACK

[4] William Wyndham Grenville, appointed Prime Minister earlier in 1806. BACK

[5] Some Account of the Life and Writings of Lope Felix de Vega Carpio (1806). BACK

[6] For Southey’s letter to Lord Holland, see Southey to Lord Holland, 10 August 1806, Letter 1209. BACK