1225. Robert Southey to Charles Watkin Williams Wynn, 11 October 1806

1225. Robert Southey to Charles Watkin Williams Wynn, 11 October 1806 ⁠* 

Monday October 11. 1806.

My dear Wynn

Your long bespoken godson made his appearance this morning about six o clock, coming into the world in as beautiful a morning as ever could be supposed to promise fair fortunes, & crying with as loud a voice as if he was destined to make a great noise in it. His name is Herbert, after my uncle at Lisbon, & one reason why I earnestly wished for a boy was that I might call him so.

I shall be heartily glad when you can communicate to me the like good tidings. [1]  Will you not carpet your bedroom with turfs from Wales that your son may be born upon Welsh ground? – baptize him in water from the Dee, [2]  &, if he is to have any other food than what Nature provides expressly for his use, chuse for him even such a wet nurse as Jupiter [3]  himself had?

God bless you

R Southey.

Notes

* Address: To/ C W Williams Wynn Esq M P./ Whitehall/ London/ Private
Stamped: KESWICK/ 298
Postmarks: FREE/ OCT11/ 1806
MS: National Library of Wales, MS 4812D. ALS; 2p.
Previously published: Previously published: John Wood Warter (ed.), Selections from the Letters of Robert Southey, 4 vols (London, 1856), I, pp. 395–396. BACK

[1] Wynn’s daughter, Charlotte, was born in January 1807’; see Southey to Charles Watkin Williams Wynn, 18 January 1807, Letter 1262. BACK

[2] The source of this Welsh river is in Snowdonia, from where it flows east into England, past Wynn’s estate at Wynnstay, discharging into an estuary between Wales and the Wirral Peninsula. BACK

[3] Jupiter, or Jove, king of the gods, was nursed with goat’s milk. BACK

Addressee

Wynn, Charles Watkin Williams (1775–1850)

People mentioned

Southey, Herbert (1806–1816) (mentioned 1 time)
Hill, Herbert (c. 1749–1828) (mentioned 1 time)
The Collected Letters of Robert Southey, Part Three
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