1450. Robert Southey to Mary Barker, 28 April 1808 ⁠* 

Thursday April 28. 1808.

Dear Senhora

How many letters I have had to write since my return home you must well know, & having heard of our safe arrival you will hardly have expected to hear immediately from me sooner. I am at this moment in the most utter confusion, – the most comfortless might have been added, if it were not an ungrateful word to employ upon a glad occasion. Here are all my books arrived, & in Toms phrase kicking-to-Windward; floor tables & chairs covered with them, some on the landing place, some on the stairs, – just as they were last year. [1]  Henry Pooley [2]  is making shelves to cover the wall of the passage which communicates between the two houses. It will hold about 1200 volumes, & the dark end is to be Duck Corner. [3]  The parchmentarians have all been rubbed & scrubbed, & a good number of them have taken their seats on the brackets. [4]  One set of six folios is lettered in gold upon bister as thus

Obras

del

Venerable

Padre

Maestro

Fr Luis Granada [5] 

& the volumes connected with chain work, but the gold-leaf is exhausted & two links are yet wanting to the chain. You will be very much pleased with their appearance. I have two things to beg, intreat & desire, – first that you would be pleased to send me in a frank as much gold leaf as a frank will carry, – & secondly that you will be pleased to come after it yourself as soon as may be, to Juniperize [6]  within doors, to maroon without, & to be introduced to Sir Edward’s god-daughter, who is pronounced to be the quietest & at the same time the forwardest child that ever was seen.

I was greatly in hopes that Sir Edward would have been persuaded to take time by the forelock, & not let another summer pass away without seeing the Land of Lakes. (Be pleased to observe that this is the appellation which old Llywarc Hen gives it, who was himself a Cumbrian prince). [7]  He feels time so little that it is not to be wondered at that he does not think about it much. All I can say is that if you can not prevail upon him to come this year, you must come yourself. You will find better company than you did last summer, for I fully expect to have Rickman for my guest as soon as Parliament breaks up.

My stock of marbled papers is tolerably good, but I failed sadly in the gilt ones, – nothing could I find like John Wesley’s suit of sable & gold, [8]  – I got the best I could meet with, – when you are in the way of any think I beseech you of the grandeur.

I am much indebted to Sir Edward about Plott’s Staffordshire. [9]  In any shape the book would have been acceptable to me, – the more so as coming from him. the Sylvester [10]  also is a treasure, for the copy which I formerly possessed is one of the many volumes which have been stolen while my poor library & I were so many years kept asunder. At last, God be praised, we are gathered together, & earnestly is it my wish that neither they nor I may be removed from our present resting place, till I take up my last lodgings in Crosthwaite Church yard. Here are materials enough for me to work upon perhaps [MS obscured] as I live, certainly for many many years of industry. Never before was so poor a man so rich in books, & never did any man who possessed books enjoy them more heartily.

You will not be displeased to hear that Landor’s offer to print all the poems I would write has stung me to the very core; – & that I am learning to go through the whole Thalaban [11]  series, – not with any idea of accepting his offer – far from it, – but for the sake of showing him how much I feel it, & of letting him see the power that is in me. I shall send him what is written of Kehama [12]  & if he likes it, in good earnest I will up at six every morning, & give two fresh hours of morning work to it till it is compleated. Nine tenths of Madoc [13]  in its first state were written in those hours –

God bless you

RS.