960. Robert Southey to Charles Watkin Williams Wynn, [c. 4 July 1804] ⁠* 

Dear Wynn

Your letter gives me some hope. thirty days is the regular course of a typhus fever, & an amendment at the end of that time indicates recovery.

Edwards address is with Dr Thomas, Kington, Herefordshire. I will beg you to thank Dickinson [1]  for me – which indeed I would do by letter myself, if I did not know that any unnecessary letter to a man in business is an impertinent intrusion on his time.

I know not why poor White has neglected to write to me as he promised, & will therefore enquire of him again what hopes he has. Something may certainly be done for him, & he is worth saving. I am afraid however consumption will be his end he has a tendency to it, & confinement & anxiety are dreadful allies to disease. – You shall know where M^rs James’s annuity was purchased & on what terms as soon as I can learn from Bristol. [2] 

This evening I have corrected the first proof of Madoc. [3]  dear Wynn how many years have elapsed since you & I first corresponded upon the subject, & you sent me the extract from Powell! [4]  We were then school boys – & now I have grey hairs in my head. It is so little likely that I shall ever as a poet produce any thing better than this – & I have so deep a sense of radical faults in the story, that my feelings are not what they used to be at the sight of a proof sheet. This & the history – but for many long years – this has been the thing <work> to which I lookd forward – & when wor ones work is done it seems as if the day would soon be over.

My brother Henry is with me – a very fine young man. We have <not> been together a week at a time since his childhood.

God bless you –

RS.

Tuesday.