383. Robert Southey to Charles Watkin Williams Wynn, 25 February 1799 ⁠* 

My dear Wynn

If I had not letters written by you of a late date & a frank so late as the 20^th the newspapers would have indeed alarmed me. I have seen your name in the Sun, Star & Courier as being on board the Proserpine. [1]  − this is a dreadful circumstance. I also have apprehensions of the same kind for a brother of Edith. lately wrecked on the Spanish coast, & about to return from Porto by way of Dublin. weeks are elapsed since he ought to have been here, & from the continued winds, & the accounts of wrecks innumerable in the Irish Channel, I have <reason for> very serious fears.

I could not help being startled at seeing your name. the probability of your going had before occurred to me, & then I began to think of all the possibilities that you might <have> left London at the latest period. however it is palpably impossible, & yet I shall be glad to see your handwriting.

You ask me about law. in Coke & Blackstone [2]  every passage is familiar to my eyes, to my mind they are not familiar because I have not the opportunity of applying them. for any thing but a Lawyer, my professional knowledge would I believe be great, & as a part of general information I should neither wish or want more. but this is not Lawyers enough. since the weather has broke I am sensibly better, but very different indeed from what I was twelve months ago in bodily strength. at present no person can be more unequal to any kind of application.

I expect to send you my book [3]  tomorrow. it appears to me very odd that people should think me careless of correction after what has been done to Joan of Arc – [4] 

God bless you –

yrs affectionately

R Southey.

Feby. 25. 99.

Have you seen the Inscription for an Oak – & the Wig of the Scarecrow? [5]  there is a story in Plutarchs Morals of Pausanias which will make a fine ballad. [6]