3807. Robert Southey to John Rickman, 27 February [1822]

Endorsement: 27 Feby
MS: Huntington Library, RS 430. ALS; 2p.
Unpublished.
Dating note: Dating from the reference to Southey’s transcription of the journal he had kept during his tour of Scotland in 1819. This was completed by September 1822; see Southey to John Rickman, 9 September 1822, Letter 3895.

My dear R.

I am quite sorry the franks should have given you vexation as well as trouble.

⁽¹⁾

Rickman had provided a governmental frank to allow proofs of Southey’s History of the Peninsular War (1823–1832) to avoid postal charges.

The evil is nothing. – I had not the conscience to send them back, profiting so largely as I do by the privilege of franking. –

Mrs C. returns thanks in her daughters name, the young Lady being on a visit at Wordsworth. The version is indeed perfectly natural, – it could not have been better.

I have a good intention as soon as the Scotch Journal

⁽²⁾

Southey had been sending Rickman the fair copy of the journal he kept during their tour of Scotland in August–September 1819. This was later published as Journal of a Tour in Scotland, ed. Charles Harold Herford (1929).

is finished, of putting my other journals in a legible form, & transmitting them in like manner for Mrs R.s amusement, – if it will amuse her to travel with me to Waterloo, – & to the Alps.

⁽³⁾

Southey’s journals covering his visit to the site of the Battle of Waterloo in 1815 and his tour of the Continent in May–August 1817. The former were later published as Journal of a Tour in the Netherlands in the Autumn of 1815 (1902).

God bless you
RS.

27 Feb^y.

Notes

1. Rickman had provided a governmental frank to allow proofs of Southey’s History of the Peninsular War (1823–1832) to avoid postal charges.[back]

2. Southey had been sending Rickman the fair copy of the journal he kept during their tour of Scotland in August–September 1819. This was later published as Journal of a Tour in Scotland, ed. Charles Harold Herford (1929).[back]

3. Southey’s journals covering his visit to the site of the Battle of Waterloo in 1815 and his tour of the Continent in May–August 1817. The former were later published as Journal of a Tour in the Netherlands in the Autumn of 1815 (1902).[back]

The Collected Letters of Robert Southey: Part Seven