3837. Robert Southey to Henry Herbert Southey, 13 May 1822

Address: To/ D^r Southey/ 15. Queen Anne Street/ Cavendish Square/ London
Stamped: KESWICK/ 298
Postmark: E/ 16 MY 16/ 1822
Seal: red wax; arm holding aloft cross of Lorraine
MS: Keswick Museum and Art Gallery, 1996.5.123. ALS; 3p.
Unpublished.

My dear Harry

Miss Wilbraham

⁽¹⁾

is going to be married; – consent has been asked & given, & I know not which is happiest; she in the prospect of matrimony, or Tom & his Wife in getting rid of a boarder, whom I verily believe they wished to get rid of in any underhand way. Perhaps you may know something of the intended husband,

⁽²⁾

in many respect a much better one than she had reason to expect. He is a Land Surveyor by profession, a Newcastle-man by birth, Frier by name, & now inhabits Ormathwaite: – a very handsome man, of gentlemanly manners & appearance, & scientific acquirements, forty years of age. He has lived in this neighbourhood several years. – What can be his inducement you will ask. I suspect her money, & her connections. The rest, as a man of liberal opinions, he takes easily. All things considered however, her father

⁽³⁾

may look upon it as a very eligible match, this son in law being a person who is producible any where. I hope her poor wits will hold together till the time appointed which is not till after – Carlisle Assizes.

⁽⁴⁾

Marriage & hanging you know, go together in an old proverb.

⁽⁵⁾

I am sorry to hear from my Uncle that you have not been well. A run among the mountains will do wonders for you. I was in the river on the last day of April. We have had winter again since; & now summer is returned. We were on the Lake this morning for the first time.

Westall has sent me proofs of two Portugueze scenes, – part of the series with which he means to accompany my history.

⁽⁶⁾

They are some of the finest things I ever saw. I am fast approaching the end of the volume.

I write this merely to tell you about Miss Wilbraham. Her father has not thought it necessary to make any enquiries concerning M^r Frier, but takes her report of him. Perhaps Gooch may like to let him know what I have said on the fair side

Love to Louisa & Mrs Gonne

God bless you
RS.

Keswick 13 May. 1822.

Notes

1. Mary Laetitia Wilbraham (1799–1874), Tom Southey’s lodger.[back]

2. Joseph Harrison Fryer (1777–1855) of Whitley House, Northumberland. A surveyor, geologist and mining engineer, Fryer spent part of each year at Keswick. At this time he was renting Ormathwaite, a large house about a mile and a quarter from Keswick.[back]

3. Randle Wilbraham (1773–1861), landowner, of Rode Hall, Cheshire.[back]

4. Assizes were courts that periodically heard more serious cases (including capital offences) in each county. The Carlisle Assizes began on 13 August 1822.[back]

5. ‘Marriage and hanging go by destiny;/ ’Tis the old proverb; now they come together’, John Fletcher (1579–1625; DNB), A Wife for a Month (1624), Act II, scene 1, lines 2–3.[back]

6. A Series of Views of Spain and Portugal, to Illustrate Mr. Southey’s History of the Peninsular War; Drawn on Stone by W. Westall, A.R.A., from Sketches by General Hawker, Mr. Locker, Mr. Heaphy, &c. Part I, containing Eight Views, illustrating Vol. I (1823). These pictures could be inserted into the first volume of Southey’s History of the Peninsular War (1823–1832).[back]

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The Collected Letters of Robert Southey: Part Seven