3848. Robert Southey to [Thomas Clarkson] [fragment], 29 May 1822

MS: Special Collections, The Johns Hopkins University, Raymond Dexter Havens Papers, MS. 24. AL; 1p.
Unpublished.

Keswick. 29^th May. 1822.

My dear Sir

I am glad you are in this country once more, tho you are come to our Rydal friends at a most unhappy time.

– When shall we see you? Will you take us on your way to the north? Or come from Rydal, & return there, that you may not lose your favourite passage of Kirkstone, over which you first guided me more than eighteen years ago?

⁽²⁾

Fix your own time, – & stay with us as long as you can. – The last time we parted was in Paterdale, – in 1809.

⁽³⁾

We drank tea in poor Luffs

⁽⁴⁾

garden. He is gone, & so are both the men who were my companions

⁽⁵⁾

at that time. Tilbrooke is lamed,

⁽⁶⁾

– you & I have suffered nothing more than the wear & tears <tear> of time; – this however I have begun to feel, & you no doubt will see.

Remember us to M^rs Clarkson. We shall be truly glad to see her under this roof. [remainder of MS missing]

Notes

1. William Wordsworth had fallen from his horse and badly gashed the back of his head. Dorothy Wordsworth had also been nursing Jemima Quillinan, née Brydges (1793–1822), the wife of Edward Quillinan (1791–1851; DNB), the Wordsworths’ neighbour, after she was badly burned in a fire. Mrs Quillinan died on 25 May 1822.[back]

2. See Southey to Charles Danvers, 1 March 1804, The Collected Letters of Robert Southey. Part Three, Letter 905. The Kirkstone pass connects Ambleside to Patterdale.[back]

3. See Southey to Tom Southey, 30 July 1809, The Collected Letters of Robert Southey. Part Three, Letter 1661.[back]

4. Captain Charles Luff (d. 1815), a friend of the Clarksons and the Wordsworths, who lived at Glenridding in Patterdale. He later took up a position on the Paymaster-General’s staff in Mauritius.[back]

5. Charles Danvers; and James Rickards (d. 1812), who was probably an old friend of Southey’s from Bristol.[back]

6. Tillbrook had also been in the party who drank tea in Charles Luff’s garden.[back]

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The Collected Letters of Robert Southey: Part Seven