3864. Robert Southey to Charles Watkin Williams Wynn, [late June 1822]

MS: National Library of Wales, MS 4813D. ALS; 2p.
Unpublished.
Dating note: Dating from content. The letter must have been written in late June 1822 as Southey refers to expecting a visit from Nicholas Lightfoot ‘next week’ and Lightfoot arrived on 4 or 5 July 1822.

My dear Wynn

You will have seen that I wrote to M^rs Hughes on the very day when your note was dispatched. Her sons book

⁽¹⁾

reached me only the day before. Bracebridge Hall

⁽²⁾

came with it. I agree with you in your opinion of Irving; only I should not select Westminster Abbey as the best specimen of his talents.

⁽³⁾

I thought it over laboured for the sake of effect, even when I made allowance for the feelings of an American.

Have you read Leucadio Doblado (i.e. Blanco Whites) Letters from Spain?

⁽⁴⁾

They give, as might be expected, a better account of manners & the state of society in that country than can be found in any other work.

I expect my old fellow collegian Lightfoot to visit me next week – whom I have not seen for eight & twenty years.

God bless you
RS.

Notes

1. John Hughes (1790–1857; DNB), An Itinerary of Provence and the Rhone made During the Year 1819 (1822).[back]

2. Washington Irving (1783–1859), Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists. A Medley (1822). A copy was sent to Southey by John Murray.[back]

3. Washington Irving, ‘Westminster Abbey’ in The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent., 2 vols (London, 1820), II, pp. 3–26.[back]

4. Letters from Spain by Don Leucadio Doblado (1822).[back]

TEI Link

TEI

Volume Editor(s)

Lynda Pratt

Ian Packer

The Collected Letters of Robert Southey: Part Seven