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Bodleian Library, MS Eng. Lett. c. 22. Previously published: Kenneth Curry (ed.), New Letters of Robert Southey, 2 vols (London and New York, 1965), I, pp. 104–107 [in part, and dated [20 February 1795]; verses not reproduced].
These letters were edited with the assistance of Carol Bolton, Tim Fulford and Ian Packer
For permission to publish the text of MSS in their possession, the editor wishes to thank the Beinecke Rare Books and Manuscript Library, Yale University; Berg Collection of English and American Literature, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations; the Bodleian Library Oxford University; the British Library; Boston Public Library; the Syndics of Cambridge University Library; the Syndics of the Fitzwilliam Museum Cambridge; Haverford College, Connecticut; the Historical Society of Pennsylvania; the Hornby Library, Liverpool Libraries and Information Services; the Houghton Library, Harvard University; the John Rylands Library, Manchester; the Kenneth Spencer Research Library, University of Kansas; Luton Museum (Bedfordshire County Council); Massachusetts Historical Society; McGill University Library; the National Library of Scotland; the Newberry Library, Chicago; the New York Public Library (Pforzheimer Collections); the Pierpont Morgan Library, New York; the Public Record Offices of Bedford, Suffolk (Bury St Edmunds) and Northumberland, the Master and Fellows of Trinity College, Cambridge; the Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle upon Tyne; the Trustees of the William Salt Library, Stafford, the Wisbech and Fenland Museum; the University of Virginia Library.
A research grant from the British Academy made much of the archival work possible, as did support from the English Department of Nottingham Trent University.
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Southey’s spelling has not been regularized.
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Bedford — when I have a home, I will hang my Sans Culotte stick upon the wall, & remain there till I become the
tenant of a narrower habitation. the soul of a poor Jew let loose by the Inquisitorial fire, cannot feel more exquisite delight when it
arrives in Abrahams bosom than will be mine if I ever set foot again upon English ground. were my heart cold or vacant I should not
feel thus, for this soil would do well enough to vegetate in; the sole pleasure I have found in this country is in counting how many
days before I shall leave it. I crossed the Bay of Biscay in such tempestuous weather xxxx xx that for
sixty hours I lay in momentary dread of sinking. we have broken down upon the road three times & overturned once. the wind wrecked
a Spanish vessel in the river at the time we crossed it here — a passage of twelve miles at night. I was happy to tread upon the ground
at landing, for I thought myself upon Terra firma. before day break there was an earthquake. earth air & water have all contributed
to annoy me, & God knows I suffered enough upon the road for want of the other element. the bugs & muskitoes were gone into
winter quarters & I only suffered from a few stragglers — but every night upon the road was I regularly flead.
we were eighteen days travelling to Madrid & 15 from thence to Lisbon. I walked the greater part of the way by which means I kept
myself warm & escaped the overturn & twice breaking down. on Xmas day the following thoughts occurred — & if the lines do
not possess much poetical merit, they will at least tell you what I felt.
———
I read the two languages with facility, & am now abridging the Angelica of Lope de Vega
———
Bedford did you ever see a dancing bear? trust me never bear felt worse heard the sound of the bagpipes with less pleasure — than I feel at the hour of visiting. I am
shown here like a wild beast from one house to another without seeing anybody that I ever wish to see again.
Beckfordr Pitt — “for I made a speech
against him in the house one day, & he was so afraid of me that he trumped up an infamous story & obliged me to quit the
country. the English cut him. xx he has been to court — & a Portuguese nobleman remarked — “as dogs
go to church — the door was open as he walked in.” Beckford had some whelps which he valued, & pestered the servants with his care
of them. passing by them one day he heard his maid servant cry — “curse the whelps — one would think they were my Masters own, he’s so
fond of them.” he turned her off directly.
I was at the opera last night — the first woman was a very ugly fellow — but the chief bufo was a
comical toad. her most Xtian Majesty
I have a thousand things to say to you.
y. 20this for your eye only) who knowing my
connection with Edith (& my Mother at one time encouraging it & treating her as her daughter) knowing her total dependance upon me — & knowing
me too — could get me abroad to wean me of what they call a foolish attachment. I have discovered this since my arrival at Lisbon — for
this precious scheme has been whispered about the town here — & I have likewise heard it from England. my Mother knew my marriage too before I left her. if this did not give me very great pain
because it lessons — indeed destroys respect & esteem for those whom I most love — I could be amused at outwitting my Uncles
sagacity — who carries me to Mrs Tonkinsxxxxxx conduct Grosvenor if asked. my marriage got in the papers & Edith bears her legal name — this I care little for or nothing.
Write to me Bedford — your letter that reachd me at Falmouth was all mystery & if you cannot write explanations write more riddles that I may have something interesting & foreign to myself to think on. I shall write again to you by the next packet which will be on the voyage before this can reach you.
I will certainly be in England in May. & in the course of this year I hope to pitch my tent near you — then adieu to rambling — & no more politics but the newspapers. the Law will be my standing dish I shall devour the abridgement in fifty two volumes, but a little poetry must still be the desert.
I have written to Wynn — & shall by the next packet again.
no merchants clerk can work harder for the packet than I have done — seven letters going! my health is very good but there is a sad
weight on my spirits — & good reason why. I could weary you with complaints — is it not strange
<hard> that we should grieve because others act wickedly? my Uncle uses
no arguments to persuade me into orders. once indeed he showed me in a map the living which his late preferment puts in his gift &
told me it was five hundred a year — he talkd of the house too & situation — but as I immediately changed the subject he has never
renewed it. if you had not given away your heart I should have advised you to visit Lisbon & bespoke one for you. my confidante is
a charming girl — & there is a lady here almost the facsimile of my Edith.
but the best of the joke is — my Uncle (who brings me here to wean me of a foolish attachment) fell in love with this very likeness himself — & her Mother thought he was courting
her but when the murder came out they all quarrelled. he is about 46 & she is about 23 — did you ever see
an very old print from scripture, of a gentleman with a church beam in his eye, pulling the mote out of his neighbours. <literally
so painted>