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Huntington Library, RS 131. Previously published: Charles Cuthbert Southey (ed.), Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey, 6 vols (London, 1849–1850), III, pp. 154–156 [in part].
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.
Any dashes occurring in line breaks have been removed.
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Southey’s spelling has not been regularized.
Writing in other hands appearing on these manuscripts has been indicated as such, the content recorded in brackets.
& has been used for the ampersand sign.
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I very much wish you were here. You may have heard that there is an island which sometimes comes up in this Lake, ought to put himself in the first mail coach, – & perhaps curiosity may induce you to expedite your journey
for the sake of seeing the oddest thing you are ever likely to see.
How it is effected is for Davy to discover, but as much of the
bottom of the Lake as is equal to the area of your house, has been forced up to the surface, in about several pieces; –
& in other parts you can plainly see that there are rents in the bottom where parts have sunk in, for it is not in a deep part of
the Lake. The gas which follows the immersion of a pole stinks. & over one part of the water a thin steam was plainly discernable
when I was there. As no person xxx was present when it rose we cannot tell whether it was accompanied with any great
agitation of the water, or any noise, – but the noise if any, cannot have been very great, or it would have been heard xxxx
here. It is possible that the cause xx may have some connection with the sulphureous springs in the neighbourhood, – almost
certain that it is the same which occasions our bottom winds.
Thank you for your explanation of fuste, which I believe to be the true one. – Azagay which you
point out in BizobequiusPentes Laares is probably a barbarous compound of the two words Penates and Lares. If it be remembered how
many Roman superstitions were still in full use, it will not appear improbable that some family idols were preserved as amulets; ..
or perhaps the corrupted Pagan names applied to some of those objects of Catholic idolatry which have supplied their place’.
A Portugueze sermon has just helped me to a discovery which will amuse you. Who was the first man that doubled the Cape of Good Hope! – The prophet Jonah, – examine his track in the Whale & this proves to be the case: & you will observe that this magnifies the miracle prodigiously, for what a passage he had from the Mediterranean to the Persian Gulph!
It appears from my books about Brazil that from 1620 or thereabout for many years the English made pertinacious &
resolute attempts to establish themselves upon the River Amazon. – or more properly the River Orellana, as I mean to call it. These
were just after the time of Purchas,
My friends the Spaniards & Port. are justifying the character which I have long given them, to the astonishment of
those who heard me. Bonaparte will I suppose pour in upon them with his whole force, – so let him. You know how little respect I have
for what is called the spirit of history, or the philosophy of history, by those people who want to have every thing given them in
extracts & essences. – but the truth of the present history is that a great military despotism in its youth & full vigour like
that of France will & must beat down corrupt establishments & worn-out governments, – but that it cannot beat down a true love
of liberty & a true spirit of patriotism, – unless there be an overwhelming superiority of physical force, which is not the case
here. Bonaparte has one benefit more to confer upon the Spaniards – to put both their King & their Prince out of the way, – which I
doubt not he will do. His work of destruction is not quite completed, I hoped & expected to have seen him destroy the House of
Austria & the Turkish Empire. two great evils which cumber the earth. He may perhaps turn upon these as an excuse for leaving Spain
alone, – but in Spain the fire has broken burst out which will consume. – Well done my friend William Bryan the Prophet, you
certainly did prophecy to me in St Stephen Court concerning Spain,Moore Francis Moore did in his Almanach last year concerning the Grand Turk.