3849. Robert Southey to [Mary Ann Watts Hughes], [June 1822]
MS: The Carl H. Pforzheimer Collection of Shelley and His Circle, New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox, and Tilden Foundations, Misc MS 3795. ALS; 2p.
Previously published: John Wood Warter (ed.), Selections from the Letters of Robert Southey, 4 vols (London, 1856), III, pp. 197–198 [misdated ‘July 1820’].
Dating note: Dating from content. Southey refers to the month of May being over and that he had received John Hughes’s Itinerary of Provence and the Rhone made during the year 1819 (1822). As the book arrived in the same parcel as Washington Irving’s Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists. A Medley (1822), which Southey thanked John Murray for on 29 June 1822 (Letter 3863), then this letter must have been written at some stage in June 1822.
Since the arrival of your letter, I have waited patiently in expectation of Mr Hughes’s book,
looking confidently for it in the first parcel which I should receive from Murray. It reached me yesterday, – & I have been very much amused & gratified in the perusal. How enviable a talent does your son possess of communicating what he wishes to the eye, as well as to the understanding. – As I do not know where to address him, I inclose a letter of thanks under cover to our friend, Mrs Companys Lord & Master.
I hope you are not in London during this delightful season, which is what summer used to me in old times. We had really an honest old English April this year, with sunshine & warm showers; & an honest old English May, such as to make the poetry of former days intelligible. You appear to hope that old English feelings may also be reviving. I wish they may, – but I confess that I cannot think so. There are so many disorganizing & destroying principles at work, – that were it not for a reliance upon Providence, I should say neither the Church of England, nor the Monarchy would last another half century.
The more however I apprehend this, the more I feel the duty of making every exertion which may tend to avert it.
Mrs Southey desires me to present her remembrances. – I wish we could hear that you thought of visiting the Lakes
Believe me Dear Madam
with great respect
yr obliged & obedient servant
Robert Southey.
