4132. Robert Southey to Charles Cuthbert Southey, 9 February 1824

 

Address: To/ Charles Cuthbert Southey
Endorsement: Feby 9th 1824/ R Southey to C C Southey
MS: Beinecke Library, Osborn MSS File ‘S’, Folder 14160. ALS; 4p.
Unpublished.

Richmond. Monday 9 Feby. 1824
My dear son

I am coming home very soon. There are three things which keep their appointed course, Time, Tide, & your father. My place is taken in the mail coach for Friday next. At a quarter after seven that evening I am to be at the Inn called the Bull & Mouth. That is a very foolish name. The sign of that Inn almost three hundred years ago was a picture of the mouth, that is the entrance of Boulogne harbour: this was called Boulogne Mouth; & foolish people when the sign was worn out, not knowing what it had been painted a great Bull, & a great Mouth. What silly people!

There is a plan of London in your great book, & you may find out in it where this Inn is: it is behind Newgate Street about two miles from your Uncles House

You may look in the maps too, & see which way I am coming, thro St Albans St Neots. Stilton. Grantham, Newark, Worksop, Doncaster; Wetherby, Bowes Brough & Appleby to Penrith. And on Sunday morning, if it please God, I shall reach home; & very happy I shall be if I find you all well.

If you are a good boy & go on well with your lessons, as I dare say you will, I shall soon begin to teach you Greek; that you may be a good scholar, & so become a wise man. The wiser people are the better they ought to be; & the better they are, the happier they must be.

I shall bring you each a book. On Wednesday I shall begin to pack up, about the time you receive this letter.

Give your dear Mamma a kiss to keep for me. And tell Betty

(1)

Elizabeth Thompson (c. 1777–1862), the Southey family’s longstanding servant. She was buried in the Southey family grave.

I shall be glad to see her again. My love to your Aunts

(2)

Sara Coleridge and Mary Lovell.

& to Sara. I hope the Cats are well. The finest cats which I saw in my travels were at Mr Clarksons.

(3)

Thomas Clarkson’s house at Playford Hall, Suffolk.

Their names are Mrs Burrell, Blucher, & Fanny, all beautiful dark tabbies, of the very best kind. Mrs Burrell is the mother of the other two, & Blucher is such a good cat that he slew a weasel lately in single combat.

God bless you my good little boy
your dutiful father
Robert Southey.

Notes

1. Elizabeth Thompson (c. 1777–1862), the Southey family’s longstanding servant. She was buried in the Southey family grave.[back]
3. Thomas Clarkson’s house at Playford Hall, Suffolk.[back]
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