4169. Robert Southey to Edith May Southey, 7 April 1824

 

Address: To/ Miss Southey/ at Mrs Gonne’s/ 16 York Place/ Baker Street/ London
Stamped: KESWICK/ 298
Postmark: E/ 10 AP 10/ 1824
Seal: red wax; design illegible
MS: British Library, Add MS 47888. ALS; 3p. 
Unpublished.

Keswick. 7 April. 1824

My dear EMay

The answer from Penrith

(1)

From a Miss Walmesley of Penrith, who was intending to travel to London and might have accompanied Bertha Southey.

did not arrive yesterday: & now that it is come, we are still in the same quandary, or as it is called in the Lingoa Grande

(2)

The language invented by Sara Coleridge.

twittarumpiter. For nothing can be done in that quarter. The result therefore is, that unless a letter from you should come to say that Bertha can be received somewhere, – if she were <to> arrive on Thursday the 15th, – she must wait for another chance. If she you should have made any arrangement she will set out with Miss Tolson

(3)

Mary Tolson (dates unknown). She had set up business in High Holborn, London, as a ‘linen-draper, dealer and chapwoman’. Declared bankrupt on 8 July 1826, she started a new business in Regent Street as a ‘milliner and dress maker’ only to go bankrupt again on 16 May 1828.

on Monday. I shall write to the Rickmans

(4)

John Rickman and his family.

by this post. You will observe that in all this the only evil is a little consumption of pen, ink, paper & time, falling mostly upon my poor Pilgarlicship.

(5)

A ‘pilgarlic’ was a foolish person, looked on with humorous contempt.

And moreover that there has been some good in it, for Bertha would really not have been in a proper state to have commenced such a journey this day. She has had the prevailing cold very severely, & is by no means thoroughly recovered. And as some compensation for her disappointment, there will be the visit to Rydale.

My cold has done me no good; but it is better to day. Wade Browne

(6)

Wade Browne (1796–1851), the only son of Wade Browne and later a country gentleman at Monkton Farleigh in Somerset. He had been travelling in the Near East.

arrived yesterday & leaves us tomorrow. Mr Calvert dines here to day to meet him.

I do not think there is any news to send you, unless it be that the same Mr Bicknell who sent me a book superbly bound in blue morocco last year has now sent me one in green, – a tragedy dedicated to my honour & glory.

(7)

John Laurens Bicknell, The Hour of Trial; a Tragedy (London, 1824), [unpaginated], contained a dedication to ‘ROBERT SOUTHEY, LL.D./ POET LAUREATE,/ A SCHOLAR AND A GENTLEMAN,/ WHOSE NAME WILL EVER BE PROUDLY ASSOCIATED/ WITH THE/ LITERARY HISTORY OF HIS COUNTRY’. The book bound in blue was Bicknell’s The Modern Church, a Satirical Poem: Comprising Sketches of Some Popular and Unpopular Preachers (1820). A morocco-bound presentation copy of this, along with The Hour of Trial, was no. 286 in the sale catalogue of Southey’s library.

Make my kind remembrances where they are due -

God bless you
RS.

Notes

1. From a Miss Walmesley of Penrith, who was intending to travel to London and might have accompanied Bertha Southey.[back]
2. The language invented by Sara Coleridge.[back]
3. Mary Tolson (dates unknown). She had set up business in High Holborn, London, as a ‘linen-draper, dealer and chapwoman’. Declared bankrupt on 8 July 1826, she started a new business in Regent Street as a ‘milliner and dress maker’ only to go bankrupt again on 16 May 1828.[back]
4. John Rickman and his family.[back]
5. A ‘pilgarlic’ was a foolish person, looked on with humorous contempt.[back]
6. Wade Browne (1796–1851), the only son of Wade Browne and later a country gentleman at Monkton Farleigh in Somerset. He had been travelling in the Near East.[back]
7. John Laurens Bicknell, The Hour of Trial; a Tragedy (London, 1824), [unpaginated], contained a dedication to ‘ROBERT SOUTHEY, LL.D./ POET LAUREATE,/ A SCHOLAR AND A GENTLEMAN,/ WHOSE NAME WILL EVER BE PROUDLY ASSOCIATED/ WITH THE/ LITERARY HISTORY OF HIS COUNTRY’. The book bound in blue was Bicknell’s The Modern Church, a Satirical Poem: Comprising Sketches of Some Popular and Unpopular Preachers (1820). A morocco-bound presentation copy of this, along with The Hour of Trial, was no. 286 in the sale catalogue of Southey’s library.[back]
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