4216. Robert Southey to John May, 18 July 1824

Address: To/ John May Esq^re-/ 4. Tavistock Street/ Bedford Square
Stamped: [partial] T.P./ Bridge St West
Postmark: [partial] 21. JY/ 1824
Watermark: Kingsford/ 1814
Endorsement: N^o. 239 1824/ Robert Southey/ Keswick 18^th July/ rec^d. 22^d d^o/ ans^d. 27^th Oct.
MS: Robert Southey Collection, Harry Ransom Center, The University of Texas at Austin. ALS; 2p.
Previously published: Charles Ramos (ed.), The Letters of Robert Southey to John May: 1797–1838 (Austin, Texas, 1976), p. 207.
Note on MS: This contained an enclosure, Southey’s autobiographical letter of 29 June–17 July 1824, Letter 4208.

Keswick 18 July. 1824

My dear friend

I send you more fruits of good resolution.

⁽¹⁾

The inclination to keep up this pace is not wanting, & the certainty that I could in no other way employ myself more to the eventual advantage of my family reconciles me to indulging in these reminiscences, when tho something else should now & then be laid aside for them.

Your God-daughter is arrived at Seaton. We heard from her the day before yesterday, & I shall soon hear of her from Lightfoot, who purposes to ride over with George Coleridge the younger,

⁽²⁾

to see her. She will visit at Lightfoots before she leaves Devonshire. That excellent old friend of mine is as happy as man can be on account of his sons success at Oxford.

My cold clings to me most pertinaciously. The cough is to day I think better but I cannot venture upon wine or tonics yet, – tho I need them, & am visibly pulled down. Next year I must if it be possible, endeavour to escape by flying from it.

God bless you
Yrs affectionately
RS.