2983. Robert Southey to Edith Southey, 1 May 1817

2983. Robert Southey to Edith Southey, 1 May 1817*
My dear Edith
I have been unlucky today in missing Rickman for a frank & Bedford for the notes, [1] – but I will write if it be only these lines to tell you of my Billet Doux. [2] It has had all the effect you could possibly have wished. Every body has read it, & I hear from Xxxx Wynn that Wm Smith after beginning a letter in reply, thought it better to hold his tongue, & not make a bad matter worse. Lord Lonsdale called to compliment me upon it. – In short never had any man a more compleat triumph.
Frere has interrupted me. I dine at Sir G Bs today with Butler tomorrow – R Academy Saturday, [3] Mrs Gonne Sunday Sir George again Monday a small party I meet Dr Wordsworth. – Not a minute more have I.
God bless you my dear Edith
RS.
Thursday 6 o clock
I have seen Coleridge & he says he shall go to Cumberland. [4]
Notes
* Address: To/ Mrs Southey/ Keswick/ Cumberland
Postmark:
[illegible]
MS: British Library, Add MS 47888. ALS; 2p.
Unpublished. BACK
[2] William Smith had denounced Southey in the House of Commons on 14 March 1817 in the debate on the Seditious Meetings Bill, condemning ‘the settled, determined malignity of a renegado’ and comparing Southey’s arguments against radical views in the Quarterly Review, 16 (October 1816), 227, with those expressed in Wat Tyler (1817), Act 2, lines 103–112. Southey’s response was A Letter to William Smith, Esq., M.P. (1817), published by Murray. BACK
Addressee
People mentioned
- 1 of 2
- next ›