1511. Robert Southey to Mary Barker, [c. 20 September 1808]
1511. Robert Southey to Mary Barker, [c. 20 September 1808] *
Dear Senhora.
A hasty line to tell you that Mr Mrs & Miss Horton are here. [1] I have officiated as Director in their expeditions, & offered all civilities in my power. They have declined drinking tea here. but will call tomorrow before their departure, – a ceremony for which the view from my study will I think repay them.
My old Letters from Spain are now to be reprinted, [2] & I am tooth & nail employed in putting in some acquirements of late learning, & putting out the errors of early ignorance. so as to make a book of which I need not be ashamed, & to which my new letters from Portugal [3] may occasionally refer.
A Dios
RS
Notes
* Address: To/ Miss Barker
MS: MS untraced; text is taken from Robert Galloway
Kirkpatrick, ‘The Letters of Robert Southey to Mary Barker From 1800 to 1826’ (unpublished PhD, Harvard, 1967), p.
294.
Dating note: Dated from the internal evidence of the visit of Mr and Mrs Horton to Greta Hall. Southey declared on 27
September that the Hortons had paid their visit, which must have occurred before he spent five days at Netherhall, returning
on 26 September. BACK
[1] Relatives of the wife of Barker’s patron and friend Sir Edward Littleton – Frances Littleton (?- 1781), who was the daughter of Christopher Horton of Catton, Derbyshire. BACK
