4116. Robert Southey to William Heathcote, 2 January [1824]
Address: To/ William Heathcote Esqre/ Winchester
Postmark: JA/ 2/ 1824
Endorsement: Mr Southey/ Jan 2. 1823
Seal: red wax; design illegible
MS: Hampshire Record Office, 63M84/234/23. ALS; 3p.
Unpublished.
Dating note: Dating from postmark; Southey misdates by a calendar year.
I ought sooner to have acknowledged your obliging letter; but you know enough of my hurried manner of life in London to account for & excuse an involuntary appearance of neglect. I should regret not seeing you at Winchester more, if it were not likely that we may arrive in town the same day, & <even> not impossible that we may fall in upon the road. For I shall leave Lymington by the stage on Tuesday with the intention of proceeding to London by the first conveyance, & it may easily happen that good Fortune may appoint you a place in the same coach. – Mine is a harassed life at present. This evening I set off for Devonshire, & before I reach home in the middle of February must travel not less than a thousand miles.
Errol was better on Thursday, & my brother is not uneasy concerning him.
Before I received your letter my place had been taken for Exeter, & engagements made at every point of my circuit. A very wearying one it will be; – one day at most places, two at another, & only four with the old friend for whose sake I undertake the journey. – On the second day after my return I start again, with my daughter then, for Norwich – Ipswich & Cambridge – a fortnights round. Then a three days visit at Richmond, after which I shall put myself into the Carlisle mail, & feel at rest when nothing remains to be done but to be whirled over three hundred miles.
Believe my my dear Sir
Yrs very truly
Robert Southey
My best regards to Mrs Heathcote & Miss Bigg.
