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British Library, Add MS 30927. Previously published: John Wood Warter (ed.), Selections from the Letters of Robert Southey, 4 vols (London, 1856), I, pp. 99–101; Adolfo Cabral (ed.), Robert Southey: Journals of a Residence in Portugal 1800–1801 and a Visit to France 1838 (Oxford, 1960), pp. 67–68 [in part].
These letters were edited with the assistance of Carol Bolton, Tim Fulford and Ian Packer
For permission to publish the text of MSS in their possession, the editor wishes to thank the Beinecke Rare Books and Manuscript Library, Yale University; Berg Collection of English and American Literature, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations; the Bodleian Library Oxford University; the British Library; Boston Public Library; the Syndics of Cambridge University Library; the Syndics of the Fitzwilliam Museum Cambridge; Haverford College, Connecticut; the Historical Society of Pennsylvania; the Hornby Library, Liverpool Libraries and Information Services; the Houghton Library, Harvard University; the John Rylands Library, Manchester; the Kenneth Spencer Research Library, University of Kansas; Luton Museum (Bedfordshire County Council); Massachusetts Historical Society; McGill University Library; the National Library of Scotland; the Newberry Library, Chicago; the New York Public Library (Pforzheimer Collections); the Pierpont Morgan Library, New York; the Public Record Offices of Bedford, Suffolk (Bury St Edmunds) and Northumberland, the Master and Fellows of Trinity College, Cambridge; the Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle upon Tyne; the Trustees of the William Salt Library, Stafford, the Wisbech and Fenland Museum; the University of Virginia Library.
A research grant from the British Academy made much of the archival work possible, as did support from the English Department of Nottingham Trent University.
Any dashes occurring in line breaks have been removed.
Because of web browser variability, all hyphens have been typed on the U.S. keyboard.
Dashes have been rendered as a variable number of hyphens to give a more exact rendering of their length.
Southey’s spelling has not been regularized.
Writing in other hands appearing on these manuscripts has been indicated as such, the content recorded in brackets.
& has been used for the ampersand sign.
£ has been used for £, the pound sign
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At last my plans are settled. my Uncle has written to me,
& Edith & I are preparing for a voyage to Lisbon, where I trust we shall
arrive by May Day. I am taught to expect recovery from climate – & have certainly left
<learnt> to expect it from nothing else.
Thank you for the tale of Matchim
My intention is, when at Lisbon, to undertake the History of Portugal,
I wish you could get superseded once more, & removed to the Lisbon station.
My Aunt, I believe is going into Herefordshire – at least so it is said – & my Mother will go with her. this will not be unpleasant – as my Aunt is better any where than at home, having no body to scold. She did a quaint thing in a passion the other day. she had written a letter to Thomas at Hereford – & packed up another for Edward with a box of ninepins & a cake of gingerbread. & then misdirected both – so that Edward received the Lawyers letter, & Thomas had the gingerbread & the ninepins, to the no small surprise of the one, & disappointment of the other.
Lord Somerville
I take with me Thalaba in its unfinished state, designing to compleat & correct it there & send it over for
publication.roll off a copy for you.
Rickman has been here some weeks, & I fancy he finds the society at Bristol
better than the uniformity of Christ Church. he is going to day to examine the Boiling Well near Stapleton, a puzzling thing – &
Davy & I accompany him.
Edith is not much pleased with the prospect of a journey to Falmouth, a voyage afterwards – & then a land of strangers. I also wish the voyage were over, & feel at the very thought qualms ominous of intestinal insurrection. but anything to rid me of these heart & head seizures! & as doctors do not differ about it, I hope with confidence.
When you write to Lisbon remember that letters pay by weight. of course the thinner paper you use the better. postage is shamefully dear there – an impertinent intrusion of the Portugueze government by the by which hardly ought to be tolerated. they take the letters from [MS torn] packet. & then make the English pay them for passing thro their post office. I once paid for a very long & heavy letter from Grosvenor Bedford eight English shillings – & the letter was not worth two-pence.
You mistook me about Cottles Alfred.give me a copy; – & yet I
wished to put some name on the subscription board. But to put any one down & make him pay a guinea for this book would be making
rather too free with him – you will therefore receive the copy – & the Anthology account will pay for it.