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. Previously published: Charles Cuthbert Southey (ed.), Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey, 6 vols (London, 1849–1850), II, pp. 65–68 [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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Lisbon.
[Southey inserts a floor-plan of his residence in Lisbon]
This Tom is the plan of our house, the ground floor which belongs wholly to the servants, is exactly the same, & this is the plan
of Portugueze building. 1 & 5 are the bed rooms – for seperate beds are necessary in this climate. by removing the folding doors 2
& 3 are made into one room, in length 18 of my feet, in breadth 6½ only. In the great room we dine &
receive company. the house was built for two families & there is a kitchen on each floor. 1 was designed to serve that purpose
& the fire place is marked in it. but it is a Portugueze fire<place> the hearth stone, 3 feet from the ground, so that the
cook may stand at his work – for they know not the use of grates: an earthern pan furnishes a Portugueze kitchen. in this they stew
every thing, or fry it in oil. Now for the ornamental part. our great room has four doors, two windows & two balconies. the walls
are simply white limed. do not however suspect us of too plain an appearance. around the top & the middle of the walls runs a broad
board painted like marble veined with blue. Each doors has a pilaster <wood> framing of green
veined marble, with the base streaked red. purple marbled tiles go round the bottom. the cielings is a
floor of wood, painted white & edged with flesh colour. the windowshutters & balcony doors are green. the other doors have
yellow pannels in mahogany coloured frames. <the window frames mahogany coloured> our carpet is a zigzag [Southey inserts sketch
of the pattern] thunder & lightning pattern of all the rainbow colours. the balconies have also glass doors. the huge stone which
forms the standing place is rough as the paving by Northumberland house in the Strand, & enters some foot into the room, a notch is
cut across it & a hole made thro, so that this serves as a sink to carry away what rain enters. The locks & latches are coarse
beyond your conception. under every window frame <& round it> is a stone three inches broad, its surface rough from the stone
cutters chissel. the window frames are fastened with screws broader than a halfcrown on their leads. the glass in every window is
floored with bricks.
The garret is one room over all so propped up with crooked sticks that it would be difficult to lay a bed either
length-breadth or athwart-ways. this propping is a fine specimen of Portuguese building. the ends of the poles are let into rude holes
cut in the floor – & some that were not long enough for this, nor smooth enough to rest upon the ground, have another uncouth stick
stuck under them – as we steady a table in England on an uneven floor. there are pigeon holes to admit light & air like a church
tower <tower> – windows no bigger than church-pigeon holes – & three large windows thus
[Southey inserts illustration] so contrived that if you open the shutters of the middle one, one of the sides must remain shut, &
if you open the sides you fasten the middle. The roofing is like all other houses here – the tiles are shaped thus [Southey inserts U
shaped sketch], they therefore lay on one row in that direction [Southey inserts illustration] – & then lest the rain should enter,
cover it with a row reversed, [Southey inserts illustration]. thus doubly loading the roof.
The bedsteads instead of sacking have planks – a better thing as it does not harbour vermin. the woods here are
exceedingly beautiful, they come from Brazil & are many of them handsomer than mahogany. <sets of specimens are often sold made
like little books, & lettered each with its name.> The Portugueze perfume their houses by burning sugar or lavender – you frxx a whiff of this incense often surprizes me in the middle of a stink as I walk the streets.
The English when strangers here are so suspicious of the natives as to be very rash in misinterpreting them. A young man whom I knew, fired at the watch one night, when they accosted him. the ball passed thro the watchmans hat. he was seized & confined, & it required interest & money to excuse him, for what was inexcusable. My Uncle walking one night with a midshipman was stopt by persons bearing a young man who had been run thro the body by a Lieutenant. they had stopt him seeing his companions uniform, but knowing my Uncle suffered him to pass, after telling the circumstance. The Lieutenant was drunk. the young man was a gentleman who seeing him staggering about the streets, took him by the arm to lead him home. the Englishman did not understand what he said, & run him thro.
As yet we have not done received all our visits of ceremony. we are going the first
night we are at liberty, to the Portugueze play. The court have shown a strange caprice about the opera. they permitted them to have a
few female singers, & the proprietors of the opera sent to Italy for more & better ones. they came – no! they would not license
any more – the present people women might act – but not the new comers. you must not expect me to give
you any reason for this inconsistency – tis the sheer whim of authority. but an odd reason was assigned for permitting two who still
act. one – because she is very religious. The other We x xx because she is Portugueze & of a
certain age.
On Sunday a princess was christened.t Pauls,bell-guns, the sound of a church bell being more formidable to Beelzebub than cannon-balls to sailors.
but now, when that folly is extinct, that the dead should all be huddled together in xxx nar[MS
obscured] places, of which all the soil is human matter, where they must taint the a[MS obscured] must be disturbed – in all
probability are half rotten – this is a beastly adherence to custom which disgraces an enlightened country. – They have a singular mode
of fishing at Costa, a sort of wigwam village in the sands south of the bar. the gang of fishermen to each net is about fifty all paid
& fed by the Captain regularly, not according to their success. half hold one end of a rope – the other is carried off in the boat.
the rope is about half a mile in leng[MS obscured by binding] the net in the middle. a high surf breaks on the shore. the men there
thrust off the boat, themselves breast deep & stooping under every wave that meets them. the others row round to shore, & then
they all haul in. – this place is about nine miles only from Lisbon, yet criminals run away there & are safe. sometimes a
Magistrate goes down, but they always know that he is coming & away to the woods for the day. it is common to go there from town
& dine upon the sands. the people are civil & inoffensive, indeed generally so over Portugal except among the boatmen, who have
enough intercourse with foreigners to catch all their vices.
Lord Somerville