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National Library of Wales, MS 4811D. Previously published: John Wood Warter (ed.), Selections from the Letters of Robert Southey, 4 vols (London, 1856), I, pp. 145-149; Adolfo Cabral (ed.), Robert Southey: Journals of a Residence in Portugal 1800-1801 and a Visit to France 1838 (Oxford, 1960), pp. 166-167 [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.
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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.
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On my return from a long journey thro Alentejo & Algarve I found three letters from you. two scraps & the
longer one in which you plead for the Catholic emancipation.
I cannot argue against toleration. yet is Popery in its nature so very damnable & destructive a system that I could
not give a vote for its sufferance in England. I could no more permit the existence of a monastic establishment, than the human
sacrifices of Mexican idolatry. you say forbid their endowment – but the great pillars of monkery are those orders that cannot be
endowed – the whole family of Franciscans. you say they are bound by no law & may come out of their convents. but they are bound by
their own law – by vows blasphemous to Almighty God, & treasonable to human nature & civil society. Of all Catholics the Irish
are the most bigotted & bloody. here we know them. there is danger from the increase of Popery – your higher
classes – your middle class are turning infidels – true. but look at the great body of the poor – with what a hunger & thirst for
the marvellous they swallow every new dose of superstition. observe the growth of methodism – perhaps more nearly connected with popery
than is generally imagined. I have reason to believe they have arrived at confession already. All I would prohibit
should be the monastic institutions. educate their priests in England. tolerate the counter-poisons of Deism & Atheism – the great
antidotes. these caustics are rooting out the cancer here & in Spain. they will indeed make a sore wound – but not a deadly
one.
I have now travelled about a thousand miles in Portugal, & acquired a tolerably accurate knowledge of the greater
part of the Kingdom. the northern provinces are yet unvisited. I wish much to remain another year – it would so compleatly suit my
inclinations – health & pursuits – but my Mother is looking anxiously for
my return & home I must go – if a man who has no fixed place of rest may use the word. I am in perfect health.
for six months not one seizure – not one symptom has annoyed me. but I dread an English winter, & the worse blasts of an English
spring. my stay may be from 4 to 6 weeks longer. sooner I cannot well depart – nor for the heats remain later – as to remove to Cintra would not be worth the expence & trouble. If there should be a Bristol bound ship I
shall for oeconomy sake embark in it. the packet passage being now advanced to 20 guineas. On my return I shall soon leave Bristol to
pass thro Wales to the Lakes, there to pass the Autumn & perhaps the winter. my Welsh abode & excursions you may regulate. the
History will be my employments – to that I shall devote myself – relieving labour by the correction of
Madocflares a longer flamethou thy servant depart in peacelet not thou
In my journeys I have literally seen & noted so much that I say nothing because there is so much to communicate.
you shall see my journals
Frerewarm place & you will perhaps wonder at the directions to leave the bung hole open.
We are again distressed by a newspaper account that my brother Tom
has been wounded in the Danish action,Beltona in this action and was listed as
wounded, e.g. in Mars and
L’Hercule on 21 April 1798. In fact, Tom Southey did not become a Captain until 1811.
pray pray do not cag