My dear Wynn
Your letter found me copying Thalaba. I shall
send you the copy now making of this, as being less
interlined, & of course more intelligible, than the
first which is better written. [1] – At Lisbon I shall resume my
old habit of early rising. xx at least two thirds of Madoc were written
between the hours of 5 & 9 in the morning. & it is
my intention to win time in the same way for correcting it:
you shall receive the first amended copy. – As soon as I can
get a copy by the Three Graves [2] I will transcribe it for you.
The circumstances attending my breathing the
nitrous oxyd seems to imply that my lungs are some-how
affected. I have not one symptom of pulmonary consumption –
of this I am satisfied. But the gas now always affects my
respiration – it becomes as you saw excessively quick &
short. now this is not the case with any other person, nor
has it long been the case with me.
We shall set out on Friday or Saturday. I
will write from Falmouth. Grosvenor
Dapple was here three days. he took the gas &
it made him snort like a war horse –
God bless you.
yrs
Robert Southey.
Tuesday morning. April 8.
1800
Notes
* Address: To/ C W Williams Wynn Esqr. M.P./ Chester Circuit
MS:
National Library of Wales, MS
4811D
Unpublished. BACK
[1] The first eight books of Thalaba
the Destroyer (1801); now National Library
of Wales, MS 1487A. BACK
[2] ‘The Three Graves. A Fragment of a
Sexton’s Tale’ was begun by Wordsworth in 1797 and taken
over by Coleridge in 1798. It was first published in
The Friend, 6 (21 September
1809). BACK
