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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. 84–86 [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.
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Since last I wrote I have seen something of
South Devon. a country which has been so over-praised as
compleatly to disappoint me. some particular spots were
striking, but the character of the whole is bald – high
hills, with hedges & no trees, & broad views that
contained no object on which the eye could fix. I remember
with most pleasure a little vale amid high hills of which
one was well wooded, many streams intersected it, & all
over the green vale were fine old ash trees, as if a grove
had been rooted up & these left standing. the ash is our
most beautiful tree, not our finest, but in a quiet secluded scene
our most appropriate – the leaves are so transparently
green, & hang with so feathery a lightness, & the
bark is more strongly coloured than that of any other tree.
there was a mill in this vale, quite a comfortable dwelling,
a saw-pit by – just enough of man to enliven the scene – not
to spoil it. it pleased me mightily.
Near Totness I fell in with a country man who
talked of the Duke of Somerset,
I have been much indisposed, unless I take so
much exercise as almost to preclude doing anything else, my
pulse intermits & I have the old symptoms. you are
mistaken in supposing I play pranks with myself. the gazeous
oxyd
You astonish me about the Tractors. did I
tell you that trials had been made at Bristol with pieces of
wood which had actually cured paralytic cases?
Bedfords Witches
I expect to reach Hampshire in about ten days & take possession of my Mothers cottage. excuse the damned city-countrification of that word but in truth I want an unpolluted word to express the same thing – for you know little-house is not exactly the same thing. We shall winter there – & I mean to use my legs six hours out of the 24 if possible to get the machine in due order. I dread London & its confines for myself & for Edith. she has recovered, & now again is growing indisposed.
I want sadly to see your country – & if
it were a thing study
promised any success, to understand your language that I
might get at the hidden treasures. your Welchmen do so
little for us. is not there nationality enough among you to
give us poor Englishmen Taliessin
I will write as soon as we reach Burton.