The Collected Letters of Robert Southey. Part 2: 1798-1803 A Romantic Circles Electronic Edition Southey, Robert, 1774-1843 Lynda Pratt Romantic Circles General Editor, Neil Fraistat General Editor, Steven E. Jones Technical Editor Laura Mandell 2011-08-15 rce509 letterEEd.26.500 Romantic Circles, http://www.rc.umd.edu, University of Maryland College Park, MD August 15, 2011

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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.

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 NINES categories for Genre and Material Form at http://www.performantsoftware.com/nines_wiki/index.php/Submitting_RDF#.3Cnines:genre.3E on 2009-02-26 Architecture Artifacts Bibliography Collection Criticism Letters Drama Life Writing Politics Folklore Ephemera Fiction History Leisure Manuscript Reference Works Humor Education Music nonfiction Paratext Perodical Philosphy Photograph Citation Family Life Poetry Religion Review Visual Art Translation Travel Book History Law Southey Letters: Biographies Southey Letters: Places Laura Mandell XSLT Transforming after latest corrections Laura Mandell XSLT Transforming Averill Buchanan corrections from proofing Averill Buchanan Part II added
500. Robert Southey to Thomas Southey, 23 March 1800 Address: To/ Lieutenant Thomas Southey./ H.M.S. Bellona/ Plymouth./ SingleStamped: [partial] BRISTMS: British Library, Add MS 30927Previously 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]. My dear Tom

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 MatchimRobert Machim was the legendary discoverer of Madeira in 1346. – I had read it – but forgotten it. if I should ever visit Madeira, & so become acquainted with all the particular scenery I would make a poem upon the story: your description of the snow-storm is uncommonly striking – you will probably find it introduced in Thalaba.

My intention is, when at Lisbon, to undertake the History of Portugal,Southey’s unfinished ‘History of Portugal’. a long & arduous & interesting & important undertaking, which I think I can do as it ought to be done. the little connection which Portugal has had with general politics give a wholeness & unity to the story – & no country in her rise ever displayed more splendid actions, or exhibited a more important lesson in her fall. It will be necessary to know well the country of which I write – & to be familiar with the situation of every town, famous for a siege – & every field famous for a battle. I shall endeavour also to do what history has never yet done, to introduce into the narrative the manners of the age & people.

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 SomervilleJohn Southey Somerville, 15th Lord Somerville (1765–1819; DNB), agriculturist and distant relative of Southey. He used his stay in Portugal to further his interest in merino sheep. is at Lisbon, where probably I shall see him – unless indeed he should have left the country before the hot season comes on. he has with him as secretary a very great puppy from this place.Unidentified.

I take with me Thalaba in its unfinished state, designing to compleat & correct it there & send it over for publication.The Islamic romance Thalaba the Destroyer (1801). Wynn has promised to give me a copying machine – should this answer its purpose, (& as he has often seen his Uncle Lord GrenvilleWilliam Wyndham Grenville, Baron Grenville (1759–1834; Foreign Secretary 1791–1801; DNB). use it successfully there can be no reason to doubt it,) I will on transcribing MadocThe fifteen-book version completed in 1799. A heavily revised version of Madoc was published in 1805. 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.Boiling Well is so named because, after heavy rains, the underground spring feeding the well causes bubbles to rise to the surface of the spring pool. If you were a Landsman you would be interested in an account of his improvement upon wooden shoes – but as you are not destined to walk in the dirt, the description would be little useful.

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.Joseph Cottle, Alfred, an Epic Poem, in Twenty-Four Books (1800). I put your name on his list because to have put my own would have been foolish, as I know he will of course 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.

God bless you. yr affectionate brother Robert Southey.

March 23. 1800.

Bristol.