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. Previously published: Adolfo Cabral (ed.), Robert Southey: Journals of a Residence in Portugal 1800–1801 and a Visit to France 1838 (Oxford, 1960), pp. 83–86.
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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Southey's spelling has not been regularized.
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Here then we are. our safe & speedy
passage & the alarms which we endured on the way I have
detailed to my
Mother who will show you the letter & spare me
the needless tedium of telling the same tale again. – I have
seen Dr Pitcairn
My Mother
will tell you how we are settled. our woman servant comes
this evening. I have not yet seen her. – she has been here,
Maria Rosa, so fine! green satin sleeves – pink satin
<jacket> body – powder – muslin petticoat – withall a
good looking girl who has lived five years in one place. she
is to do every thing except cooking – & that when
Manuel
I have drawn the plan of our apartments in
my
Mothers letters. we live in three little rooms,
communicating with each other by double doors till this
morning when I carried away the gates of Gaza.r Pitcairns furniture &
conveniences – who goes in the next packet. this windfall,
with the help of the carpenter who is to make me some
swinging bookshelves, will tolerably set us up.
A mail coach has been lately established to
Coimbra – 130 miles on the Porto road, to which place it is
to run when the road is compleated. yes, a Mail Coach that
goes eight miles an hour, – drawn by mules. my Uncle has
been in it – it is a royal business & will fail from ill
management. it is priced too high – as the fare &c for a
single person amounting to as much as his expences in a
chaise by himself. now this excludes the main body of
travellers – the inferiour tradesman, those who now travel
on mules or horses. – Paper money also is introduced here –
a bad & clumsy business which I do not understand enough
as yet to explain. all I know is this – that the government
set the example of discounting it – & that about a
fortnight since they paid their sailors in it at par. these men on exchanging the
paper found themselves twenty per cent losers, & in
consequence a slight riot ensued & they cried out
Liberty & Bonaparte! this was soon quelled & the
ringleaders secured. they have not however been punished.
This paper currency has brought forth its usual child –
forgery. a German of some respectability & talents, has
been or will be executed for it, in England.
Danvers my
meat, my wax candles – my fuel, my bread come from the
public purse of England. my Uncles
ratio is very large, & I am very conscientiously taking
my share of the loaves & fishes, – eating out my last income tax, & a
little of my friends. – the country here is delightful –
such a sky! every thing in full leaf! – but the green peas
are nearly over. – Our visitors are many of them pleasant –
the women I mean – their manners are easy & of that
frankness that invites familiarity even from a reserved
stranger. Edith
mends in spirits already.
I paid my visits this morning to the
Envoyseeing xxx receiving & returning visits –
then I am at pleisure –
& at work. I rise at five. this time has been employed
in letter writing – a business laborious from the multitude
which I cannot but write at first. Sunday the packet sails
& I shall breathe a little. I will write by the next to
Davy – tell
him so & remember me to him – tell him I remember him
with the earnestness which he a man feels in a foreign country when he
thinks of a friend at home. if he would but knock space as
well as matter out of the Universe, we might meet now.
In the midst of my sickness I thought of
Thalaba & quo[MS torn] plan. it will now soon be
finished.s.
I was wrong about the Cheese. my Uncle
wants some – the mild toasting sort. my Mother
will buy them, & Cottle repay her. pray tell her this, & let
them be sent according to the direction which you have.
Captain YescombeKing
George.
Of the fleas & muskitoes I say nothing –
only Edith was
rather surprized to see me fill the slop bason with the
former at first. remember me to Cottle, & to
Charles Fox.xx & a very few
persons – like the Chapel of Loretto I should have no
wandering wishes Englandward.
I met a Bristol man to day whom I knew in infancy.
Stephens of Wine Street