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Huntington Library, RS 7. Previously published: Kenneth Curry (ed.), New Letters of Robert Southey, 2 vols (London and New York, 1965), I, pp. 223–227.
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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The voyage is over. we had fair weather, light winds, & a
fine passage of only five days & a half. soon said – but what a world of
misery was comprized in those five days & half! I neither could eat or
sleep, & Edith suffered more
than me. all my former sea nausea was trifling to this – & yet our weather
was so singularly favourable. I saw porpusses – & a grampus. a shark was
seen but not by me. one only adventure diversified our voyage. a cutterEndymion.
We arrived yesterday morning, & are now half settled in our
house. My old friend Manuel
Four years have passed away since I left Lisbon. so long a time
had blunted memory, & every thing seems half new to me – new enough to
interest – not to depress by a total strangeness. I see much which would else
have escaped me thro Ediths eyes.
she is as much amused at seeing the Portugueze women walking in thick heavy
large woollen cloaks in their May, as they would be at her muslin in an English
December. Every thing, while it amuses her, makes her like England – but you
know how any foreign country makes an Englishman proud – & will easily
conceive that I am all Anglicanized already. An Englishman in the streets of
Lisbon – is like the Heathen Gods of poetry when they descend you know them by
their gait – their figure – not by their odours indeed – for the difference
between them & the natives is that they do not smell, & the perfumes of
ambrosia could have been nothing to the delight of having no stink at all here.
Edith has discovered that there
are no middle-aged women to be seen – this is a well known effect of hot
climate. like the primrose that blossom flowers
the Portugueze women burst into full bloom at once – & then wither away. I
have discovered something too – that married persons use seperate beds – this is
the necessity of the climate, which I might have guessed. the natives are a
libidinous people & perhaps this custom may be one of the disposing
causes.
I learnt from a fellow passenger, who has been two years ago in
Spain, that their abridged translation of Adam Smiths bookxxxxxxx discount! this occasioned an odd symptom here some fortnight
ago only. they paid their sailors chiefly in this paper – the men went to pay it
away as they received it, at par – & their disappointment produced a sort of
riot – they shouted out Liberty – & Bonaparte. it was quelled & some of
the ring leaders are in custody, but no punishment has been inflicted.
I must not forget one great innovation – a mail coach runs to Coimbra – on the way to Porto & is to go all the way when the road is compleated. it travels eight miles an hour. true Rickman – my Uncle has taken the journey in it. tis a Royal business, & it answers for the road is frequented. one might prophecy good from this, the establishment of decent inns & the growth of civilization.
___
Half a days delay has already given me something to correct. the
Mail Coach is not well managed & not expected to last. tis a government
business & priced so high as to exclude the great body of travellers – the
little dealers who mount their mules. now a single persons expences amount to as
much as if he was in a chaise singly. the Paper money has produced its usual
consequence – Forgery. you must note however that Portugueze eyes can see these
slippery places for roguery. a German of talents & once of respectability is
in custody for it in England.
Some inconvenience xx has been
produced to Strangers by the wish of England to send her wild Irishmen here.
they are detained at a little fort to give in their names & be vouched for
by some settler, & the nephew of a settler was not sent back by the ship in which he came only because he was born
in Ireland! – Counsellor Sampsonxx answered – o yes – as many as please may
see him – but then you shall stay with him – & they actually did shut one up one person for his visit. Sampson has
since been sent to Hambro.
An imposition of some consequence takes place upon passengers at
Falmouth. four guineas are taken – by no authority whatever, at the passport
off[MS torn] say it is a Post Office charge. & that the money goes to some
charity. When my Uncle & I
crossed in the Spanish captain the same charge was made. why how is this? said
he to the Spanish Captain. the Post Office cannot put this on. No. said
Aruspini
We landed without difficulty & our trunks were not examined.
for this we were obliged to the Commissary here who came on board with my Uncle to serve us in this
business. – I have been paying my form visits to the Envoyxxx have begun immediately my plan of early
rising & it has helped me thro my letter writing, which on arrival in a
foreign country is a serious job. this once done – & the next packet will
finish it, for I cannot write all by this. I turn to serious employment. in my
next I will tell you my intended plan of proceeding in my historical
undertaking.
If the Magazine plan xxxxxxx xxx xxxx like xxxxxx
rhyme xxxx xxxxxxx xxxxxxxx be of any xxxx – but my xx xxxxxxx xxxxxxxx of
the scheme xxxx xxxxx xxxxxx these xx xxxxxxxx xxxx of xxxxxxx xxxxxx &
xxxx & xxxxxxxx for you & xx xxxxxx I wrote to xxxxxx xxxxxxxx xxxx
xx xxxx xx my plan xxxxx up to xxxx xxxxxx xxxx xxxxx xxx – I had almost forgotten
Remember me to George
Dyer, my very good friend, who is the friend of every body & to
Amos & Robert Cottle – I have brought a
pair of the clogs over – but dare not show them before the wet weather – for now
they are preposterous as a parasol would be in Greenland. Edith begs to be remembered. we felt
your loss at Bristol – & I often wish Davy could annihilate space as well as matter & enable me to
perceive the percipient Perception which conveys to me the xxx impression called John Rickman.