Material from the Romantic Circles Website may not be downloaded, reproduced or disseminated in any manner without authorization unless it is for purposes of criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, and/or classroom use as provided by the Copyright Act of 1976, as amended.
Unless otherwise noted, all Pages and Resources mounted on Romantic Circles are copyrighted by the author/editor and may be shared only in accordance with the Fair Use provisions of U.S. copyright law. Except as expressly permitted by this statement, redistribution or republication in any medium requires express prior written consent from the author/editors and advance notification of Romantic Circles. Any requests for authorization should be forwarded to Romantic Circles:>
By their use of these texts and images, users agree to the following conditions:
Users are not permitted to download these texts and images in order to mount them on their own servers. It is not in our interest or that of our users to have uncontrolled subsets of our holdings available elsewhere on the Internet. We make corrections and additions to our edited resources on a continual basis, and we want the most current text to be the only one generally available to all Internet users. Institutions can, of course, make a link to the copies at Romantic Circles, subject to our conditions of use.
. Previously published: Charles Cuthbert Southey (ed.), Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey, 6 vols (London, 1849–1850), II, pp. 115–121 [in part]; Adolfo Cabral (ed.), Robert Southey: Journals of a Residence in Portugal 1800–1801 and a Visit to France 1838 (Oxford, 1960), pp. 122–124 [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.
All quotation marks and apostrophes have been changed: " for “," for ”, ' for ‘, and ' for ’.
Any dashes occurring in line breaks have been removed.
Because of web browser variability, all hyphens have been typed on the U.S. keyboard.
Dashes have been rendered as a variable number of hyphens to give a more exact rendering of their length.
Southey's spelling has not been regularized.
Writing in other hands appearing on these manuscripts has been indicated as such, the content recorded in brackets.
& has been used for the ampersand sign.
£ has been used for £, the pound sign
All other characters, those with accents, non-breaking spaces, etc., have been encoded in HTML entity decimals.
The long intermission of my letters must not
make you think I have forgotten you. Since we came to Cintra I have been
employd in finishing, correcting, & copying Thalaba –
which now wants only an opportunity to be sent to England.
there is a copy written out for you also,
You have probably heard enough of the infection at Cadiz to be anxious for information. our accounts agree on nothing but in the extent of the calamity. one day we are assured it is the Black Vomit – another day the yellow Fever, & now it is ripened into the Plague. this only is certain that for the last ten or twelve days of our accounts, from 240 to 260 persons have died daily in Cadiz. whether it has extended beyond that city is also uncertain – some reports say it has spread to the South – to Malaga & Alicant – others bring it to the frontier town – within 200 miles of us. We all think & talk seriously of our danger – & forget it the moment the conversation is changed – Whenever it actually enters Portugal – we shall probably fly & probably to England. I hope the rains which we may soon expect will stop the contagion.
So much have I to tell you that it actually
puzzles me where to begin. – My Cintra memorandums
must be made; x more than
once have I delayed the task of describing this place from a
feeling of its difficulty. There is no scenery in England
which can help me to give you an idea of this. the town is
small – like all the country towns of Portugal containing
one Plaza or square, & a number of narrow & crooked
streets that wind up
<down> the hill. the PalaceSierra, or mountain – of Cintra. above us it is
broken into a number of pyramidal summits, of rock piled
upon rock – two of them are wooded completely – the rest
bare. Upon one stands the Penha Convent – a place where if
the Chapel of Loretto had stood one might have half credited
the lying legend – that the Angels – or the Devil – had
dropt it there – so unascendable the height appears on which
it stands. yet is the way up easy. on another point the
ruins of a Moorish Castle crest the hill. to look down from
here upon the Palace & Town my head grew giddy, yet is
it further from the town to the valley, than from the summit
to the town. the road up is as a terrace, now with the open
heath on the left all purple with heath flowers & here
& there the stoney summits, – & coombs winding to
the vale, luxuriously wooded, chiefly with cork trees.
descending as you advance towards Colares, the summits are
covered with firs, & the valley appears in all the
richness of a fertile soil under this blessed climate. The
Cork is perhaps the most beautiful of trees, its leaves are
small & have the dusky colour of evergreens, but its
boughs branch out in the fantastic twistings of the oak,
& its bark is of all others the most picturesque. you
have seen deal curl under the carpenters plane – it grows in
such curls – the wrinkles are of course deep – one might
fancy the cavities the cells of hermit-fairies. There is one
Tree in particular here which a painter might well come from
England to see. large & old – its trunk & branches
are covered with fern – the yellow-sun-burnt-fern – forming
so sunny a contrast to the dark foliage –! a wild vine winds
up & hangs in festoons from the boughs – its leaves of a
bright green – like youth – & now the purple clusters
are ripe. – These vines form a delightful feature in the
scenery. the vineyard is chearful to the eyes – but it is
the wild vine that I love, matting over the hedges, or
climbing the cork, or the tall poplars, or twisting over the
grey olive, in all its unpruned wantonness. The Chesnut also
is beautiful. its blossoms shot out in rays like stars, & now its hedge-hog fruit
stars the dark leaves. We have yet another Tree of exquisite
effect in the landscape – the fir – not such as you have
seen, but one that shoots out no branches, grows very high
& then spreads broad in a mushroom shape exactly – the
bottom of its head of the brown & withered colour that
the yew or the fir always have, & the surface of the
brightest green. If a mushrooms serve as the Pantheon dome
for a faery ball – you might conceive a giant picking one of
these pines for a parasol. they have somewhat the appearance
in distance that the Palm or the Cocoa has in a print.
The English are numerous here, enough to
render it a tolerable market, for sellers will not be
wanting where purchasers are to be found. yet last year the
Magistrate of the place was idiot enough to order than no
English man should be served till all the Portugeuze were
satisfied, one of those laws that carries its antidote in
its own absurdity. among the people the English are in high
favour. they are liberal – or if you will extravagant, &
submit to imposition, – now a Portugueze fights hard for a
farthing. servants love to be in an English family. The mistress when they go If
a Portugueze mistress goes out she locks up her maids for
fear of the men: the relations of the servants often insist
that this shall be done. Oftentimes the men & women
servants in a family do not know each other. all kitchen
work is done by men who sleep & live below, the females
are kept above, – a precious symptom of national morals!
calculated to extend the evil it is designed to prevent –
but I wander from Cintra. the fire flies were abundant when we
first came here – it was like faery land to see them
sparkling under the trees at night. the glow-worms were also
numerous. their lights went out at the end of July – but we
have an insect which almost supplies their place – a winged
grasshopper. in shape like our own, in colour a grey-ground
hue, undistinguishable from the soil on which they live –
till they leap up & their expanded wings then appear –
blue, or purple. at night we
hear at evening the grillo – it is called the cricket
because its song x is like
that animal but louder – it is however wholly different –
shaped like a beetle, with wings like a bee, & black.
they sell them in cages at Lisbon by way of singing
birds.
We ride asses about the country – you would
laugh to see a party thus mounted, & yet soon learn to
like the easy pace & sure step of the John burros. At the S. Western extremity of
the Rock is a singular building which we have twice visited
– a chapel to the Virgin – (who is omnipresent in Portugal)
– on one of the stoney summits – far from any house. it is
the strangest mixture you can imagine of art & nature –
you scarcely at approaching know what is rock & what is
building. & from the shape & position of the chapel
itself it looks like the Ark left by the waters upon Mount
Ararat. x long flights of
steps lead up & among the rocks are many rooms designed
to house the Pilgrims who frequent the place. a poor family
live below with the keys. From this spot the coast lies like
a map below you – to Cape Espichel, with the Tagus. Tis a
strange place – that catches every cloud & xxxx I have felt a tempest
there when there has been no wind below. in case of plague
it would be an excellent asylum. At the N. Western extremity
is a rock which we have not yet visited where people go to
see Fishermen run the risque of breaking their necks by
walking down a precipice. – I have said nothing to you of
the wild flowers so many & so beautiful – purple
crocuses now cover the ground. nor of the flocks of goats
that morning & evening pass our door. nor of the lemon
gardens of these hereafter. Our Lady of the Incarnation will
about fill the sheet. Every Church has a fraternity attached
to its patron Saint for the anniversary festival they beg
money, what is deficient the chief of the brotherhood
supplies. for 3 or four more days preceding the holy day,
these people parade the country with the church banner,
taking a longer or shorter circuit according to the
celebrity of the Saint, attacking the Sun with sky rockets,
& merry-making all the way. Those of whom I now speak
travelled for five days. I saw their nature – they had among
them four Angels on horseback, who as
they took leave of the Virgin at her church door, each
alternately addressed her, & reminded her of all they
had been doing to her honour & glory, & requested to
continue the same devout spirit in her
Portugueze which must infallibly render them still invincible: this done the Angels went into
the Plaza – to see the fireworks. I regret much that I was
not present last year when the fireworks were singularly
ingenious as there were then – my Uncle saw
them two Lions who spit fire at each other, & then they
made fire from a part which would have been more naturally
employed in water-works – & then they tacked about,
& bumbarded each other with fire –
& all in honour of our Lady of the Incarnation!
I have a letter half written about Mafrathe British
forces. they will frank the letter – & fix an
S. by the wafer – Ediths love – I wish you were here – in a
week your cheeks would ache with laughing at the oddities of
the people – & your whole sea stock of oaths be
exhausted in cursing their filth.