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MS untraced; text is taken from John Wood Warter (ed.), Selections from the Letters of Robert Southey, 4 vols (London, 1856). Previously published: John Wood Warter (ed.), Selections from the Letters of Robert Southey, 4 vols (London, 1856), I, pp. 127–132; Adolfo Cabral (ed.), Robert Southey: Journals of a Residence in Portugal 1800–1801 and a Visit to France 1838 (Oxford, 1960), pp. 133–134 [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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Your half-letter was more welcome than any full-grown one that
has reached me since my arrival in Portugal. I have had enough unpleasant
intelligence. My acquaintance have been dropping off – not like autumn leaves,
but like the blasted spring fruit; and I shall again have the joy of meeting my
friends in England poisoned by mourning and recollection. The birth of your
little girl
We left Cintra on Tuesday.
In the bustle of removal there was no leisure to be sorry; but when I saw the
white palace chimneys for the last time, there was time enough in a four hours’
ride to remember and regret what I had left. The mosquitoes treated me like a
stranger on my return: they found out a hole in the net. I rose in the night,
and killed nine who had entered the breach, which I also closed; but my hands,
arms, face, and neck, bear the marks of the assault. It was not till we arrived
in Lisbon that I was sensible of the astonishing difference between the city and
Cintra in climate. These people do
nothing to correct their country: everywhere some tree or other will grow. The
olive, the chestnut, the pine, require not a moist soil, the acacia even grows
in the deserts. The great and bloody Joaõ de Castro
I am thinking to undertake a fortnight’s expedition into the
country, with Waterhouse,burro and the good baiting-places in the way, perform
the journey without any serious or injurious fatigue. My objects are Batalha,
Alcobaça, and the poems collected by King Diniz which are preserved at
Thomar;estalagems. I am anxious to see if Edith can bear the fatigues of
Portuguese travelling, as, in case she does, I shall visit most parts of the
kingdom. The plague, or yellow fever, or black vomit has not yet reached us.
Strange as it must appear, we are not yet certain what the disease is. A stupid
indifference prevails respecting our danger, which is imminent; and people speak
of it as a slight disorder, which it is not worth while to avoid by leaving
Lisbon, if it comes, – as a fever curable by the slightest medicines, – when
every post brings worse and worse tidings of its ravages. At Cadiz it has
ceased, but only because its work was done. The fire went out for want of fuel;
4000 only escaped contagion, 8000 died, the remainder fled or recovered.
Yesterday’s news from Seville stated the daily deaths at 500.
The remainder of the sheet must be allotted to business. I have
drawn upon you for thirty pounds. I must beg you to send the same sum to my mother. I shall write by this
packet to have forty pounds paid into your hands, which will leave me something
in your debt. By letters from William
Taylor, I find it is expedient to remove my brother Henry, because he has
outgrown his situation, and takes up the room of a more profitable pupil. This,
too, I collect from his own letters. No alternative offers; and what William Taylor suggests is perhaps
the best plan practicable – to place him with a provincial surgeon of eminence,
who will, for a hundred guineas, board and instruct him for four or five years,
that is, till he is old enough, after a year’s London study, to practise for
himself. For the first time in my life I have the power – at least it appears so
– of raising this sum. My metrical romance goes by the “King George” to
market,King George. He received
£115 for 1,000 octavo copies.
As a hot climate appears rather to agree with my constitution
than to be any way injurious, I have been advised
God bless you. My next will perhaps be the history of our
travels. Edith desires to be
remembered. My uncle may
possibly be obliged to visit England soon. The small living in his gift as
Chancellor is fallen, and he thinks of presenting it to himself.
Wednesday evening. – N.B. Mr. Lefroy was not felo-de-se this morning.