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MS untraced; text is taken from Charles Cuthbert Southey (ed.), Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey, 6 vols (London, 1849-1850). Previously published: Charles Cuthbert Southey (ed.) Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey, 6 vols (London, 1849-1850), II, pp. 164-167.
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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. . . On Sunday, after delaying till the latest possible moment for the chance of passengers, we dropped down the river Dee. The wind almost immediately failed us; I never saw so dead a calm; there was not a heaving, a ripple, a wrinkle on the water; the ship, though she made some way with the tide, was as still as a house, to our feelings. Had the wind continued as when we embarked, eighteen hours would have blown us to Dublin. I saw the sun set behind Anglesea; and the mountains of Carnarvonshire rose so beautifully before us that, though at sea, it was delightful. The sun-rise on Monday was magnificent. Holyhead was then in sight, and in sight on the wrong side it continued all day, while we tacked and retacked with a hard-hearted wind. We got into Beaumaris Bay, and waited there for the midnight tide: it was very quiet; even my stomach had not provocation enough, as yet, to be sick. In the night we proceeded: about two o’clock a very heavy gale arose; it blew great guns, as you would say; the vessel shipped water very fast, it came pouring down into the cabin, and both pumps were at work, – the dismallest thump, thump, I ever heard: this lasted about three hours. As soon as we were clear of the Race of Holyhead the sea grew smoother, though the gale continued. On Tuesday the morning was hazy, we could not see land, though it was not far distant; and when at last we saw it, the wind had drifted us so far south that no possibility existed of our reaching Dublin that night. The captain, a good man and a good sailor, who never leaves his deck during the night, and drinks nothing but butter-milk, therefore readily agreed to land us at Balbriggen; and there we got ashore at two o’clock. Balbriggen is a fishing and bathing town, fifteen miles from Dublin, – but miles and money differ in Ireland from the English standard, eleven miles Irish being as long as fourteen English. . .
To my great satisfaction, we had in our company one of the most
celebrated characters existing at this day; a man whose name is as widely known
as that of any human being, except, perhaps, Bonaparte!
He is not above five feet, but, notwithstanding his figure, soon
became the most important personage of the party. ‘Sir,’ said he, as
soon as he set foot in the vessel, ‘I am a unique; I go anywhere, just as
the whim takes me: this morning, sir, I had no idea whatever of going to Dublin; I did not think of it when I left
home; my wife and family know nothing of the trip. I have only one shirt with me
besides what I have on; my nephewverbatim et literatim,
Mr. Corry is out of town for two
days, so I have not seen him. The probability is, Rickman tells me, that I shall return
in about ten days: you shall have the first intelligence; at present I know no
more of my future plans than that I am to dine to-day with the secretary of the
Lord Lieutenant,
But you must hear all I have seen of Ireland. The fifteen miles
that we crossed are so destitute of trees, that I could only account for it by a
sort of instinctive dread of the gallows in the natives. I find they have been
cut down to make pikes. Cars, instead of carts or waggons; women without hats,
shoes, or stockings. One little town we passed, once famous, – its name Swords;
it has the ruins of a castle and a church, with a round tower adjoining the
steeple, making an odd group; it was notoriously a pot-walloping borough: