The Collected Letters of Robert Southey. Part 2: 1798-1803 A Romantic Circles Electronic Edition Southey, Robert, 1774-1843 Lynda Pratt Romantic Circles General Editor, Neil Fraistat General Editor, Steven E. Jones Technical Editor Laura Mandell 2011-08-15 rce865 letterEEd.26.856 Romantic Circles, http://www.rc.umd.edu, University of Maryland College Park, MD August 15, 2011

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National Library of Wales, MS 4811D. Previously published: John Wood Warter (ed.), Selections from the Letters of Robert Southey, 4 vols (London, 1856), I, pp. 247-248.

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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 NINES categories for Genre and Material Form at http://www.performantsoftware.com/nines_wiki/index.php/Submitting_RDF#.3Cnines:genre.3E on 2009-02-26 Architecture Artifacts Bibliography Collection Criticism Letters Drama Life Writing Politics Folklore Ephemera Fiction History Leisure Manuscript Reference Works Humor Education Music nonfiction Paratext Perodical Philosphy Photograph Citation Family Life Poetry Religion Review Visual Art Translation Travel Book History Law Southey Letters: Biographies Southey Letters: Places Laura Mandell XSLT Transforming after latest corrections Laura Mandell XSLT Transforming Averill Buchanan corrections from proofing Averill Buchanan Part II added
856. Robert Southey to Charles Watkin Williams Wynn, 24 November [1803] Address: To/ C W Williams Wynn Esq. M.P./ Wynnstay/ WrexhamStamped: KESWICK/ 298Endorsement: Nov. 24/ 1803 MS: National Library of Wales, MS 4811DPreviously published: John Wood Warter (ed.), Selections from the Letters of Robert Southey, 4 vols (London, 1856), I, pp. 247-248. Thursday. 24 Nov. Dear Wynn

I have received yours with its contents this evening.

Last night I finished my Bardsey book Madoc (1805), Part 1, Book 13. & very much to my own satisfaction. with local & particularizing scenery of course nothing could be done – for I have not been able to find any account whatever of the Island. I have pourd out a fine description of a fine autumn day with shore-objects, & made good use of my catholic knowledge in a service for the dead. thereto LlewelynLlewelyn ‘the Great’ (c. 1173-1240, Prince of Gwynedd 1194-1240; DNB). is introduced in a coracle. My mountaineering recollections are to come in the next book. some images I learnt by Llanberris – the best is one which came to me at Wynnstay – there where the Dee has some outlandish name – there where we saw the French DukeUnidentified. drawing – after all the objects of sight I shall turn to those of sound, which always affect me very much – & having dwelt on them – add – a blind man would have loved that lovely spot.Actually used in Madoc (1805), Part 2, Book 23, line 39. – Your Dee certes is a most lovely river between Llangollen & Corwen – there where it rolls over amber colourd rocks but the finest river scenery we saw in Wales was before Llanrwst – in that wild valley – where the river so often rested in dark dead pools – what the Spaniards call the remansos The Spanish translates as ‘a still pool’ (i.e. stagnant water). of the river. Oh I could show you such a mountain river here in our Greeta – the loud-lamenter which is the plain English of its Norse name! (by the bye gritar is the Portugueze word to lament aloud) & such a famous bridge over which Peter Elmsley could no more pace with his load of flesh & blood, than the heaviest laden sinner can get over the razor edged bridge leading to Paradise over Hell.An image from Zoroastrian belief. For the wicked the Bridge over hell becomes razor sharp and they fall into the abyss.

I am reviewing a History of the MethodistsWilliam Myles (1756-1828), A Chronological History of the People Called Methodists (1803), Annual Review for 1803, 2 (1804), 201-213. – a plain matter of fact Book which none but Methodists read now but which will be consulted by the Historians of England. I will blow the trumpet. Zephaniah 1: 16, ‘A day of the trumpet and alarm against the fenced cities, and against high towers’.

God bless you. RS.