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.
Beinecke Library, Chauncey Brewster Tinker MS Collection, GEN MSS 310, Box 13, folder 555. Previously published: Kenneth Curry (ed.), New Letters of Robert Southey, 2 vols (London and New York, 1965), I, pp. 242-245.
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.
Of late my time has been so employed that I
neither recollect the time or subject of my last letter. yet
I think it related to my brother Harry
& expressed a full satisfaction with all the
arrangements that have been made for him. On my return to
Lisbon I found a letter from him, a manly & sensible
letter, of a spirit that anticipated success & bids fair
to deserve & obtain it. – I drew on you yesterday again.
as I have no propensity to extravagance it is useless to
regret expences unavoidable & well bestowed. the work of
twelvemonths in England will balance my accounts with xxx you, & again set me
equal with my income. – Your little girl
We have – as you probably know from other
quarters – been travelling.rs Burnssweetly under it. the
next morning among the villagers who were standing to gaze
at us I saw a schoolboy lingering with his book under his
arm. a fine boy about 12 years old. I looked at his book –
the only one he learns. it was “Directions for a converted
sinner.” poor boy! I longed for Robinson Crusoe or the
Arabian Tales
Waterhouse & I left our party there & proceeded to Abrantes. the passage of the Zezere was the only circumstance interesting on the way. it is a fine river – like all mountain streams of irregular & untameable force. in summer it is fordable. in winter the ferry price varies according to the resistance of the current from one vintem to nine. it then enters the Tagus with equal waters – sometimes with a larger body – for as the rains have fallen heavier North or East, the one river with its rush almost stagnates the other. We crost it in its tamest part; hills of our Clifton height were its banks covered with cistus & heath & the fragrant plants of this country, the water beautifully clear, flowing over sand. A little below its junction we all embarked – at Barquinha, & returned down the Tagus thro flat & objectless shores.
I would speak of Batalha if I were certain
you had not seen it, & of Alcobaca
There is an actual scarcity in the country.
the prices of provision differ little in the country from
the dearness of Lisbon. The Mail Coach has spoilt the
Estalagems – you will laugh & question the possibility
of any alteration for the worst thus however it is. they now
expect you to call for Port Wine of most poisonous
abomination – & butter your toast with uneatable butter.
the women also have learnt the true London alehouse manners.
Of their charges you may judge by this – from Leiria to
Coimbra we were four persons. on that road going &
returning our nightly charges always ran from 3//000 to
3//600. at Leiria our number was exactly doubled – & all
the rest of the way the expences of the doubled party never
exceeded 2//500. – At the Fabricm Stephens
If circumstances do not expel us earlier than
we expect, I hope to go thro Algarve – take the chain of
forts along the Guadiana & return by Evora & Beja.
the alarm is now general.