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.
British Library, Add MS 30927. Previously published: Charles Cuthbert Southey (ed.), Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey, 6 vols (London, 1849–1850), II, pp. 111–115 [in part; dated 6 October 1800]; Adolfo Cabral (ed.), Robert Southey: Journals of a Residence in Portugal 1800–1801 and a Visit to France 1838 (Oxford, 1960), pp. 120–122 [in part; dated 6 October 1800].Dating note: Although the start of this letter is dated by Southey ‘October 6’, internal evidence in the previous letter to Tom Southey, 7 October 1800 (Letter 550), and the endorsement ‘8th’ suggests that this second letter was not finished and sent until ‘Nov. 6’, the date given at the end. The editors have therefore placed it after his letter to Tom Southey of 7 October 1800.
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.
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.
You saw Mafra from the sea, a magnificent objecttown, & its inhabitants strangely jealous of its title. Some lads lately passing thro
enquired the name of the village; the man replied angrily it was a town – & as they, not believing it, laughed
at him – he raised an uproar – & they were actually in danger of being stoned by the offended townsmen. A bridge has been lately
built here over a valley; & a great work it is, – xx it happens to be in the Princesxxxxx indicates fore-sight,
& beasts, & savages & Portugueze never think of the future. a stream runs thro it, which in the rainy season must be wide
& rapid, – this sweeps down the soil from the mountains & fertilizes the bottom. a circuitous road round the hill top to avoid
a steep descent leads to Mafra. there is a bye path nearer by two miles, which I advise none but a pedestrian to take. – Mafra itself
is a small place, the estalagemt Franciscot Francisco & regularly attends his festival at Mafra. of course the country was assembled there
– food & fruit exposed for sale in the Plaza, & all the women equipped in all their finery. we went to mass – the Prince
followed the Host as it was carried round the church – in the evening there was a procession – & the Prince paraded with it. &
thus the Regent of Portugal passes his time – dangling after saints & assisting at puppet-shows – & no doubt he laid down last
night thoroughly satisfied that he had done his duty!
The church & convent & Palace are one vast building – whose front exhibits a strong & trusty Portugueze
mixture of magnificence & meanness. in part it has never been faced with stone – a mud plaister is in its place. the windows are
not half glazed, red boards filling up the work-house looking casements. the church is beautiful – the library the finest book-room I
ever saw, & well-stored – tho poor in English books. the friar who accompanied us said it would be an excellent room to eat &
drink in & go to play afterwards – “& if we liked better to play in the dark – we might shut the windows!” He heard the servant
remark to me that there <were> books enough for me to read there – & asked if I loved reading – & I said he – love eating
& drinking. honest Franciscan. he told us also that the dress of their order was a barbarous dress. & that dress did not change
the feelings. I suspect this man wishes he had professed in France. A Portugueze of some family was a nun in France: after the
dissolution of the monasteries her brother immediately engaged with some <a> Portugueze abbess to
receive her, & wrote in all haste for the distressed nun – she wrote in answer that she was <much> obliged to him – but she
had was married.
You have a superb convent here – said I. yes said the Monk, but it is a wretched place in winter. we suffer so from the cold – the rheumatism kills many. we have no fire in our cells – only in the kitchen. – such is Mafra – a library whose books are never used, a palace with a mud wall front – & a royal convent inhabited by wretches who loathe their situation! The Monks often desert, in that case they are hunted like Deserters, & punished if caught with confinement & flogging. I heard of one poor fellow who was apprehended in a garden, where he had for three months earned his living honestly & usefully as a labourer. They take the vows young – at fourteen. those who are most stupidly devout may be satisfied with their life – those who most abandoned in all vice may do well also. but a man with any feeling, any conscience, any brains must be miserable. The old men, whose necks are broken to their yoke, whose feelings are all blunted, & who are by their rank or age exempt from some services, & indulged with some privileges – these men are happy enough. A literary man would be well off – only that literature would open his eyes.
The library was not originally a part of the foundation. the Franciscan order excludes all arts, all science. no
picture ought to profane their churches. but when Pombal turned these beggarly vermin out of this Palace, he removed to it the regular
Canons of St Vincent.
My Uncle conveys this to England. he goes to take a small living in his own
gift.s rulers never be tired of squandering lives!
In the printed copy – whenever that shall reach you – you will find Thalaba