2871. Robert Southey to John Rickman [fragment], [November 1816]

2871. Robert Southey to John Rickman [fragment], [November 1816] ⁠* 

My dear R.

I find in Bp. Burnet that in 1704 the poor rates in most places amounted to a full half of the public taxes. [1]  – Surely in proportion to the wealth & taxation of the country things were w this was worse than it is now.

And now I gird up my loins. [2] 

Notes

* Address: [partial] To/ John Rick/ St Step/ N
Endorsement: Novr. 1816.
MS: Huntington Library, RS 298. AL; 2p.
Unpublished.
Dating note: Dating from endorsement. BACK

[1] Gilbert Burnet (1643–1715; DNB), Bishop of Salisbury 1689–1715, Bishop Burnet’s History of His Own Time, 4 vols (London, 1809), IV, p. 54. BACK

[2] Southey intended to write a book on the ‘State of the Nation’. BACK

Addressee

Rickman, John (1771–1840)
The Collected Letters of Robert Southey, Part Five
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