2981. Robert Southey to Edith Southey, 28 April 1817

2981. Robert Southey to Edith Southey, 28 April 1817*
My dear Edith
I write a few lines to day – because I can find a few minutes for doing it, being now at Bedfords, on my way from H. Inglis’s to Rickmans. Money I cannot inclose, merely because it would be inconvenient to send you so large a bill as 100£. – You shall have half bills in smaller sums to that amount before I go. Nash cannot start till Tuesday the 6th. [1] – so that a six days will be deducted from the time I must else have remained in town on our return.
My Tender Epistle [2] brought me a very handsome compliment from Lord Sidmouth, [3] & Murray tells me it is spoken of in the highest terms by all whom he sees. In other quarters it will doubtless be found bitter to swallow & hard of digestion, 500 were sold yesterday morning.
I did not get to bed last night xx till after two o clock – kept up till that hour by conversation with Wilberforce Sir Thomas Acland &c – without any person having the least suspicion of the lapse of time Sir T’s <carriage had been xxxxx xxxx three hours waiting for him. It seems an age since I xxx have been in town. I go to Rickmans tomorrow, thence on Tuesday with Mr Coppendale [4] to meet John & Wm. Coleridge – Thursday at Sir G Beaumonts – Friday with Mr Butler – Saturday xx Royal Academy [7] – Sunday Mrs Gonne.
I am advised & urged to buy the house, [6] – the money may be obtained without any difficulty in the common course of business. When this is fully determined I will write to Wordsworth.
And now I must go to Wynn, who is close at hand
God bless you my dear Edith
RS.
Sunday 3 o clock.
Notes
* Address: [in another hand] London
Twenty Eight April 1817/ Mrs Southey/ Greta Hall/ Keswick/
Cumberland/ Free/ Rickman
MS: British Library, Add MS 47888. ALS; 3p.
Unpublished. BACK
[2] William Smith had denounced Southey in the House of Commons on 14 March 1817 in the debate on the Seditious Meetings Bill, condemning ‘the settled, determined malignity of a renegado’ and comparing Southey’s arguments against radical views in the Quarterly Review, 16 (October 1816), 227, with those expressed in Wat Tyler (1817), Act 2, lines 103–112. Southey’s response was A Letter to William Smith, Esq., M.P. (1817) published by Murray. BACK
[3] Henry Addington, 1st Viscount Sidmouth (1757–1844; DNB), Prime Minister 1801–1804, Home Secretary 1812–1822. Southey had met him on 26 April 1817 at the house of Robert Harry Inglis. BACK
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