3094. Robert Southey to John Rickman, [c. 15 March 1818]
3094. Robert Southey to John Rickman, [c. 15 March 1818]*
My dear R.
You will have guessed that the paragraphs thro which you have drawn your pencil, were sent off to the press before the first part of your papers reached me. – I expected to have received the proofs of the first part before this: You shall have them by the first post when they arrive, & I will take especial care to make the whole accord. [1] – I hear thro Bedford that Gifford speaks very highly of the conclusion. –
I cannot find by any book at hand, that Hansard [2] prints for Longman. Perhaps you can tell me whether he does, as in that case, I could desire my next book to be sent to him. R.L. is entitled to carry my custom with him, as far as I can dispose of it.
Greenough (an Ex M.P.) has lent me a Guarani Grammar & Dictionary, both printed in the Reductions, – they have a very savage appearance, as far as you suppose that it in typography, – & an odour which I know not whether it should be called Jesuitical or South American; – the latter perhaps, because I never perceived it in any other books. [3]
God bless you
RS.
Notes
* Endorsement: RS./ March 1818
MS: Huntington Library, RS 338. ALS; 2p.
Unpublished.
Dating note:
Dating from content, Southey’s mention of Montoya. BACK
[1] Rickman was correcting proofs of ‘On the Poor Laws’, Quarterly Review, 18 (January 1818), 259–308. BACK
[2] Luke Hansard (1752–1828; DNB), the printer of parliamentary publications, in whose office Rickman had found the young Lovell a job. BACK
[3] The strange looking and smelling books were compiled by a missionary to the Guarani Indians of the Amazon and printed in South America: Antonio Ruiz de Montoya (1585–1652), Vocabulario de la Lengua Guarani (1722) and Arte de la Lengua Guarani (1724); see Southey’s letter of thanks to George Bellas Greenough, 10 April 1818, Letter 3116. BACK
