1835. Robert Southey to John May, 5 December 1810 ⁠* 

Keswick, Dec. 5. 1810.

My Dear Friend,

There is an “Arte da Grammatica da Lingua da Brazil,” composta pelo P. Luig Figueira, the fourth edition of which was printed at Lisbon, in 1795. [1]  The whole impression was most probably shipped off for Brazil; for it was printed at the Officina Patriarcal, probably at the expense of the Church, as a missionary concern. I never saw it mentioned in any bookseller’s list; and had it been on sale in Portugal, my uncle must have met with it while inquiring for Anchietas’ “Grammar.” [2]  I have borrowed a copy of this book, which came from B. Ayres, and I am working at it; but I wish to possess one as a fit part of my collection, and to have at hand for the purpose of correcting the press, when my summary of it shall be printed. Your brother William [3]  I have no doubt can obtain one for me at the Rio; perhaps also he could meet with a Guarani grammar, and with it the “Vida de Padre Joam de Almeida,” by P. Siman de Vasconcellos; [4]  a book for which I have long been particularly anxious. Almeida earned his beatitude in that part of the country, and therefore it is very likely that his history may be found there.

There are some questions which your brother can answer for me. Are there any of the native race near the Rio? If any, in what state of freedom, servitude, or slavery, and of what tribes? What does he conceive the proportions to be in the city of the mixed race and of the negroes to those of European blood? Is the Portuguese language in any degree mingled there with the Brazilians? for in many parts of Spanish America a mixed language has been found, and in some the native tongue predominates. At Asçuncion, for instance, many of the Creole women speak nothing but Guarani. This is a curious process going on in the world. Just as the Latin grew out of the Greek, and our southern tongues out of the wreck of the Latin, just so are there new languages rapidly forming from the amalgamation of European, negro, and American dialects. The talkee talkee of the slaves in the sugar islands, as it is called, will prevail at Surinam, and become the language of Guiana. They have a printed Bible in it already. [5]  From Sierra Leone an African Lingua Inglesa will spread, of which English will be one part, Susoo [6]  the other, and a sprinkling of Arabic. In Polynesia, again, the different Malay dialects will make new mixtures, and in New Zealand there will be another speech. The old dough of the world has never had so much leaven put into it at any one time, as at the present, within the reach of history. Look where you will, you perceive the principle of change is at work.

The “Register” [7]  for 1809 occupies me very closely. I have made every possible exertion to obtain documents for the affair of the Peninsula – compared with which everything else in Europe is insignificant – and my efforts have not been unsuccessful. A way has been opened for me to convey some questions to Colonel Carol, [8]  and Don Manuel Abella, the Duke de Albuquerque’s [9]  secretary, will lend me all the documents in his possession, and has written to some of his friends in the Cortes for more. He is a Zaragozan by birth, a member of the Royal Academy of History, and edited, either in whole or in part, the “Partidas.” [10]  Do not omit to send me, from time to time, any information which you receive from Lisbon or Brazil; a little circumstance, in itself altogether unimportant, may become of consequence, from it bearing upon some other facts of which I may be in possession. I have not taken up the business of writing the annals of our own times as a mere matter of money work, though it supplies two thirds of my income, and is the first occupation that ever paid me well, and made me at ease in my circumstances. I like the employment, and am very anxious to obtain the fullest possible information, that it may be as little imperfect as the nature of contemporary history admits.

I look daily to see “Kehama” [11]  advertised; it may not improbably find its way to you as soon as this letter. You will have seen what use I made of the “Observador Portuguez.” [12]  It was a well-timed article, but before it was written I had said something of our friends the Portuguese in this second “Register,” which, for personal appropriateness, I could wish had been in the “Quarterly Review.” An article upon Methodism is gone up to the “Review,” and I suppose will appear in it. [13]  My hands are very full, yet I expect to get the concluding volume of the “Brazilian History” to press in the course of next winter; [14]  for after clearing off all that lies immediately before me, and allowing for a two months’ progress in the south, I shall have three whole months to devote to it exclusively before the “Register” for this current year is taken in hand. [15]  However the bookseller may ask to hurry the publication, I will never begin the annals of one year till the autumn of the next, in order to allow time for the publication of better documents than gazettes and newspapers.

We are going on well. Your god-daughter, Edith May, is grown a great girl, and even Herbert is almost too big for a play-fellow. Bertha is the live doll of the family at present; the infant is as yet only a woman’s plaything, not old enough to be kissed, and too tender to be handled by any but female hands. I hope to see you very early in the spring, and it is our present intention that Edith should accompany me. Remember us to Mrs. May, and believe me

Yours very affectionately,

R. Southey.