2668. Robert Southey to Charles Watkin Williams Wynn, [c. 7 November 1815]⁠* 

My dear Wynn

I ought to have told you a week ago that I was once more in England safe & sound. But the continual excitement & hurry & bustle of this place scarcely allow me time for sleep. Our journey has been very interesting, – the route was thus – Ostend, Bruges, Ghent, Brussels, the fields of battle of the 18 & 16th – Namur, Huy, Liege, Spa, Aix la Chapelle, – this the farthest point. Then Maestricht, Louvain, Brussels, Antwerp, Ghent, Courtray, Menin, Ypres, Bergues, Dunkirk & Calais. I kept a minute journal [1]  & you know that a traveller who attempts to do this can find no time for any other writing. Perhaps no five weeks of my life were ever better employed. I bought a good many books, & among others have bargained for a set of the Acta Sanctorum. [2]  As yet there is no tidings of their arrival.

The political aspects are as bad as possible. The universal belief is that we let Buonaparte loose from Elba: & the answer to one who attempts to prove the folly of this supposition – “why did you not put him to death then when you had him in your hands? If the Devil had called xx all his imps to council to invent a means for confirming this notion he could not have devised a better than that of this present of house & furniture! The absurdity & unpopularity & indecency of the thing are felt so strongly that it is stoutly denied at present, – as if it were possible to conceal it when the bill is to be paid! [3] 

We shall remain in & near London some ten or twelve days longer then travel homewards viâ Ludlow [4]  where we must halt for two or three days. Of course we are very anxious to be at home, & after having been fallow so long, I have a great appetite for falling to work.

Roderick [5]  sells steadily & well, & at length Madoc is well printed in the small form. [6]  I have planned a poem of which Waterloo is to furnish the occasion <& title> rather than the subject – if it be executed as it is planned it will do me credit, – & part of my journal will be affixed as preface or as postscript; – that only which relates to the scenes of action. [7] 

God bless you

RS.

I have thought & puzzled myself about your inscription to no purpose, as yet, – but still I hope something will come of it. [8]