257.1 Robert Southey to Charles Biddlecombe, 17 September [1797]
257.1 Robert Southey to Charles Biddlecombe, 17 September [1797] *
I was much disappointed at not seeing you before I left Burton. [1] I did not suspect you were well enough to go from home & Tom did not inform me till too late that such was your intention. you must therefore allow me to wish you farewell by letter, & thank you for the many acts of kindness which made Burton so pleasant to us, & which will always make us remember it with satisfaction.
Our journey was pleasant. we saw Sarum Cathedral & Stonehenge. [2] But my Mother is not so well as she was in the country, & I wish her she was there again.
It is probable that some boxes may arrive for Lloyd – will you in that case be kind enough to give them house room, till we know our town direction? I have many thanks to send you from Lloyd & my brother.
My acquaintance with Warner [3] is very slight – but I purpose calling upon him, that we may talk of Hampshire.
tomorrow I visit Bristol. my corrections will soon be finished – & when you receive the new edition you will see honourable mention of your old chronicle. [4]
how is the gout? at what time of the year do you usually visit London?
will you remember us to your mother & Mr Coleman. [5] thank Rickman for all his attentions to us. I feel myself greatly indebted to him. we shall hope to hear from you.
believe me yrs truly
Robert Southey.
8. Westgate Buildings . Sept. 17.
Notes
* Address: To/ Charles Biddlecombe Esqr/ Burton near
Ringwood/ Hants
Stamped: BATH
Watermarks: Crown; 1796
MS: Department of Rare Books, Special Collections and
Preservation, River Campus Libraries, University of Rochester, Robert Southey Papers A.S727. ALS; 3p.
Unpublished. BACK
[1] Southey had left the house he was renting in Burton on 15 September in order to return to his mother’s home in Bath. BACK
[2] Salisbury Cathedral, constructed mainly in the thirteenth century; and Stonehenge, a major prehistoric monument, probably dating to 3000–2000 BC, about eight miles north of Salisbury. BACK
[3] Richard Warner (1763–1857; DNB) , antiquarian and curate of St James’s, Bath, 1795–1817. He spent most of his childhood at Lymington in Hampshire and attended Christchurch Grammar School. Southey did meet him in Bath, see Southey to [Charles Biddlecombe], 16 October 1797, Letter 263. BACK
[4] The second edition of Southey’s Joan of Arc (1798). Biddlecombe had lent Southey his copy of Edmund Howes (fl. 1602–1631; DNB) , The Annales, or Generalle Chronicle of England, Begun First by Maister John Stow, and After Him Continued and Augmented with Matters Forreine and Domesticall unto the End of the Yeare 1610, by E. H. (1611). Notes from Howes’s edition appeared in Joan of Arc, 2 vols (Bristol, 1798), I, p. 155; II, pp. 78, 93, 109. BACK
