3271. Robert Southey to John Rickman, 21 March 1819
3271. Robert Southey to John Rickman, 21 March 1819 *
My dear R.
I do not remember ever to have sent off a letter without a direction before; [1] – it was occasioned by making up a great many dispatches in a hurry to save the post.
I have had a New Englander here, who would have been a credit to Old England for his good sense, & the extent of his acquirements. He has lately been in Lisbon, & tells me that some of the Portugueze are amazed at my Brazil, & very anxious that it should be finished. [2] – I wrote a paper upon Portugueze literature in the second or third number of the Q. R. that paper has been translated & annotated in Portugueze, & printed at Hamburgh – for private circulation distribution in Portugal, where it could not have been licensed. [3] If I could have foreseen this, it should have been much less imperfect than it is.
We are going on tolerably in the nursery. Remember us to Mrs R.
God bless you.
RS.
Keswick. 21 March. 1819.
Notes
[3] Southey’s review of Extractos em Portuguez e em Inglez; com as Palavras Portuguezas Propriamente Accentuadas, para Facilitar o Estudo d’Aquella Lingoa (1808) in Quarterly Review, 1 (May 1809), 268–292. Johann Wilhelm Christian Muller (1752–1814), Dutch convert to Catholicism, Royal Censor of Books and an old acquaintance of Southey’s from his trip to Portugal in 1800–1801, translated the review as Memoria Sobre a Literatura Portugueza. Traduzida do Inglez. Com Notas Illustradoras do Texto (1809). BACK