3704. Robert Southey to Humphrey Senhouse, 20 July 1821
3704. Robert Southey to Humphrey Senhouse, 20 July 1821*
Keswick. 20 July. 1821.
My dear Senhouse
Upon due consultation with my Governess, & my daughter Edith, I find, that if <about> Monday fortnight (Augt. 6) should suit your convenience, – by that time certain domestic processes of preserving, & wine-making which require the superintendence of the latter, will be compleated & she may then leave home with a safe conscience. [1] By that time also I shall have prepared a sufficient portion of “copy” to stop the mouth of the Printer, who as if he were the son of the horseleech, is always crying “give, give!” [2] – Two or three days however before that time, I will give you a line.
It is well that you have finished your roofing while the dry weather lasted. We have had rain & thunder in the night, & the glass is still falling rapidly.
I hope you were more loyal at Maryport yesterday [3] than we were at Keswick. – All that was done here was an attempt in the evening to produce at bell-ringing, which produced something between tolling & chiming, because <most> of the ringers are in the service of a manufacturer who is a great Blue, [4] & who insisted upon their being at their work.
The Ladies [5] join in kind remembrances to your daughters [6] & the Miss Woods. [7]
God bless you
yrs affectionately
Robert Southey
It is four years this day since we dined at Baden, [8] – the only dirty persons in a large company; – a predicament which we never were in before & probably never shall again.
Notes
* Address: To/ Humphrey Senhouse
Esqre/ Netherhall/ Maryport
Stamped: KESWICK/ 298
Seal: red wax; design illegible
Watermark: embossed seal: BATH with a
crown upper L of 1v
MS: Department of Rare Books, Special Collections and
Preservation, River Campus Libraries, University of Rochester, Robert Southey
Papers A.S727. ALS; 3p.
Unpublished. BACK
[2] The ‘copy’ was for the first volume of the History of the Peninsular War (1823–1832). The comparison is between the constant demands of the printer (in this case, Thomas Davison (1766–1831)) and the blood-sucking of the horseleech. BACK
[4] Blue was the Whig colour in Cumberland and Westmorland, and the Whigs were critical of the King. The manufacturer in question here is unidentified. BACK
[5] Edith Southey and her sisters Sara Coleridge and Mary Lovell. BACK
[6] Elizabeth Senhouse (1805–1890), Catherine Senhouse (d. 1853) and Ellen Senhouse (1808–1838). BACK
[8] During their European tour in May–August 1817, Southey and Senhouse had reached Baden on 20 July and dined at the ‘Table d’hote in the inn yard, the house and yard being full of … Beaux and Belles’; see Southey to Edith Southey, 1 August 1817, The Collected Letters of Robert Southey. Part Five, Letter 3006. BACK