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British Library, Add MS 47891. Previously published: John Wood Warter (ed.), Selections from the Letters of Robert Southey, 4 vols (London, 1856), II, pp. 343–346.
These letters were edited with the assistance of Carol Bolton, Tim Fulford and Ian Packer
For permission to publish the text of MSS in their possession, the editor wishes to thank the Beinecke Rare Books and Manuscript Library, Yale University; Berg Collection of English and American Literature, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations; the Bodleian Library Oxford University; the British Library; Boston Public Library; the Syndics of Cambridge University Library; the Syndics of the Fitzwilliam Museum Cambridge; Haverford College, Connecticut; the Historical Society of Pennsylvania; the Hornby Library, Liverpool Libraries and Information Services; the Houghton Library, Harvard University; the John Rylands Library, Manchester; the Kenneth Spencer Research Library, University of Kansas; Luton Museum (Bedfordshire County Council); Massachusetts Historical Society; McGill University Library; the National Library of Scotland; the Newberry Library, Chicago; the New York Public Library (Pforzheimer Collections); the Pierpont Morgan Library, New York; the Public Record Offices of Bedford, Suffolk (Bury St Edmunds) and Northumberland, the Master and Fellows of Trinity College, Cambridge; the Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle upon Tyne; the Trustees of the William Salt Library, Stafford, the Wisbech and Fenland Museum; the University of Virginia Library.
A research grant from the British Academy made much of the archival work possible, as did support from the English Department of Nottingham Trent University.
Any dashes occurring in line breaks have been removed.
Because of web browser variability, all hyphens have been typed on the U.S. keyboard.
Dashes have been rendered as a variable number of hyphens to give a more exact rendering of their length.
Southey’s spelling has not been regularized.
Writing in other hands appearing on these manuscripts has been indicated as such, the content recorded in brackets.
& has been used for the ampersand sign.
£ has been used for £, the pound sign
All other characters, those with accents, non-breaking spaces, etc., have been encoded in HTML entity decimals.
You once asked me for a passage in Herrera,xxxx xxx xxxxx xxxxxx an extract to the same purport from the letters of
Amerigo Vespucci:
Est alius vermiculus Scolopendrae fere similis, pilis totus obsitus, deformis visu, cujus varia sunt genera; colore se
differunt, et nomine; eadem forma omnibus.x
x Larvæ sunt Papilionum, species omnes, quarum pili inferunt dolorem, nomen obtinent Brasilicum Tataurana id est
tanquam ignis urens. [Southey’s note, from
The notes are by Diogo de Toledo Lara Ordoñez, a correspondent of the Academy who communicated the original paper from Brazil.
There are one or two other things in this little treatise which (as I am writing) may be worth mentioning. Anchieta
says that a person who has once recovered from the bite of a dangerous serpent is in xxx <no> danger, & suffers
much less pain if bitten a second time.d. – p.
261–2.
His commentator affirms that in one part of Brazil the inhabitants were <are> fully convinced
that they had <a> certain cure for the bite of a serpent, – if th it could be applied . As soon as the
patient was <is> bitten, another person, having his mouth half full of tobacco, was <is> to suck the
wound with great force, spitting repeatedly during the operation: this was to be continued for a considerable time – &
then the tobacco to be laid upon the orifice.
The same commentator says that the reason why Parrots so very rarely procreate in captivity (for the fact is equally
rare in all climates) is that it is their habit to couple while in the act of flying.
I send you these facts with a safe conscience, as neither dog, cat, frog nor any other unhappy subjects of experimental philosophy can possibly be the worse for them.
x Some of the hairy caterpillars in England are said to sting the hand if they are touched, like nettles. I have
handled all sorts that ever came in my way & never found this to be the case: & my skin is neither hardenend by labour, nor
inirritable by nature. But it may very possibly be unsusceptible of their particular irritation, just as some constitutions are not
liable to certain diseases – Why negroes suffer so dreadfully from the small pox is I believe accounted for. – but has it ever been
discovered why they <are> entirely free from the yellow fever?
If you & I were neighbours once more (which I sincerely wh wish we were) you would often be amused at my
physical speculations; – X here, like all my other speculations, they ‘waste their sweetness on the desert air’except when <unless> in some idle Omnianaish hour I commit them to
paper <writing>!; x then they find their way into a little desk appropriated for the reception of
xxxxx stray papers: & there they contract sweetness from a bottle of Ottar of Rose, which my brother Tom bought of a Jew at Tetuan, & which serves no other purpose than to sweeten
perfume them for the printer. With him at least my xxxxxxxx works are in good odour.
In the course of the summer I shall have something to send you. Roderickslow now
become slow as a tortoise, nevertheless I should not be happy xx unless some long one [MS torn] in hand. I hesitate between
four. 1. a New-England historical subject with an ideal Quaker hero by name Oliver Goffe, son of one of K Charles judges, & godson
of Oliver Cromwell: – a rhymed poem, pitched in Spensers key, but with dramatic & lyric parts.dly Robin Hood: to which the chief objection is that I should be accused of imitating Scotts manner – tho the story was planned, & one or two detached sketches written, before
Scott was heard of.th a Runic romance, –
but this last has the least chance, as I should chuse to read the Sagas first, & have a language to learn.
Let me say a word or two to Danvers before I conclude. From the
lists of books which he has sent me I shall be glad to have Knox’s history of the reformation in Scotland.& xxxxx that the xxxx xxxxx xxxx from George & information about that xxxxxx xxxxx xxxx & had not xxxxxx
perhaps I had not got other items.
Our winter has been rigorous, but less uncomfortable than yours, for we have had less snow. We have had xx
ailments of late, which seem now to be passing away. I wish you could see my live stock. Edith is my Long daughter, & Bertha is my Slim daughter, & Katharine is my Round Daughter, &
Isabel is my Square daughter, & as for Herbert I add (& Bertha &
Kate repeat it after <me> with no small triumph) – he is no daughter at
all. If Buonaparte be killed (& I pray to God that the war may continue till he is) I shall probably some years hence take them to
the continent & domesticate there for some years, – as the easiest & cheapest mode of education.