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Bodleian Library, MS Eng. Lett. c. 23; the letter was probably never sent, but was part of what Charles Cuthbert Southey describes as ‘some fragmentary preparations’ for an unexecuted sequel to Southey’s Letters Written During A Short Residence in Spain and Portugal (1797). Previously published: Charles Cuthbert Southey (ed.), Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey, 6 vols (London, 1849–1850), II, pp. 57–61 [undated; in part]; Adolfo Cabral (ed.), Robert Southey: Journals of a Residence in Portugal 1800–1801 and a Visit to France 1838 (Oxford, 1960), pp. 75–79 [in part].
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.
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Southey’s spelling has not been regularized.
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Letter 1
I parted from you at Liskeard with a heavy heart. The thought of on seeing you upon the
way was a pleasure to look on to when we took our departure from Bristol, but having left you we had taken leave of the last friend
before our voyage. Falmouth was not a place to exhilirate me. We were in the room where I met poor L. on my former journey: he was the last person with whom I shook hands in England, as I was
stepping into the boat to embark, – & the first news on my return. when within three hours I expected to have seen him been welcomed by him was that he was in his grave. Few persons bear about with them a more
continual feeling of the uncertainty of life, its changes & its chances – than I do. Well! well! – I bear with me the faith also,
that tho we should never meet again in this world, we shall all meet in a better.
Thanks to the Zephyrs Capt YescombeKing George.for sighed for North-Easters. I walked on the beach, caught
soldier-crabs, & watched <loitered to admire> the sea-anemonies in their ever-varying shapes
of beauty: read Gebirfxx kept me within doors, six boys eat hot pap for a hat, & six men jumped in sacks for a similar prize; in the evening
there was an assembly & the best dancer was a man with a wooden leg. A short account of six days, – if however I were to add the
Bill you would find it a long one.
We embarked at four on Thursday afternoon. As we sailed out of the harbour the ships there & the shore seemed to
swim before my sight like a vision. Light winds & favourable, but we went before the wind, & my poor inside being obliged to
shift every minute with the centre of gravity, was soon in a state of insurrection. There is a pleasure in extracting matter of jest
from discomfort & bodily pain; – a wholesome habit when it extends no farther, but a deadly one if it be encouraged when the heart
is sore. I lay in my birth, – which always put reminded me of a coffin whenever I got into it, – &
when any one came near me with enquiries, uttered some quaint phrase or crooked pun in answer, & growld in unison with the
intestinal grumbling which might have answered for me. I was not however without some day dreams of delight even here, & it will
not be long before you will be introduced to the Garden which during these hours I laid out amid the snow, & irrigated with streams
of fire.
On Sunday we saw a homeward bound convoy, & were chased seventy miles by the Frigate which was with it, – luckily
in our course. Monday brought with it an adventure of greater alarm; about six in the morning I heard some one awaken the Captain with
news that a cutter was bearing down upon us. She carried English colours, but did not answer our signals. we fired a gun, she returned
it, little doubt was entertained but that she was French, & we made ready for action. Another Packet was in company with us,
carrying six guns, we had ten, – the cutter had fourteen, & I saw the matches smoaking as she came near. We hailed her, she answerd
in broken English, & past us as if to attack us on the other side, or begin with the other Packet. There was a frigate in the
distance, – we asked what ship it was, – & they answered again in <no person one could tell> what they said in reply, but I thought they said the Vendemiain. It was the
Endymion, & the man who spoke was a Guernsey man. I laid replaced my musquet in the chest right
willingly, & was particularly pleased all the rest of the day with having legs & arms, & feeling a head upon my shoulders.
Presently the Endymion sent a boat to board us, – <it was a morning of business & bustle> the sun was shining, – we were all
in good spirits, & you know the pleasure which it gives to idlers on bo at sea when any thing is
going on, out of the common routine.
We saw the Berlings on Tuesday night. On Wednesday Edith & I
went upon deck at five o clock, – we were off the rock, & the sun seemed to rest upon it for a moment as he rose behind. Mafra was
visible, presently we could distinguish the height of Cintra, & the Penha Convent. the wind
blew fresh & we <were> near enough the shore to see the silver dust of the breakers, & the sea-birds xx-xxx sporting over them in flocks. A pilot boat came off to us, its great sail seemed to be as
unmanageable as an umbrella in a storm, sometimes it was dipt half over in the water, & it flapt all ways like a womans petticoat
in a high wind. We past the church & light-house of Nossa Senhora da Guia, the convent of S. Antonio with a few trees about it,
& the town of Cascaes. Houses were now scattered in clusters all along the shore; – the want of trees in the landscape was scarcely
perceived, so delightful was the sight of land, & so chearful does every thing look under a southern sun.
Our fellow travellers
thing <object> to my own sight, & perhaps there is even a greater delight
in recollecting these things than in first beholding them. It is not possible to conceive a more magnificent scene than the entrance of
the Tagus, & the gradual appearance of the beautiful city upon its banks.
The Portugueze say of their capital
‘He who has not seen Lisbon has not seen a fine thing.’ They talk of its seven hills for the sake of likening
it to Rome, but if Rome had stood upon fourteen, the similitude would have been nearer the truth. It is indeed a sight
exceeding all that it has ever been my fortune to behold in beauty & richness & grandeur. Convents & Quintas, gray olive
yards, green orange-groves & greener vineyards, . . . the shore more populous every moment as we advanced & finer buildings
opening upon us, – the river bright as the blue sky which illuminated it swarming with boats of every size & shape, with sails of
every imaginable variety, innumerable ships riding at anchor, far as the eye could reach, & the city extending along the shore,
& covering the hills to the farthest point of sight.
We soon perceived ––pass thro <undergo> a
strict examination, & be vouched for by some settler. This is occasioned by their fear of the Irish Revolutionists whom our
Government wished to have banished to this country. Nothing can be more groundless than this fear. but when an American minister
demurred as to affording these men an asylum, it is not to be wonderd that the Portugeuze government should refuse to receive
them.but <except> in Ireland they would be among the best & most valuable members of society. The
alarm here was occasioned by the arrival of one of the secret directory, Counsellor Sampson.taken up <apprehended>, brought to Lisbon, & confined at Belem.
Some of his countrymen requested permission to visit him, you may visit him, was the answer, but if you do you must be content to stay
with him. He was sent to Hamburgh, & it was in consequence of this affair that their troublesome reputations have been establishd.
The nephew of a British settler here was actually sent back in the ship which brought him out, .. because he was an Irishman.
Poor Ursula!Linda black spaniel is dead. &
the white cat is in the same catalogue, & the lame mare has been eaten by the wolves.† Four years have greatly altered Lisbon,
& still more the little world in which I moved here. I ask, where is one? – dead. Another? removed to England. a third? at Madrid.
a fourth? God knows where. The feeling which these things occasion comes like an electric shock. & passes away almost as suddenly <instantaneously> as it comes. Returning to a scene so distant & so different fills
the mind more than novelty could do; it is like first waking from a deep sleep in ones own bed after a long long absence. My head is
still giddy with the motion of the sea. the ground rocks under me, the houses reel, & I shall have <for some days> an
earthquake of my own. for some days.
_______
† <Insert> There were two cabbage trees in the yard behind my Uncles
house, which when I left them were only of 12 years growth. One of them now overtops & half overshadows the house <roof>, – & the other has been felled lest its roots should pu throw the whole side of the house down. Vegetation makes quick work in this climate, . . & Time & Change make
melancholy work every where.