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British Library, Add MS 30928. Previously published: Adolfo Cabral (ed.), Robert Southey: Journals of a Residence in Portugal 1800–1801 and a Visit to France 1838 (Oxford, 1960), pp. 129–132 [where it is dated [27? October 1800]].Dating note: Dated from internal evidence, especially Southey’s reference to his intention to leave Sintra the following day. The Southeys left Sintra on 28 October 1800.
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.
I have written five Letters to my Mother. the last might not have arrived when you wrote – but four she ought then to have received. I have not neglected her, & hope that both she & you rather suspected the fault to be in the post offices than in me. The circumstance of your receiving a letter a fortnight later than those which were written by the same packet is an instance of their irregularity. moreover my Uncle is fond of writing by private hands – & as he usually dispatches my letters from Lisbon, some may have miscarried by this insecure conveyance.
The parcel has not reached me, but I believe it is lying at Lisbon. I expect Alfredare betray a miserable ignorance, & what are not
ignorant – are childish. however if he understands navigation & geography, that is what his work wants, & the book will be
useful & indeed necessary. I shall therefore consider the work & not the workman, & do every thing for him which is to be
done.
We leave Cintra tomorrow, & the exceeding inconvenience of having no books but what I send eighteen miles for, makes me leave it without reluctance. Portugueze scenery suffers less than our colder country by winter; the Cork keeps thro the year its foliage – the olive also – the firs, the orange & lemon trees; the laurel of this country, & the arbutus are all evergreens, I know not whether the mixture of grey boughs among the evergreen woods be not rather a beauty than a winter-scene of nakedness. besides the hills that are brown-burnt in the summer have now a somewhat of grassiness to the eye – & the great aloe is of unchanging magnificence. we lose less than we gain by having an endurable sun, & weather for walking. – Yesterday we went nine miles to see fishermen walk up & down an almost perpendicular rock. one false step & down they go to be shattered upon the rocks or drowned – & yet they scramble for who shall do it – & we went two hours ride for the sake of seeing them & finding ourselves in a most uncomfortable state of apprehension. the rock is shelving & rough – they went bare footed, & fast by the help of hands & that part which is usually of more use in rest than in motion – Kangaroos indeed use their tails also in walking as you may remember. near this place the rock is perforated I know not how. but we lay down & saw a monstrous pit into which the rushing sea smoked up. it was a shuddering feeling – our man called upon Jesu Maria – & crossed himself.
The Indian corn is now drying by every house in yellow & sunshiny patches. the husks of the vintage are also
exposed, & the women sifting it to lay by for the porks in winter. they tread the corn by oxen here – on a round pavement like that
at Keynsham where the Woad is crushed. – I am planning a ten days ramble northward, with a young man whose sister is married to young
Protheroe in Park Row.xx there is a Frenchman resident in the town
There are two methods of avoiding military service in this country – by marrying – or by turning Monk. many motives
contribute to fill the monasteries – the service of God is easier than military duty, & a fellow boldly defies the World the Flesh
& the Devil – who would be confoundedly afraid of the French & Spaniards. besides it is easier to pray than to work, & the
Friars are always well fed. abolish these begging orders, the sink of all the idle vagabonds in the kingdom, & the landed
Communities will be less absurd & more useful than our Universities. they feed the poor, so as to prevent all poor-rates: they are
the only Landlords under whom a man can venture to improve his estate, because not being embarrassed they are not eternally racking
their tenants like the nobles. allow them the liberty of coming out & marrying – you have our colleges – with this advantage [MS
torn]t the youth of the kingdom is not sent there – to learn nothing. Every convent dresses food daily for the beggars, & all at
the same hour to prevent the same person from feeding at both <more than one>. but this
precaution is ineffectual – they know the difference of clocks to a minute & eat full-gallop that they [MS torn] arrive in time at
a second course. These landed orders are supplied from the aristocracy – younger sons, who would in England be quartered upon the
public in the shape of placemen, xx who would there strut in regimentals, xxx enter these convents. with you they are mischievous – here they are only useless. moreover they are now of the same use
here that the Monasteries were in England 300 years ago: they have the only libraries, & preserve books tho they do not use them. –
The Friars will not stand in the way of revolution whenever the hour arrives. witness France. the secular priests there have been
troublesome in La Vendee,& often & the greater part – have emigrated, but the Friars & Nuns fell quietly into the
ranks of society. very very few attempted to emigrate. a Portugueze of family had <professed> in a nunnery in France. her brother
on hearing of the dissolution of the monasteries procured her a situation here in a nunnery, & wrote for her to come immediately.
she replied she was very much obliged to him – but she was married.
A dog said to be mad passed thro Cintra two days ago & bit almost every dog
in the town. I told the Boy to take care of ours – lest he should be bit. Sir, said he, there is no danger now, the dogs have all been
blest & burnt with the Iron of St Quiteriaforehead <nose>: a precious security! holy water & the iron
of St Quiteria to save us from the hydrophobia. – you will perhaps be amused at the name of our dog – the servants
heard me call him poor fellow, & he goes by that name – or rather as they pronounce it Boo fellow. from a similar circumstance the
dog of an Englishman here got the name of “Come along.” – I forgot to add that if a man is bit he must be burnt with this iron in the
hand. the original iron is in possession of a nobleman but fac-similes that have been blest partake the virtue. – The Yellow Fever has
spent itself at Cadiz. of 63,000 Inhabitants (for 17,000 fled in time) 4,000 <only> have escaped the contagion – 8000 have died,
the rest have recovered. It spreads in the province & rages more violently at Seville that it had ever done at Cadiz. the gates of
Cadiz are now shut to keep out the contagion. An Englishman writes from Xeres that his wife & children & all his servants are
in the disease – he can get no assistance whatever – no one will come near them – he attends upon all – & hourly expects to be
attacked with it himself. In Turkey you are never thus abandoned. their fearless superstition palliates the evil that it spreads.