1128. Robert Southey to John Rickman, 28 November [1805]*
Dear Rickman
Don Manuel1 standeth in need of Feyjoo’s works,2 thin small quartos in parchment, part of them are here, having been sent to Bristol – the covers had rotted with sea-damp & have been replaced – if any of the others have suffered in like manner I should be obliged to you to let some bookbinders repair them, to pattern with the sound ones. Will you send them with all the Beauties of England,3 & the MS. Calatogue to Longman – & he will forward them in a parcel. the Beauties are for D Manuel also to help his topography as far as they go. If you lay hand upon the Epanaphoras Tragicas that also may come, but this matters not.4
Don Manuel is pretty well I thank you. Bedford thought the remarks not foreign enough. had they been more so they would in my opinion have been overdone. I get on now with this, now with reviewing, according to my humour, as time presses on the one hand, <or as> & inclination preponderates on the other. My Electioneering document would be more compleat if you could send me the Nottingham Report, – & the Middlesex if that be printed.5 – I feel certain presentiments of a forced journey to London in the Spring thanks to Bedford6 – but do not hint this or he will strike his work at once & render it inevitable. In that case I shall accommodate my visit to D. M’s travels. & show him many things in London which I have never seen myself. – By this time you are a better judge of the execution: – It seems to me a book that I should like if it fell in my way as a stranger.
Tom has sent me a turtle by the convoy!!! it would have been almost as <xx> fit a present for George Dyer. – I have written to Wynn to look sharp after it & eat it, that in mercy both to me & the beast his journey per coach to Keswick may be saved.7 If it had been a crocodile I could have shown him for sixpence x xxxx admittance, in my fur cap, & wolf-skin great coat – but Lord! what should I do with a turtle, not being Lord Mayor!8
God bless you. RS.
Friday Nov. 28.
Notes
Address: To/ John Rickman Esqr
Endorsement: RS./ 28 Novr. 1805
MS: Huntington Library, RS 82. ALS; 2p.
Unpublished. Back
1. Southey’s Letters from England by Don Manuel Alvarez Espriella: Translated from the Spanish (1807). Back
2. Southey had asked Rickman to send him Benito-Gerónimo Feyjoo y Montenegro (1676–1764), Teatro Critico (1726–1739) for the contents of Letters 49 and 54 of Letters from England; see Southey to John Rickman, [July-August 1805], Letter 1090. An edition of this, as well as his Obras, or works (amounting to 37 volumes) is listed in the sale catalogue of Southey’s library. Back
3. The Beauties of England and Wales (1801–1818) was a series of lavishly-illustrated accounts of the historical features of Britain, produced by John Britton, an antiquary, with his friend Edward Wedlake Brayley (1773–1854; DNB). Back
4. Dom Francisco Manuel de Mello (1608–1666), Epanaphoras (1675), no. 3515 in the sale catalogue of Southey’s library, and requested from Rickman at the end of July; see Southey to John Rickman, 26 July [1805], Letter 1088. Back
5. The Middlesex and Nottingham elections are discussed in Letters from England, Letter 48. Southey had earlier received reports for Aylesbury, Ilchester and Knaresborough from Rickman; see Southey to John Rickman, [July-August 1805], Letter 1090. Back
6. Southey was growing impatient over delays by Bedford in their jointly edited work, Specimens of the Later English Poets (1807). Back
7. For the letter to Wynn; see Southey to Charles Watkin Williams Wynn, 24 November 1805, Letter 1125. The turtle did not reach Keswick, but died in quarantine; see Southey to Thomas Southey, 1–5 January 1806, Letter 1140. Back
8. Turtle was served annually to the Lord Mayor of London and assembled dignitaries on the day of the Lord Mayor’s show. Back