1316. Robert Southey to Charles Watkin Williams Wynn, 1 May 1807*
My dear Wynn
I am writing almost by lightning light to acknowledge the receipt of yours & its inclosure: the storm is as tremendous as I ever witnessed & such as was to be expected from the more than dog day heat which we have for the last week endured.
I wish you speedily thro your election – & I wish in London for as much. Church & King house burning as may be without loss of lives for but Mr. Percivals sake, who deserves hanging ten times more then ever Lord George Gordon1 did. He doing from knavery what that poor wretch did from frenzy. The impudence of this man & of some of his colleagues makes me lose all patience.
The end of May is perhaps the best time for seeing Keswick – I do not say the Lakes – but this particular one, – for the sunsets behind Skiddaw for about a fortnight or three weeks are more glorious than it is possible either to conceive or describe –
God bless you RS
Friday May 1. 1807
Bedford promises me news of the pension as soon as he can learn any.2 I am Cannon Southeys heir at law, Ld Ss3 issue failing – no doubt by but heir to what, is more than I can tell.4
Notes
Address: To/ C W Williams Wynn Esqr M. P./ Wynnstay/
Wrexham
Stamped: KESWICK/ 298
MS: National Library of Wales MS 4812D. ALS; 2p.
Unpublished. Back
1. Lord George Gordon (1751–1793; DNB), the anti-Catholic agitator whose protests led to the Gordon Riots in 1780. Back
2. Wynn succeeded, before he left office, in arranging that the pension he paid Southey from his personal funds was replaced by a government pension. Grosvenor Charles Bedford worked as a civil servant in the Exchequer. Back
3. John Southey Somerville, 15th Lord Somerville (1765–1819). Back
4. For further details, see Southey to Charles Watkin Williams Wynn, [April–May 1807], Letter 1315. Back