454. Robert Southey to Humphry Davy, 12 November 1799*

My dear Friend

The immediate occasion of my writing is to request that if a Mr Elliott¹ visits you at the Pneumatic Ins[MS torn]tution you will have the goodness (unless from his state of health [MS torn] deem it hurtful) to beatify him with a doze of the gaseous [MS torn]yd.² I do not myself know Mr Elliott, but write at the desire of my particular friend here, Rickman, to whom if you should ever find leisure to visit me here I should be gratified by introducing you, as to a man of the most various knowledge I have ever known.

I write in much weakness – of mind as well as body. something ails me at heart. I have, except the first few morning hours, a settled dull obtuse aching there – as if the rib against which it prest were bruised. for a fortnight this has been the case, & within the last five days a diarrhœa with consequent fever & sleeplessness has reduced me to almost a palsied debility. of course all enjoyment & all employment have of necessity been suspended.

From William Taylor, the all-knowing, I learn that the few Peruvian words preserved by Garcilasso³ the historian (himself son of a Peruvian mother) are Malay, & that in that tongue Mago Mango Capac signifies a man with an axe. – sufficient proof of an eastern origin, which I always believed the most probable.⁴

With the view to collect more materials for this subject I have lately from the Zend-Avesta & other labours of Anquetil Du Perron⁵ made myself acquainted with the religious system of Zoroaster,⁶ a system the more [MS torn]it for poetry because the obscurity lies only in the part [MS torn] the great outline is distinct, in this compleatly differing from the unconnected & unsystematizable fables of Hindoo absurdity. in xxx time this heap of matter may ferment into form & life – but now my head is only susceptible of aching & fever & all nervous feelings of pain & agitation. to night I try if opiates will send me to sleep & when I sleep preserve me from broken yet connected dreams, more fatiguing than wakefulness.

I often wish myself at Bristol – & if, as I have more & more reason to apprehend a constitution, debilitated by the worst possible management in childhood, the most ruinous system of coercion from all things proper, should for ever incapacitate me from the labour & confinement of professional studies – why I shall probably look to Bristol as my haven. tis the place where I have ever most felt myself at home, where I have when absent myself remembered my dearest friends, where I could walk confidently in darkness thro every winding. I have experienced more pain & pleasure there than elsewhere & these things twist into a strong cord of attachment.

God bless you. excuse a half letter from a sick man. at all times I should be glad to give you my hand, but now I should be glad to offer you my pulse – that I might have faith & be cured. here the people would poison me if I sent for the commonest drug.

yrs affectionately Robert Southey.

Burton near Ringwood. Tuesday Nov. 12. 99.