512. Robert Southey to John Rickman, 19 April 1800*
Falmouth. Saturday Apr. 19. 1800My dear Rickman
We arrived here last night, after a five days journey1 – the packet by which I wished to go has been detained since the first of this month by the weather – & I am now <as> anxious for a N. East wind as I was yesterday for a South Wester. – We found a companion in our chaise2 – a patient of Beddoes, on his way to Lisbon, to compleat a cure which the digitalis seems to have performed. he wished to go thro Plymouth & I was not unwilling to shake Tom by the hand on the my road to a foreign country. My brother met us one stage before Plymouth – we staid there 24 hours, & he accompanied us a stage on. I was more depressed at leaving him than I had yet been – the fatigue of travelling had exhausted me. here however I am, safe after sundry accidents such as knocked up horses – restive ones – & a break-down. I am heartily tired, impatient to be gone – half-sick with expectation – & restless enough to require a page of Epictetus.3
Thank you for performing the Inspectors part. it is needless to search for the Enchiridion, but if you want any book which you saw among them, I pray you let it not lie useless. a book in a box is the candle under a bushel.4
My direction will be with the Reverend Herbert Hill, Lisbon. remember the value of a letter in a foreign country, & do not let me be disappointed often when a Packet arrives.
Ediths remembrance. yrs truly Robert Southey
April 19, 1800.
Notes
Endorsement: April 19 1800
MS: Huntington Library, RS 6. ALS; 2p.
Unpublished. Back
1. For Southey’s journal of this trip see Common-Place Book, ed. John Wood Warter, 4 series (London, 1849–1850), IV, pp. 524–526. Back
2. Possibly a Mr Rundell (first name and dates unknown), who travelled to Portugal with Southey in 1800. He may have been a member of a prominent Bath family of silversmiths, jewellers and surgeons. Back
3. Epictetus (c. 55–135), Greek Stoic philosopher. His thought was preserved in his pupil, Lucius Flavius Arrianus’s (c. 86–after 146) Enchiridion, or ‘Handbook’ of Epictetus’s thought. Back
4. Mark 4: 21. ‘Is a candle brought to be put under a bushel?’ Back