"… The main purport of my writing is to tell you that we have found a house for the next half year. If I had a mind to affect the pastoral style, I might call it a cottage; but, in plain English, it is exactly what it expresses. We have got a sitting-room, and two bed-rooms, in a house which you may call a cottage if you like it, and that one of these bed-rooms is ready for you, and the sooner you take possession of it the better. You must let me know when you come that I may meet you.
So you have had Kosciusco with you, (in Bristol) and bitterly do I regret not having seen him. If he had remained one week longer in London, I should have seen him; and to have seen Kosciusco would have been something to talk of all the rest of one's life.
We have a congregation of rivers here, the clearest you ever saw: plenty of private boats too. We went down to the harbour on Friday, in Mr. Rickman's;[58] a sensible young man, of rough, but mild manners, and very seditious. He and I rowed, and Edith was pilot.
God bless you.
Yours affectionately.
Robert Southey."
Mr. Rickman afterwards acquired some celebrity. He became private secretary to the prime minister, Mr. Perceval, and afterwards for many years, was one of the clerks of the House of Commons. He published also, in 4to, a creditable Life of Telford, the great engineer, and officially conducted the first census, (1800) a most laborious undertaking. The second census, (1810) was conducted in a very efficient way, by Mr. Thomas Poole, whose name often appears in this work, appointed through the influence of Mr. Rickman.
"London, Dec. 14, 1797.
My dear Cottle,
I found your parcel on my return from a library belonging to the Dissenters, (Dr. Williams's Library) in Redcross-street, from which, by permission of Dr. Towers, I brought back books of great importance for my 'Maid of Orleans.' A hackney coach horse turned into a field of grass, falls not more eagerly to a breakfast which lasts the whole day, than I attacked the old folios, so respectably covered with dust. I begin to like dirty rotten binding, and whenever I get among books, pass by the gilt coxcombs, and disturb the spiders. But you shall hear what I have got. A latin poem in four long books; on 'Joan of Arc;' very bad, but it gives me a quaint note or two, and Valerandus Valerius is a fine name for a quotation. A small 4to, of the 'Life of the Maid', chiefly extracts from forgotten authors, printed at Paris, 1712, with a print of her on horseback. A sketch of her life by Jacobus Philippus Bergomensis,—bless the length of his erudite name.