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Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, University of Texas, Austin. Previously published: Charles Ramos (ed.), The Letters of Robert Southey to John May: 1797–1838 (Austin, Texas, 1976), pp. 97–99.
These letters were edited with the assistance of Carol Bolton, Tim Fulford and Ian Packer
For permission to publish the text of MSS in their possession, the editor wishes to thank the Beinecke Rare Books and Manuscript Library, Yale University; Berg Collection of English and American Literature, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations; the Bodleian Library Oxford University; the British Library; Boston Public Library; the Syndics of Cambridge University Library; the Syndics of the Fitzwilliam Museum Cambridge; Haverford College, Connecticut; the Historical Society of Pennsylvania; the Hornby Library, Liverpool Libraries and Information Services; the Houghton Library, Harvard University; the John Rylands Library, Manchester; the Kenneth Spencer Research Library, University of Kansas; Luton Museum (Bedfordshire County Council); Massachusetts Historical Society; McGill University Library; the National Library of Scotland; the Newberry Library, Chicago; the New York Public Library (Pforzheimer Collections); the Pierpont Morgan Library, New York; the Public Record Offices of Bedford, Suffolk (Bury St Edmunds) and Northumberland, the Master and Fellows of Trinity College, Cambridge; the Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle upon Tyne; the Trustees of the William Salt Library, Stafford, the Wisbech and Fenland Museum; the University of Virginia Library.
A research grant from the British Academy made much of the archival work possible, as did support from the English Department of Nottingham Trent University.
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Southey’s spelling has not been regularized.
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I am very sorry to learn by your brothers letter, which has just reached me, that you are suffering from a complaint,
in which I can from sore experience so well sympathize.as the inflammation with me lay originally in the eye lid & not only by sympathy in
the eye itself.
I have been several times on the point of writing to you, & still delayed it in the expectation that another post
might bring me letters from you, or from Lisbon. – The Metrical Tales are – as I believe you know – only a republication from the two
volumes of the Anthology, which my Uncle has.but the copy should
xxx be got in my name from Mr Longmans – which may be done without
any difficulty by showing this part of the letter. have you received a copy of Madoc to be sent him likewise?
You will imagine that the news from the Leeward Islands must have been a source of considerable uneasiness to me.
Nothing has yet appeared to give me any alarm for Tom’s personal safety, – but
there is he has lost all he had gained. the very day on which the French arrived at Dominica, he, little dreaming of such
an event, wrote to me from St Christophers,t
Vincents, & that island has been visited by the enemy.Amelia in December
1804.
Harry has been with me about a fortnight, – he seems to have made the most of the winter, & to promise as fairly as we could wish. by passing the summer & great part of the autumn here, he will be able to recover his arrears, & start clear for the next term, & I trust he has prudence enough to keep so.
We go on well. the Edithling is cutting her teeth, which come
very slowly. she has but four, tho nearly thirteen months old, & it is three months since the last two made their appearance. Our
weather was very severe the beginning of this month, – blighting & blasting winds from the East & North East, – I had a slight
attack in my bowels, which has somewhat debilitated me, & which probably I should not have had in a better climate. The country is
now becoming very beautiful, & I, like other hibernating animals, have begun to crawl out of my den, & warm myself in the
sunshine. If my Uncle had come to England I should have met him in London,
where I am in no want of business to call me, – but without some such preponderant motive, the fatigue & expence of so long a
journey will deter me from undertaking it while it can possibly be avoided. And in fact my resolution still holds to settle near London
as soon as I can commands sufficient money for the necessary expences. – The sale of Madoc is quite a thing of chance, &
the chances not in its favour; – so costly a book
We are in daily expectation of Coleridges arrival in
England,
Let me hear how your eyes are – if not from yourself from your brother – to whom I beg my remembrances.