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Berg Collection, New York Public Library. Previously published: Joseph Cottle, Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey (London, 1847), p. 228; Kenneth Curry (ed.), New Letters of Robert Southey, 2 vols (London and New York, 1965), I, pp. 394–396.
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.
Any dashes occurring in line breaks have been removed.
Because of web browser variability, all hyphens have been typed on the U.S. keyboard.
Dashes have been rendered as a variable number of hyphens to give a more exact rendering of their length.
Southey’s spelling has not been regularized.
Writing in other hands appearing on these manuscripts has been indicated as such, the content recorded in brackets.
& has been used for the ampersand sign.
£ has been used for £, the pound sign
All other characters, those with accents, non-breaking spaces, etc., have been encoded in HTML entity decimals.
Your letter has very much affected me – I lose no time in answering it, in the hope of suggesting something which may
be found useful. For twelvemonths past I have used that sort of case-hardening which Franklin calls the air-bath, – rubbing myself
every morning when I get out of bed with a coarse towel, xxxxxx xxxxxxxx <for five minutes> this practice
<exposure> I believe tends very much to diminish the susceptibility of the body to cold. if you are disposed to try
this it begin gradually, & do not expose yourself at first above half a minute. but friction either with coarse
towels or with the flesh-brush you cannot use too much; – it may in great measure supply the want of exercise. – I do not myself
believe that sedentary habits are so prejudicial to health as they are supposed to be. We know they are not in hot climates. Might it
not however prevent some of the possible inconveniences to which you may be otherwise liable, if you changed your chair once or twice a
day, – & when not only employed in conversation – preferred the settee? The increased lameness I hope is only for a
time, whatever weakens the whole system must necessarily have weakened the weakest part. as you get strength this affliction will
diminish.
Now then to more chearful topics. Your ship on the stocks I saw announced in the Monthly Magazine.Saxon English interest in the story?
Edward Williamsof
Welsh respecting the Welsh as were collected for Madoc – they might save you perhaps some trouble. If x you had not
begun the poem I should perhaps have advised you to try it in Spensers stanza
You will of course have something to do with the Bards. In the last Annual you will see a review of Davies’s Celtic
Researchesxx in which I have stated his very curious speculations upon Welsh antiquities. I myself very much incline to believe that
the patriarchal system was preserved more purely by the Bards than by any other race of men; – if this could be proved it would add the
sanction of faith to a creed which will stand the test of reason. You will find specimens of Taliesin
I have neither seen nor heard of Forsters book:xxx xxx
xxxxxx the Cross of Cadwallader.trophée of the shield of
Southey’s patron and friend Charles Watkin Williams Wynn, a harp and an
unidentified stringed instrument, a sword, a bow with arrows, an Indian bonnet, and an opened book of music.
The book & letter which you mention have not reached me. It will probably find its way in the next parcel, & so
I hope will the newest new version of the Psalms.
I myself have many things in head & some in hand. the great history still continues my main & favourite
employment.xxxxx yours. – Edith desires to be kindly remembered to you – your good mother & your sister. remember me also kindly – how time runs by! I have known
you & your family now a full third of my life! & may sign myself truly
your old as well as your affectionate friend. –