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MS untraced; text is taken from Robert Galloway Kirkpatrick, ‘The Letters of Robert Southey to Mary Barker From 1800 to 1826’ (unpublished PhD, Harvard, 1967), pp. 216–221.. Previously published: John Wood Warter (ed.), Selections from the Letters of Robert Southey, 4 vols (London, 1856), I, pp. 408–412.
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.
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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.
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I am writing all the letters to my Barker, says Edith this morning (my Barker she always calls you, & always adds – will she come again) It is time for conscience-sake that I should follow my daughter’s example.
A great deal has happened to change my plans for the ensuing campaign. My Uncle wrote me two pressing letters two days running, to send for his papers
upon Brazil, to offer the information which they contain to Government – & to lose no time in bringing forward that part of my
history. I wrote accordingly to Wynn,him myself, – & said that government had no wish to keep any such things
secret but rather wished them to be generally known. Of which the English is that they like to be guided by public opinion, &
that Senhora is good English, & as it should be.
Well – here are the Mss. arrived from London – a most invaluable collection – which would show you that my Uncle is as indefatiguable as I am, & that the good blood in my veins comes
from that side. here are my books about Brazil from London & from Bristol – this very day Feby. 1. I have begun – & here
shall I stay till the first volume be fit to be taken to London – & put to press.
I meant to have finished my little reviewing & Don Manuel
Mrs. Coleridge and her children are to join C. early in April to go into Devonshire – where the longer they stay the better. Perhaps if Wordsworth settles in the south they will not return at all – which is what I wish, as it would tempt me hugely to fix here. I believe Rickman & his wife will come here in the summer.
Your last letter was of a better complection than usual – things could not have taken a better turn. –
I am alone & have been so for six weeks. poor Tom is first
Lieutenant of the Pallas – a frigate so miserably manned that he is almost worn out with duty,
Should Espriella have such a sale as to make it at all worth while to add a fourth volume – or a second work
written on an after visit to England, the whole history of this body might be given at length, & I would take some pains in
giving a fair & philosophical history of the founders. The Wesleys
I had nearly forgotten two things – the one to remember you that I was to remember you that you was to remember that I loved toasted cheese. – with which the Evangelicals may come. – the other thing is of too different a nature to be mentioned in the same paragraph.
Did I ever tell you of Henry Kirke White a lad of Nottingham, – who
published some poems, which were so cruelly reviewed in the Monthly, that I wrote to him to encourage him, & offered to get
him subscribers for a second volume? – Well – he is dead. & I have had all his papers – from which I am about to edit two
volumes, including a account of his life by myself.