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National Library of Wales MS 4812D. Previously published: Charles Cuthbert Southey (ed.), Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey, 6 vols (London, 1849–1850), III, pp. 74–77 [in part].
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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And so I am a court-pensioner!
If Snowdon will come to Skiddaw in the summer, Skiddaw will come go
to Snowdon at the fall of the leaf. I shall work hard to get the Cidx go with it to London, for the
sake of getting at a few books in the Museum
The Specimensxx
Dapple has made wild work with his mutilations, interpolations, &
alterations – & whether the charitable world of book buyers will ever give me an opportunity of setting all this to rights is very
doubtful.
The mystery of this wonderful history of the change in administration is certainly explained;to hit his national the best thing he could say to him was to remark that
it was very bad weather – upon which the Englishman shrugged up his shoulder & replied yes – but it was better than none. – Would not this have told in the house.
You do not shake my opinion concerning the Catholicks. Their religion regards no national distinctions – it teaches
them to look at Christendom – & on the Pope as the head thereof, – & the interests of that religion will always be preferred to
any thing else.xx subject.
So sure as the Catholicks were admitted into the navy so surely would you have a Catholick Chaplain on every ship, –
& I would stake my salvation that some of them would be carried into Brest to serve the Anointed Emperor.
These people have been increasing in England of late years, owing to the number of seminaries established during the
French Revolution. It is worth your while to get their Almanack the Lay Directory it is called & published by Brown & Keating –
Duke Street – Grosvenor Square.
I am for abolishing the testwill not tolerate; – the proof is in their
whole history, in their whole system, & in their present practice all over Catholick Europe. And it is the nature of their
principles now to spread in this country. Methodism & the still wilder sects preparing the way for it. The old
remedies have been proved efficient, & should again be enforced. You have no conception of the zeal with which they seek for
proselytes, nor the power they have over weak minds, for their system is as well the greatest work of human wisdom as it is of human
wickedness. It is curious that the Jesuits exist in England as a body, & have possessions here – a Catholick told me this, &
pointed out one in the streets of Norwich – but he could tell me nothing more, & expressed his surprize at it & his curiosity
to learn more. Having been abolished by the Pope, they keep up their order secretly, and expect their restoration, which if he be wise
Bonaparte will effect. Were I a Catholick that should be the object to which my life should be devoted – I would be the second
Loyola.
Concessions & conciliations will not satisfy the Catholicks like our Llewellynxxx xx are what they want. If Ireland were far enough from our shores to be lost without danger to our own security I
would say establish the Catholick religion there – as the easiest way of civilizing it, – but Catholic Ireland would always be at the
command of the Pope, & the Pope is now at the command of France. It is dismal to think of the state of Ireland. Nothing can redeem
that country, xxxx but such measures as none of our statesmen – except perhaps Marquis Wellesley
England condescends too much to the Catholick religion, & does not hold up her own to sufficient respect in her
foreign possessions: & the Catholicks instead of feeling this as an act of indulgence to their xxxxxxx <opinions>,
interpret it as an acknowledgment of their superior claims, & insult us in consequence. This is the case of Malta. In India the
want of an established Church is a crying xxxxxxxxx evil. Nothing but Missionaries can secure in that country what we have
won. The converts <would> immediately become English in their feelings – for like Mahomet we ought to make our language go with
our religion – A better policy this than xx that of introducing pig tails after our own home plans of princely reforms – for
which Ld W. Bentinck
Xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx
The Devil & his Dam will be a terrible cry to have raised against you. As for me you will not suspect me of any
undue bias in favour of our Church Establishment: – a very little alteration would make it xx as good as any Establishment
can be, & it is the best extant – but in my own opinions I am as to all essential points so very nearly a Quaker, that if it were
not for their non-essential peculiarities I should quietly enter their fold, & no longer be a stray sheep in the land. But just as
they, who hold all wars to be forbidden by Christ, think the British navy exceedingly useful – just so do I regard the Church
Establishment; – it is our protection against the intolerance of Romish bigotry, or Calvinistic fanaticism.
I suppose I shall receive an official confirmation from the Treasury.