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National Library of Wales, MS 4813D (undated letters). Previously published: Kenneth Curry (ed.), New Letters of Robert Southey, 2 vols (London and New York, 1965), I, pp. 459–460.Dating note: year date from context.
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.
I know not whether you have heard that Duppa is a candidate for
the situation at the Museum which is vacated by the death of poor Horace
Bedford. Rickman does his best for him with the Grand Parleur:xxx of some use thro his
brother,Lady Chancellor, who I am told exercises over her husband in these matters the same sort of
thorough supremacy, that he does in his political capacity over all common laws of justice & morality.
Poor Bedford! – the truth is that he has no opinions
upon any subject whatsoever. Instead of being a canvass capable of retaining what images are laid on it, his mind is like the whited
wall on which the figures of the optical-Raree-show-man pass along, & leave it as it just as blank as before. Poor
fellow, he is no infidel, tho he in some idle hour of self-importance, he may have thought proper to settle his head in his
neck handkerchief, & aver proclaim himself xxx such. He has neither read nor thought upon the subject of
religion: – & now when he begins to feel about it, all will be set to rights, – & faith will strike as
deep roots as it can in an intellect which is as unstable as water & as untenacious as sand. – I am glad that before you told me
this I had written to him & pointed out to him the uses of calamity in a way which seems to have produced some impression.
If you remain so far thro the winter in Wales I shall certainly be able to see you on my way to London: where I shall
go as soon as my reviewing is over, that is in six weeks or two months. My own family is likely to be increased about the same time as
yours,xx pleased to allow me for my children, – tho if that
wretched book of Malthus’s
What is it you are doing about the criminal laws? There are few things in this world which would give me so much
pleasure as that you should be the means of introducing some reform into that branch of jurisprudence, & of saving some of those
lives which are now so unnecessarily xxxxx sacrificed, – to use the mildest term. Could any thing be more shocking to the
common-sense feelings of the people than to see a man & his wife for coining suffer the same punishment as Patch xx at
the same time!
God speed to you in your Welsh studies. I thought to have done something that way, but have too much to learn in other
things, & too little time for it. If Herbert lives, & those bright eyes
of his do not play false in the promise of intellect which they give, I shall make him a Keltic scholar in the easiest & best way,
by sending him into Wales & into the Highlands to acquire both dialects orally, & then into Ireland if any thing Christian can
be xxx xxx ventured among the wild Paddies. To give him much learning may not perhaps be the best way of enabling him to
make a fortune, – but it will enable him to be very happy without one, – which is a much better thing.