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British Library, Add MS 30928. Not previously published.
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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Tom was sorely disappointed in not finding you at Bristol when he fled thro on his
way to Plymouth. I supposed you were gone to London on no pleasant business. – & the Gazette has since shown me that my fears were
right. – You ask me where Burnett is, that you may write to him & remind him
of his debt: – I have heard nothing from him since he left this house, nor of him except what came from you.
In the course of the last ten weeks I have met with some unpleasant interruptions in my ordinary business – first from
a bilious fever which attacked little Edith; afterwards seized on Herbert, & made him alarmed us a good deal for many days. And now
for the last month I have been plagued with one of my abominable catarrhs, – such as you saw me with when you were here. Tomorrow it
will be a month old, & after a dozen variations from worse to better & better to worse, it is now as bad as ever it was. I
generally calculate upon a six weeks spell when it begins, & in this instance am not likely to be disappointed. It is a comfort
that the complaint is altogether confined to the head, & not accompanied with any general indisposition, but it has affected my
eyes, & made me lose many days work. –
I told you I should proceed with Kehama,such intervals must <there>
occasionally xxx <will be>, when tho the whole story is made, the immediate manner of passing from one part to another
does not occur; – & therefore time xxx xxx <is> saved by having two upon the stocks at x once. My plan
of operations will be a very simple, & as it appears to me, by no means an imprudent one. If Kehama does not pay me the fair trade
price of the time bestowed upon it, I publish no more poetry; – there is not much doubt but that this will be the case; & if it be
so, it then becomes me to think something of posthumous profit, as well as posthumous fame, & to secure copy rights to my children,
after my death; when for our wise laws of Literary Property would throw them open just when they became valuable. So I will
write on strenuously, & go thro the whole series which was projected so many years ago; & as many more, if I have life &
health for it: dedicating to this sole employment the hours gained by rising at a reasonable hour, – not a very early one, because that
would be hurtful – but as soon as after six may be. And these poems shall be left behind me, they will then fetch their value, as good
drafts upon posterity. This scheme pleases me a good deal. There will be a great pleasure & satisfaction in accumulating property
in this form; & if it prove a vain & fallacious one, I shall not have the mortification of seeing it so. But this is not
likely. Poets like woodcocks are not ranked till they are dead, & then their very trail is food for the most fastidious palate.
This is a grand struggle which the Spaniards have begun. It is to be expected that they will meet with many disasters,
– they will often be defeated, often betrayed, – they will commit some excesses & some errors, but of their eventual success I do
not entertain a doubt. The principle of Patriotism which is in them, – the remembrance of what their fathers have been, & the
thought of what their children are to be, will bear them thro. You will see in this volume of the Annual what were my tho
opinions concerning Spain twelve months ago, – in the reviewal of Semples Travels.
Yesterday brought me a letter from T. Smith, announcing the rug
& a cheese, which are travelling companions in the waggon.
Mrs Shepherd of Liverpool has been here with her husbandmake deduce some good from his Parliamentary powers.
If you have heard from Tom you will know that Mr T. Southey turnd his back upon him, saying, he never desired to see any of the
family again. This man has turned his sister out of doors, – & thus thought
proper to break off all intercourse with us. Amen, so be it. He is treading in the steps of his brother ; & I verily believe there is some sort of craziness at the
bottom of has occasioned the otherwise unaccountable conduct of both. So Charles if it should be my destiny to stick in
Heavens-gate, it will not be because my breeches pockets are too full.
Harry is getting on at Durham, & will in no very long time be able to
maintain himself well by his profession. Tom when he wrote had not yet found his
ship, but had learnt that he was to be First Lieutenant. – for a chance appointment this is a remarkable one: & it so happens that
I know a little of Adm. Sotheby, & more of his brother.Dreadnought, a 98-gun second rate ship of the line launched in 1801. She had fought at Trafalgar (1805) and was
now under the command of Rear Admiral Thomas Sotheby (1759–1831), younger brother of the author, William Sotheby (1757–1833;
xxx is the case here. –