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. Previously published: Kenneth Curry (ed.), New Letters of Robert Southey, 2 vols (London and New York, 1965), I, pp. 526–529.
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.
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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The year 1810 being come, I write to remind my old friend that there is a covenant between him & me, & that, God willing, we expect this next midsummer to bid you & your sister Mary welcome to Keswick. Heartily – heartily glad shall we be to see you both. It is a long way to come, – but the place is worth the trouble of the journey, & if you went to the worlds end, you would not find a more cordial reception upon the way, nor at the close of the journey.
My goings on are as usually, – as it was in the beginning, so it is now, & so I trust it will be as long
as it please God to continue to me the gifts of health & ability. The first volume of my Hist of Brazil would have been publishd
two months ago if the Printer had pleased, – but when it may please him to finish
it, he knows better than I dox is gone to press & I have corrected the first proof. every body
will stare at this poem, & very very few persons will like it, – I think you will be one of the number. It will I doubt not procure
for me much immediate abuse & ridicule, & some after reputation. I have begun another poem, of which Pelayo the
Spanish founder of the Spanish throne is the hero.passions <interests> & human sympathies, our blank
verse is in my judgement the most dignified form of narration & the best. Of course it is my hope to make this my best poem as a
whole, – tho there <are> parts in some of my others which it will is not likely that I shall ever be able to exceed.
My hand has not lost its cunning, & it is to be regarded as a proof of improvement rather than otherwise that I write less rapidly
than I did fifteen years ago, – being less easily satisfied with myself.
Filthy Mammon has me on the hip, – or I should do more in this way. My feelings concerning the lucre of gain are just
what they always were, – only that dearer times & increasing expences make a larger income necessary than sufficed me in former
years, – & God be praised my means have always hitherto increased with my wants. The Quarterly Review is a great help to me, – they
pay ten guineas per sheet, & for the life of Nelson on which I am now at work twenty.my the most advantageous engagement that has ever occurred
to me, is with the Edinburgh Annual Register, – for which I have undertaken the historical part at the price of 400£. If this continues
a few years year or two longer, my affairs with Longman will clear
themselves & I shall be above the world. Hitherto I have outrun the Constable
I anticipate great pleasure in showing you my library, & the prospect from its window. I would say my children too, – if on this subject I were not far too sensible of the uncertainty of human life ever to look before me with confidence. We have three living, & at present, thank God, doing well. One we lost in May last at the age of 15 months, – a lovely little girl.
Tell me now something of your goings on, for it is long since I have heard of you. What have you done? what are you
doing? How are your sisters, & how is your excellent good Mother ? How is
Robert? It seems like remembering a dream to look back upon the time when I
saw him & you daily, & met with faces in your shop, so many of which I shall never behold again. My brother Harry has been marrie[MS cut] almost a year, & is doing well at Durham, whither I
take the two Ediths
I hope you saw my triumphant vindication of the Baptist Mission in the first number of the Quarterly Reviewwhi instead of
thanking the unknown author who has set the subject in its proper light to the conviction of persons whom none of their vindications
ever would have reachd, – their best praise is that I have xxx not committed any wilful misrepresentations or
falshoods.
Tom has found a copy of the American Madoc for me.
Edith desires to be very kindly remembered –