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. Previously published: Charles Cuthbert Southey (ed.), Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey, 6 vols (London, 1849–1850), III, pp. 293–295 [in part; misdated 11 January 1811].
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 am brooding a poem upon Philips’ War with the New-Englanders which was the decisive struggle between the Red &
White races in America.xxxx be more anti-heroic than the stiff puritan manners, but these may be kept
sufficiently out of sight, & the high puritan principles are fine elements to work with: One of my main characters is a
Quaker, – an (ideal) son of Goffe the Regicide.action <circumstances> will be less elevated than
the passion. For this very reason rhyme I fear is required.
____
You have done wonder with C Julian.largest run quickest run (in sailors
phrase) that I ever made. But this is nothing to what you have accomplished, & your manner of x involves so much thought
(excess of meaning being its fault) that the same number of lines must cost thrice as much expence of passion & of the reasoning
faculty to you than they would to me. I am impatient to see this tragedy. As for the line of which I asked an explanation, – the
meaning flashd upon me, as I thought it would, ten x minutes after the letter was gone, & I be-blockheaded myself
according to my deserts. Of managers I have as great an abhorrence as you have – but if your play be fitted for representation, – which
is supposing it to have certain vices that it is not likely to have, & to be without certain merits which are sure to be found
there, – means b may be devised of putting it into their hands, in that sort of cavalier manner which is likely to have more
effect with such fellows than any other conduct.
I hear nothing of Kehamar can do in the happiest
emendation his good genius ever suggested to him.
What is the meaning of the monogram in the title page of your Odes to Gustavus?xxxxx language so much inferior to your own.
Your abhorrence of Spenser is a strange heresy. I admit that he is a x inferior to Chaucer, (who for variety
of power has no competitor except Shakespere;) – but he is the great master of English versification, incomparably the greatest master
in xxxx <our> language. Without being insensible to the defects of the Faery Queen,an a notable example.
Have you read Capt Pasleys book? I take it for my text in the next Quarterly,