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Dr Williams’s Library, Crabb Robinson MSS. Previously published: Kenneth Curry (ed.), New Letters of Robert Southey, 2 vols (London and New York, 1965), II, pp. 16–18.
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
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Will you lend those sonnets of Pardo’st James’s, & if you are disposed to form a new acquaintance which is well worth forming,
leave your card with them. – Blanco knows your name, & that he is
indebted to you for shutting one of the channels of calumny which have been opened against him.
Blanco is not so staunch a hoper as I am. This is occasioned partly by what
old writers would have called his complection, – partly by ill usage – partly by his thorough knowledge of all the internal evils with
which Spain has to struggle, & most of all by his deep sense of the dreadful & irremediable effects of the Romish religion. The
best atmosphere which he breathes in this country, that of Holland House, is not likely to
strengthen his nerves – the little hope which he finds there is not like yours & mine founded upon what is inward and imperishable.
– But he has done good service to the cause, & may perhaps yet do better, if circumstances should ever permit him to return. I
found him an interesting man & I think him a very valuable one. It is surprizing how thorough a foreigner he is in appearance, tho
the grandson of an Irishman: – rather it would be surprizing if the human species were not so soon varied by circumstances. In Botany
Bayxx that whether you plant Scotchman or Englishman there, the produce is sure to be pure potato.
Hope delayed in the peninsula hath not made my heart sick, – because from the commencement my mind was made up to a
Guerra de Mouros,x with the Executive, – which
is true enough, – & if like the National Convention xxxx xx xxx xxxx whichever be xxx successful. I have got Buenos Ayres papersxx <then> there might be a commercial treaty between G.
Britain & Caraccas!
The Catalans give me good hope because they handle the pen as well as the sword. Abella has sent me two portions of a history of the war in that province by Fr. Xavier
Cabanes who was on the staff there, – both bear date in 1809.x not have more clearly expressed our own opinions upon this point.
It is reported that Broughams hint in the Edinburgh Review
will be taken, & that the Ed: An: Register is to become the subject of a parliamentary motion.
I suppose we shall soon see Coleridge in the North.