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National Library of Scotland, MS 582. Previously published: Kenneth Curry (ed.), New Letters of Robert Southey, 2 vols (London and New York, 1965), II, pp. 49–51; also, in part, in W. Forbes Gray, ‘An Unpublished Literary Correspondence’, Cornhill Magazine, ser. 3, 61 (1926), 82–85. Note on MS: The longer deleted sections in this letter and on the address leaf are in another hand and represent an attempt to obscure Southey’s views on the ‘Delicate Investigation’ and the identity of his correspondent.
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.
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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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I hope you have not seen a paragraph in the newspapers respecting Coleridge,
Being in a coffee house one day last week, he read in one of the morning papers what certainly must have been more
suprizing to him than to any body else: – that a stout & well dressed man had been found hanging in the park, no papers were found
upon him to xxxxxx which could lead to a discovery who he was, – but his shirt was marked S.T. Coleridge at full length: – & the paper went on to represent him as the
author of the late Tragedy Remorse.r Clarke the Gardenerfallen <dropt>, he
said, upon first reading it.
The success of Coleridges tragedy is a good specimen of
the judgement of Messrs Sheridanmany other & better plays, not less to the amendment of the existing stage, & the permanent honour of English
literature, than to the advantage of his family. It is even not unlikely that success & popular applause, of which he is very
sensible, might have made him a happier man, & saved him from habits which have been xxxx destructive to his health xx xxxx
great xxxxxx to his utility. But better late than never, & there is more reason to expect something from him now than
there has ever been.
Had not the printer,xx ere this have been able to announce that it was on its way to
xxxxx. But it is not yet by some three or four sheets out of the press. I hope you will receive it in about three weeks.
At present I am closely employed upon the Register,xxxxxx, if
you should be there towards the end of June.
I do not know who writes under the signature of Vetus.passing <which has past> thro successive degrees
of deterioration, as Goldsmith tells us the Koumiss does at a Tartar drinking feast,
In <one of> the late Quarterlies I reviewd D’Israeli’s Calamities of Literature,the
Malthus & the state of the poor is mine.
We are enjoying the loveliest month of March I ever remember after the most tempestuous February. By an alteration
& improvement in my course of life I am become an early walker. Sara & Edith & Herbert start with me every morning that the weather will permit for an hour & half –
or a two hours walk. The How in one direction, – Applethwaite in another, & thro the woods under Wallow up to Castrigg are within
our limits. We bid defiance to mud & mire, – for, as it is never too late to learn, I have in the eleventh winter of my abode in
Cumberland, Cumberlandized myself at last, & naturalized my feet to the soil by mounting a pair of genuine clogs. I find no
inconvenience whatever in them except in the snow: snow collects under them in two <rounded> balls upon each foot & then to
be sure a man in clogs is like a cat shod with wall-nut shells, – except that not having the advantage of four legs he has no little
difficulty <in> to keeping himself erect upon two. The young ones are shod in the same manner, & we clatter away
thro Keswick town before half the inhabitants are out of bed. I heartily wish our soldiers
could be persuaded thus to protect themselves <against> the wet: the preventative is effectual, & if it could be introduced
the effective strenght of a regiment would be very different from what it now is after a long march.
What an affair is this Delicate Investigation!were
in modern times has public decency been so grossly outraged x xxxxxxx xxx xxxx xxx of the xxxx xxxxxxx of xxxxx xx xxxx xxxx xxxx
xxxxxxx; x xxx xxxxxx xxx <xxxx> xxxxxxx xxxxxxxx xxxx xxx xxxxxx, & xxxxxx to xxxx xxxxxxxxx. Xxx xxxxx of xxxxxxx xx
<however> xxxxxx xxxxxxxx xxxx xxxxxx xxx xxxx – xxxxxx xxx xxxxx xxxxxxxx xxxx xxxxxxxxx.
Xxxx xxxxxxxx xx xxxxx xxxx xxxxxxxx xxxxxx xxx xxxxxxxx & your daughter xxxxxxx Mrs S. xxx xxxxxx xxxxxxxx xxxx xxxx xxxxxx xxxxx xxxx xxxx xxx xx xxxxxx xxx xxxxx
xxxxxxxxxx