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British Library, Add MS 47890. Previously published: Kenneth Curry (ed.), New Letters of Robert Southey, 2 vols (London and New York, 1965), II, pp. 91–92.
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.
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I would write to Coleridge if I had any expectation that he would open the letter: – this however is so little likely that I must again make use of you as Ambassador-Extraordinary.
What I would say is to dissuade him from this preceptoring plan.xx intellectual drudgery, – supposing that he could depend also upon
the regularity of his health; – even if both these xx difficulties were overcome, he would find himself less a gainer at the
end of the year than he should by producing a play which would cost him three months labour, <or by any other literary labour in
that line.> I advise him earnestly to raise what he can by lecturing for immediate emergencies; & then to come here, & write
for the theatre, & for the Reviews. From the Reviews he may alone he may get if he chuses, as much as would suffice to
keep Hartley at College. Let him but come down here & task himself
merely to two hours in the day, – & he will make himself happy & do all that is needful for his family. But the plan of taking
pupils would involve him in duties which he will never perform, & in difficulties <embarrassments> from which it
may be very difficult to extricate himself.
______
I had forgotten in my former letters to say something about Mr Lunellswhich was defective
knowing that it might be made up by transcribing from Mr L.s. Will you employ some person who writes a clear hand
to copy out the eight pages from p. 75 to 82, inclusive, – that I may have the book rebound & this manuscript inserted in its
place. The size of the written page must be that of the printed one; – the writing not wider than the letter-press, – as for the size
of the writing, it matters not so it be clear, or the eight pages be into how many pages the eight printed ones may be
extended. The book is no beauty, – any more than its author at whose wig & the head face which is in it I dare say you
have laughed as well as myself. Mr Doolittle the Engraver is aptly so named; at least he has not done much for
President Stiles.
Your old friend & fellow traveller D Manuelxxx bone.
You are mistaken if you suppose that the children have forgotten you. When will Mr Danvers come
again, is a pretty frequent question: – & if Herbert hears that any other
person is likely to visit us he seldom fails to reply – Oh but when will Mr Danvers come – I was not a little
pleased to see how very much my portrait of you is better than Ashburners,
You may tell Coleridge that Derwent is very much improved in health during the last six months. – That cursed habit
of xxxxxx letting all letters remain unopened makes him compleatly dead to his family, – I cannot think of it with patience,
nor without a bitter sense of indignation. Hartley has outgrown his
present school, & it is high time that something should not only be thought about his future destination, but done. – My
earnest entreaty is that C. will give up this scheme of taking pupils;
let him come down here, & allow me to give up two hours a day to his family, & he as well as they will then have
nothing to want & little to wish for.
Ediths love – God bless you my dear Charles