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National Library of Scotland, MS 3885. Previously published: Charles Cuthbert Southey (ed.), Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey, 6 vols (London, 1849–1850), IV, pp. 68–71 [in part].
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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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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Thank God we have seen the end of this long Tragedy of five & twenty years!xxx no expectations have nothing to do with that, – it
concerns the performers alone. I wish we had been <within> reach of a meeting upon the occasion. I would not have sung Nunc dimittis
which putting an end at once to those hopes & fears
& speculations which for many years past have made up so large a part of every mans intellectual existence, – seemed like a change
in life itself. Much as I had desired the event & fully as I had expected it, still when it came it brought with <it> an
aweful sense of the instability of all earthly things, – & when I remembered that that same newspaper might as probably have
brought with it intelligence that peace had been made with Buonaparte, I could not but acknowledge that something more uniform in its
operations than human councils had brought about the event. Well – God be praised for it. There is a spice of revengefulness in my
nature which would have been well pleased if the Emperor of Russiaxxxx surprized me that he should live after such a degradation – after the loss not merely of empire but even of
his military xxxxxxxx <character>. But let him live, – if he will write his own history he will give us all some
information, & if he will read mine, – the Devil I think may give him one days holiday if he pleads that as a set off.
I desired Longman to send you the Carmen Triumphale,&c> in future. I have made good way thro a poem upon the Princess’s marriage in the olden stile, consisting of
three parts the Proem, the Dream, & L’Envoy,xx saw perhaps an Ode in the
Courier, beginning Who counsels peace &c & if you saw it you would recognize the author. It grew out of the castrations of the
Carmen.
The uses of newspapers will for awhile seem flat & unprofitable. yet there will be no lack of important matter from
abroad, & for acrimonious disputes at home we shall always be sure of these. I fear we shall be too liberal in making peace. There
is no reason why we should make any cessions for pure generosity. It is very true that Louis 18xx inveterate & formidable one. They should have
Martini their sugar islands,
I am finishing Roderick,
Remember us to Mrs Scott & your daughter.