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MS untraced; text is taken from Robert Galloway Kirkpatrick, ‘The Letters of Robert Southey to Mary Barker From 1800 to 1826’ (unpublished PhD, Harvard, 1967), pp. 440–443. Previously published: John Wood Warter (ed.), Selections from the Letters of Robert Southey, 4 vols (London, 1856), III, pp. 1–4.
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 afraid Senhora that the letters which I wrote from Brussels did not reach their destination, for there is no
allusion to them in those which we have received from the Venerable
& the Juvenile Moon. Once was a second letter of wonders, carrying us if I
recollect rightly, to Ghent, – the other was to yourself & brought our history as far as Brussels.
You shall however have our whole history in due form when we return. My Journal is very full. That portion which
relates to the fields of battle I shall extract & affix either as preface or postscript to my projected poem.
Today (Thursday) we are to see the Lord Mayor’s Show. It is raining & will continue to rain. We go in about an hour to Rickmans, to see the water part of the pageant. Then to Josiah Conders in S Pauls Church Yard to see the procession by land. Tomorrow for Streatham, between which place & Champion Hill (Mrs. Gonnes) we shall remain till the Saturday of next week, – on that day we go to John Mays, & return from his house to London on the Monday; then after four or at the utmost five days we set off on our return, for which we are all equally impatient. I am weary of this continual movement & bustle, & long most heartily to be once more at home, & at work, – the best kind of rest.
I have brought for the Mountain Marshal
I am writing upon Herberts desk, – & I mend my pen with
Herberts knife, – a knife of queer cut from Namur containing two blades, a
corkscrew, a steel for striking fire to light his pipe, & an instrument for picking the pipe: – the latter will serve to untie
parcels, & I have a flint from Waterloo with which he may strike light when we want a fire by the lake side. – We have a friar
apiece for Kate & Isabel , a friar on horseback for Bertha & two nuns who are to be
disposed of I know not how. Betty
Whether I am one of those persons who know how to spend & how to spare is not for me to determine: but I have been
both spending & sparing more than I wished. ‘My gold has fled like chaff before the wind’
God bless you. Love from all & to all, – & kisses, as many as you please to give, to the kissable part of the
family. The Doctor in particular desires his remembrances. You must not go
to London this winter & perhaps next year I may accompany you to visit the ruins of Paris. I almost expect a
massacre of the allied troops & the destruction of that city.
The first Mina