Material from the Romantic Circles Website may not be downloaded, reproduced or disseminated in any manner without authorization unless it is for purposes of criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, and/or classroom use as provided by the Copyright Act of 1976, as amended.
Unless otherwise noted, all Pages and Resources mounted on Romantic Circles are copyrighted by the author/editor and may be shared only in accordance with the Fair Use provisions of U.S. copyright law. Except as expressly permitted by this statement, redistribution or republication in any medium requires express prior written consent from the author/editors and advance notification of Romantic Circles. Any requests for authorization should be forwarded to Romantic Circles:>
By their use of these texts and images, users agree to the following conditions:
Users are not permitted to download these texts and images in order to mount them on their own servers. It is not in our interest or that of our users to have uncontrolled subsets of our holdings available elsewhere on the Internet. We make corrections and additions to our edited resources on a continual basis, and we want the most current text to be the only one generally available to all Internet users. Institutions can, of course, make a link to the copies at Romantic Circles, subject to our conditions of use.
Duke University Library, Southey papers. Previously published: John Wood Warter, Selections From the Letters of Robert Southey, 4 vols (London, 1856), I, pp. 5–8 [where it is dated ‘College Green, Bristol, 1792.’].
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 at length enabled to answer you with respect to my future situation at Oxford. excuse me if I say Dr Vincent has behaved to me with his accustomed generosity & liberality — virtues
which he praises so much & practises so little. I am rejected at Christ Church — when I say so without feeling very warm allow me to possess more patience that either you or I imagined. let me not however attribute the calm state of my
mind to so good a motive I cannot help hoping one day to tell him that he has behaved to me in a manner equally ungenerous &
unjust. before I wrote that letter (for which I must reproach myself as expressing contrition I did not feel & apologizing for an
action which I thought needed no apology) before I was persuaded to write he had engaged his honor never to mention the circumstance.
as Queen Bess
enough of a subject upon which I may perhaps have expressed myself with too unbecoming a warmth. I have always acknowledged myself imprudent a harsher term I cannot submit to with truth.
I heard yesterday from Tom — he left Edinburgh last Monday
& mentions that the 18th of October he expects to be in Bristol on his road to King Weston. now he says he
fears that he shall neither be able to see his Majesty or me. & as he gives
not the least hint where a letter may meet him I have no means but by you of informing him that on that day & after that day till
Xmas I shall certainly be in the College Green at Bristol. since as I can only enter at Baliol. Oxford this term it will only detain me three days so that I shall positively be here & as positively expect to
see him.
at all events I will by this days post write to York & for fear of accidents only tell him I shall expect to see him. if it misses it is but the postage lost to government & the paper to me — the latter loss to one who daubs so much is nothing — the former may be supplied by the superfluous taxes next encampment.
I am sorry to add that he will not obtain an audience of the King of Men. his Majesty being obliged to visit Oxford before that period — as that University was remarkable for its loyalty to his royal ancestors tis to be hoped he will be equally dutiful to the University.
French affairs still very bad. is the report of Brunswicks
I heard it lately observed that the past character of the French differs widely from their present. the Philosopher of
Ferneyphilosophe. He owned an estate at Ferney.t Bartholomew
vires acquirit eundoadd quietness for you dont wish it. my best respects to Mr & Mrs L. & all friends
your black seal much alarmed me.
Toms letter made me easy.