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National Library of Wales, MS 4811D. Previously published: John Wood Warter (ed.), Selections from the Letters of Robert Southey, 4 vols (London, 1856), I, pp. 68–70.
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 suspect that my two letters directed to you on the Chester Circuit as you desired, had not reached you when you last
wrote or there would have been no charge of idleness in yours. & now having acquitted myself of that charge I proceed to the
indictment of my ears. If the charge had come from Dapple it would not
have surprized me. one may fancy him possessed of more than ordinary susceptibility of ear; but for the irritability of yours I cannot
so satisfactorily account. I could heap authority upon authority for using two very short syllables in blank verse instead of one. they
take up only the time of one. Spirit in particular is repeatedly placed as a monosyllable in Milton, − & some
of his ass editors have attempted xx to print it as one − not feeling that the rapid pronunciation of
the two syllables does not lengthen the verse more than the dilated sound of one. The other line you quote is still less objectionable,
because the old Ballad style requires ruggedness − & because were this line rugged − & secondly
because the line itself rattles over the tongue as smoothly as a curricle upon xxx down turf. I have
made candles of infants fat − & this kind of cadence is repeatedly used in the Old Woman & in the Parody.
The Grandmothers Tale
Of my late volume the worst pieces in my own judgement are the Complaints of the Poor & the Rose.
I am very curious to see Barkers sketch.
On May-day if no accident intervene I expect to be in town −