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. Previously published: Charles Ramos, The Letters of Robert Southey to John May: 1797–1838 (Austin, Texas, 1976), pp. 44–45.
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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& has been used for the ampersand sign.
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I have been daily in hope of knowing our destination after Midsummer certainly enough to communicate it. but this is still unsettled. the day after I last saw you a letter from Biddlecombe reached me at Brixton. it stated that there was a place at Burton which he thought would suit us – it had been divided into two tenements, both which with a little garden we might have for not more than eight pounds a year. I immediately wrote that this would do if there were the required number of bed-rooms – that is – rooms for myself – my mother – a servant – & one for a friend. to this I have daily & vainly expected an answer. it will probably bring intelligence that the place is ours – but time presses & I now wait with some impatience.
This house, or rather tenement to speak with singular propriety, is about two hundred yards from
our former abode at Burton, & Biddlecombe says, in every respect more convenient. I shall feel disappointed if we do not fix there. in that case we shall
be within reach of you, & if as you expect Mrs Tonkin & her family
In my journey home I collected one piece of information which you may use as a useful warning. when they have new horses to put in the Mail they always put them in first on a Sunday night, because they carry no letters & there is of course time for an accident. so I was endangered quite enough to resolve upon no more Sunday night mail-coaching.
Edith I found – or rather she found me, for I reached Bristol before dinner &
she not till after tea; I found her then however better than she had been at Stowey. My Mother is recovering from a sad plunge. her cough which is habitual increased
violently by some accidental cough, & she relapsed into all her old alarming symptoms; now however she is rapidly growing well. I
should think my Mother consumptive were it not for her often recovering when
apparently in so hopeless a state. she has all consumptive symptoms except the quick pulsation. however I am going to try the fox
glove, by Beddoes’ advice
Myself I am without complaints or unpleasant feelings. the season suits me, & I have the appetite & the sleep which I wanted thro the whole winter.
The papers tell me you are an Uncle.
This instant I have been a good deal alarmed – tidings have reachd me that Edward has this morning broken his arm. he is however in a way of doing well: my Mother is not to know it – it would be useless & might injure her – indeed necessarily would. he had got upon a strange horse in the street. if it lessons him it will be well, & I believe there is no hope from any thing but from a rough lesson. The boy vexes me.
I hardly know what I write now. be good enough to remit my mothers money. you shall know our destination as soon as it is known.