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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. 86–88.
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.
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.
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We reached this place Tuesday night last. there is one advantage in the neighbourhood of the sea, that if we are about to have the world purified by a second deluge, there may be boats at hand. moreover Spithead is at no great distance & a first rate has as good accommodations as Noahs ark could have had.
I received an ugly piece of intelligence on my arrival here. casting an eye over the paper Edith saw that the Sylph brig (my
brothers ship) was safely lodged in Ferrol harbour.Sylph, on which Tom Southey was serving, had been captured and was at
the Spanish port of Ferrol.
Almost I envy you your domestic feelings at Wynnstay. with the most domestic propensities & root-striking readiness, since my childhood I have never felt myself at home. still looking on to some settled dwelling place I have still been disappointed. here I am settling my mother, & we are now all hurry & discomfort. the moment I can at all endure confinement I will remove to London; at present I continue in the same state – well when in the use of great exercise, disordered by a days indolence.
I am anxious to see what reception one of the Series of Playsplay <they> learnt to speak English your
countrymen have never said anything to be remembered.
did I tell you xx three months ago that I had finished the outline of Madoc? I much
wish you to see it, & would send it if I could trust my only copy to the chance of carriage. here it lies unlookd at, till all the
freshness of self-satisfaction be worn off, or transferrd to some younger birth, & then unsparingly to work. at present I like it
so well that it has half put me out of humour with all my older writings. in my alteration I meant to have carried him to Florida, but
the perusal of Sotos expeditionwould could not have
succeeded in settling where the Spaniards attempted it in vain. so I now think of the banks of the Orinoco or Maragnon. Brazil,
Paraguay, or El-dorado. with Mango Capac
Direct Burton near
Ringwood. Hampshire.