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. Previously published: Kenneth Curry (ed.), New Letters of Robert Southey, 2 vols (London and New York, 1965), I, pp. 340-342.
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.
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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
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Coleridge goes off in a few days for Madeira.
I am grieved to hear of your ill health – for Gods sake take every possible precaution. Carlisle recommends a leathern waistcoat next the skin as better than flannel – soft washing-leather. he says this is the best preservative against our destructive climate. Of course this can cure no complaint, but it may prevent fresh colds & any aggravation. –
My chief motive for writing thus immediately on the receipt of yours is a suspicion that my vagabond brother Edward may apply to you for money, in which case you must
refuse him. He writes to me some ten days ago that his Aunt has persuaded him
to leave his ship that he “might smooth the pillow of her declining age” &c – accordingly he had done so – quarrelled with her
afterwards – & then knew not what he should have done if some Mr Barham
Should you see Mrs Wroughtonpo value of
the poem when I shall be obliged to carry it to market. I get on with the recomposition – for such in fact it is. the discovery of
little Hoel & his mother whose name now is Llaian, is just finished – making my thirteenth bookling.only I have
only to recast the old metal as far as his return. about a thousand lines must be woven into the 7th & 8th books as you have them – the latter part of the poem will receive no material alteration as to story or
arrangement.
We have had intolerable weather that has half frozen me. & almost made me resolve not to settle in Cumberland.
however I am well thank God, & in as ostensible spirits as those about me could wish. Burnett has applied to May for money –
& May has supplied him. I am as you may suppose justly offended. you know not how
I have been pestered with unpleasant information of late – Harry sent off
to Edinburgh against my opinion – without my Uncles knowledge & against
the approbation of his friends merely because he was so intolerably idle that Mr Martineaumy his intimacy with me. – from what you say of poor Kings child
Draw on May for the charges you may bear.