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Bodleian Library, MS Eng. Lett. c. 23. Previously published: Charles Cuthbert Southey (ed.), Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey, 6 vols (London, 1849–1850), II, pp. 281–283.
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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damn the pen!
but in so swearing I recollected that you would say, Southey you had better mend it – & so I did. & so once more
Dear Grosvenor.
I thought to have seen you before this time. – & am daily – indeed hourly in expectation of being enabled to say when I set out – but as this expectation may last yet some days I may as well write meantime.
You know that I design to take up with me the first part of Madoc & leave it with the Printer.colons as no man can manage his own. My books have all suffered by
misprinting. – In fact there is a lurking hope at the bottom of this request, that when you have once been brought into a habit of
dealing with the Devil on my account, you may be induced to deal with him on your own. You shall – i.e. if you will – do for Madoc what
you have done for Kehama,be
may be amended in time. I will put the copy into your hands, & when you have examined it at your pleasure, you shall some day give
me a beef-stake tete-a-tete– & we will lay our two tetes together & I will alter all the passages that I cannot on some fair
ground defend.
I shall bring up with me as much towards the Specimensxx here at Keswick to enlighten a Portugueze-student among the mountains, & which does amuse me by its
exquisite inanity, & the glorious & intense stupidity of its correspondents. It is in truth a disgrace to the age & the
country. My list of names is already long enough to prove that there will be some difficulty in getting at the volumes requisite, not
that it is or can be a matter of conscience to read thro all the dull poetry of every rhymester. If a dog be decidedly dull – mark him
with a DD for damned dunce, & put in the shortest specimen. the language of vituperative criticism has not yet been so systematized
as to afford terms for every shade of distraction. I had an idea of applying the botanical nomenclature to novels & dividing them
into mongynia – monandria, cryptogamia
Meantime if they fall in your way, or you fall in theirs take in hand Sir C. Hanbury Williams,xxx attack in the Dunciad,xxx materials in any quantity. I mean popular songs or ballads, no matter how
bad (if decent in a moral sense) provided they have actually been popular, that is the poetry of the people, the genuine successors of
the old Ballads. Unless they are upon real subjects it is almost impossible to guess even at their age, for whatever is obsolete slips
from the memory, or is omitted in a new impression. Still some will be found. I have from the European Magazine, one upon Prince
Eugenes victories over the Turks,Privy-Gardener upon Lord Mohoun.
Tis a long way to London! I wish all were well & I were on my way – & then shall I wish myself arrived – &
then be wishing myself back again, for compleat rest, absolute, unprospective – rooted rest is the great object of my desires. Near
London must be my final settlement, unless any happy & unforeseen fortune should enable me to remove to the South, & then take
a longer lease of Life. in fact – if I could afford the money-sacrifice I would willingly make the offer, & keep my History
unpublished all my life – that I might pass it in Portugal.xx xxxx xxxx I have actually felt a positive pleasure in breathing there & even here, in this magnificent spot,
the recollection of the Tagus & the Serra de Ossa of Coimbra & its cypresses & orange groves & olives, its hills &
mountains, its venerable buildings & its dear river, of the vale of Algarve, the little islands of beauty amid the deserts of
Alemtejo, & above all of Cintra, the most blessed spot in the habitable globe