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British Library, Add MS 47890. Previously published: Charles Cuthbert Southey (ed.), Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey, 6 vols (London, 1849–1850), II, pp. 299–302 [in part].
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.
Your three letters of April 26. May 20 (the large sheet) & June 11. have arrived together this evening, &
relieved me from very considerable anxiety. mine I find are xxx consigned to the Atlantic without bottle,Salvador del
Mundo was a 112-gun ship of the line, captured from the Spanish at the battle of Cape St Vincent in 1797.
Charles of Antwerp is coming to see me – & we look every day for the letter
which is to tell me to meet him. by his last it appears that Joeth
& 9th – containing exactly those parts of the story which Edith copied for you. I shall be hurried by him – for my work is by no means done, tho all the difficulty is over. I am
finishing the last section of the new part – indeed should have finished it this evening, if your letters had not happily arrived – for
I should not have had heart to write again till some tidings of you arrived. This insertion which contains above a thousand lines
brings me to the old eighth book – but thenceforward all is plain sailing – & I have only to correct & ornament a story which
requires but little alteration. – You ask of Amadis. it has been well received both in the Annual & the Edinburgh by Walter Scott,x may pieces then may be reprinted in a seperate form,
revised & arranged.Galatea, a fifth-rate 32-gun frigate.
As for news the packet which conveys this will convey later intelligence than is in my power to communicate. Sir Francis may & probably will lose his election. but it is evident that he has not
lost his popularity.
My journey to London almost knocked me up. the fatigue was excessive. Rickmans is an excellent house for me. I worked hard at the book of Specimens, & still harder in visiting as many of the
Thousand and One persons who expected me to visit them, as possible. Wynn talks
of coming here in the autumn – in the hope of carrying me back with him to Wales – an expedition for which I cannot conveniently spare
time, yet did not willingly give it up, as I shall travel with every possible advantage. You doubted whether we should be at Keswick. I have no intention of removing till upon some definite plan, & it will certainly
not be desirable to settle till my journey to Portugal be over. perhaps I may be able to go by the winter of next year. certainly not
before – & till then, for certainly I shall have no means of removing any where till then, shall remain where I am, a situation in
every way desirable were it not quite so far from London, & my books. Whensover the great change of ministry to which we all look
on with hope takes place I shall have friends in power able to serve me, & shall in fact without scruple apply to Fox thro one or two good channels. this may be very remote & yet may be very near. –
When Madoc is published I mean to send Fox a copy with such a note as may be proper for me to address such a man. I love Homer, & I
do not think this poem unworthy to offer <of being offered> to a lover of the Odyssey. – I will also send one to the
Old Boy. taking care to pay carriage & frank the letter which announces it.
The Scotch reviewers