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Bodleian Library, MS Don. d.3. Not previously published.
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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I thought William Taylor had misunderstood you, & am glad to
find it so. you also misunderstand the xxx <laws> of the English Universities. two terms &
not two years are saved – as thus you are permitted to miss two terms in the four years, & it matters not when
<you> avail yourself of the privilege, whether at the beginning or end of the time. to graduate the remaining terms must be kept
– which you would find impossible, & therefore the whole expence of entering – that is of matriculation – would be thrown away. I
am very glad you have given up the idea.
It is not my fault that you do not receive regular remittances, – if my Uncles income were regularly paid in the evil would be remedied, & things are in
a train to have this done. what supplies John May furnishes meantime he himself
advances – meo periculo
I hear Edward is on board the Egyptienne frigatehim xxx xxx the old gentlemen <who> therefore the next morning
turned him out of doors. God knows what mischief this may have done. Whether this third embarkation may answer better than the two
former remains to be seen, but my conviction of Edwards character & utter
worthlessness is such that I would willingly swap with Dr CromptonAmelia, a finer ship than the Galatea because she was a 38-gun
Hébé-class frigate of the French navy captured in 1796 and then commissioned into the navy.
The H H look well – but the seal x wants a frame – & many new seals which I have seen have the same
naked appearance. – I wish you would look at the Southey arms whereof you told me in the MSS. & should they prove to be ours I will
think about raising a seal also. Send me a description of them – or drawing – & see if any thing be said of the family to identify
them, for how the devil they should get into Scotland puzzles me. the family is doubtless as old as Adam, but it has kept very quiet
till the present generation – the only one who ever signalled himself before being the worthy who committed actual rebellion against
James 2.string as the saying is. However it is better to be the beginning of a family than
the fag end.
I am very glad you are acquainted with Walter Scott. make my
acknowledgements to him for his invitation – & assure him that one main inducement fo to visit Edinburgh – would be the
wish to see him – which is the simple truth – for I have a very sincere respect for him. If his poem be reviewed in this Annual – it
will fall into other hands – if it be delayed till the next – I shall apply for it.from xxx (as I suppose) xxx from the story, unless they
pre-existed in the country in either case, furnishing strong presumptive proof, when added to the positive testimony of Gomes
Eannes
John is well. he is a tenderum & a nonis de vellons.
y 24. 1805.