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National Library of Wales MS 4812D. Previously published: Charles Cuthbert Southey (ed.), Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey, 6 vols (London, 1849–1850), II, pp. 329–332 [in part].Dating note: Dating from postmark and Southey’s date of ‘Saturday’. The Saturday before 25 June was 22 June in 1805.
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.
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It is long since you have written to me – & I on my part have long been silent, having nothing to say but
complaints of N Easters & sore eyes. If indeed you wanted a question of Spanish law in the thirteenth century decided, – or any
news of the first siege of Dio,
The main news concerning that personage is this. My brother has taken some prizes which he expects will yield him a
thousand pounds. by great <good> fortune they were sent into St Vincents & so escaped the Rochefort squadron.Amelia in December 1804. His fears were exacerbated by the fact that in
mid-1805 a squadron of French ships commanded by Contre-Admiral Zacharie Allemand (1762–1828) and based at Rochefort, slipped past
the British blockade to harass British ships in the Atlantic and West Indies.
Madoc is doing well. x rather more than half the edition are sold, which is much for so heavy a volume.settled what they please to think of the poem. – & if the reviews favour it the remainder
will be in a fair way. In fact books are now so dear that they are becoming rather articles of fashionable furniture than any thing
else. they who buy them do not read them, & they who read them do not buy them. I have seen a Wiltshire clothier who gives his
bookseller no other instructions than the dimensions of his shelves – & have just heard of a Liverpool merchant who is fitting up a
library, & has told his bibliopole to send him Shakespere & Milton & Pope, & if any of those fellows should publish any
thing new to let him have it immediately. – If Madoc obtain any celebrity its size & cost will recommend it among these gentry –
libros consumere nati, – born to buy quartos & help the revenue.
Do you know if Elmsley had a copy sent him? I wish to know if he has received it, – but do not wish him to think that I looked for any letter of matter-of-course compliment in acknowledgement.
You were right in your suspicious dislike of the introductory lines. The Ille Ego is thought arrogant,been have <been> thought mock modesty. For this I care little. It is saying no more
in fact than if I had said Author of so & so in the title page, – & moreover it is not amiss that critics
who will find fault with something should have these straws to catch at. I learn this from Sharp – whom Elmsley knows – who
brings me very favourable reports of its general effect, which is – he says, far greater than I could have supposed.
Dapple gets on well with the Specimens,xx it. Rickman tells me that by your help Horace has got an appointment at the Museum. If he has apartments also, this may be
of use to me inasmuch as it would be pleasanter to work by his fire than in a cold reading room.
Turner has sent me his last volume
Saturday –
Your letter has got the start of mine. – I believe I told you that both Lord & Lady Holland had
left invitations for me with my Uncle to Holland House, &
xxxxx that he had offerd the use of his Spanish collection. Did Fox mention to you that I had sent him a copy of Madoc? – I did so because Sharp desired me to do so, who knows Fox, – & I prefaced it with
a note as short as could be & as respectful as ought to be.of everywhere of such ornament as the
public are apt to look for & have been taught to admire. And still I cannot help feeling that the whole poem looks like the work of
an older man, – that all xxx <its> lights are evening sunshine. This would be ominous if it did not proceed from the
nature of the story xxx& the key in which it is pitched, xxxx <which> was done many years since, before
Thalaba was written or thought of.
God bless you. I must not forget to express Toms thanks for the
offer you made him, when he was out of employ.xxx happily he was never in want & as you see he is now beginning to lay by. Sir S
Hoods