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Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, University of Texas, Austin. Previously published: Charles Ramos (ed.), The Letters of Robert Southey to John May: 1797–1838 (Austin, Texas, 1976), pp. 101–103.
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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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 so long since we have written to each other, that I knowx not to whose charge the silence is to be
laid, tho rather suspecting it to be on your side than mine. I have been absent from home fifteen days, – for me an extraordinary
event; three days of that time were spent at Walter Scotts in xxx on the banks of
the Tweed, a week in Edinburgh, & the rest upon the road. I went to accompany my friend Elmsley & am heartily glad to find myself again by my own fire side.
Harry, I find, being from home when his remittance arrived, has not
acknowledged its receipt, which I therefore now do for him. It is not fitting that there should be any secrets respecting him on my
part towards you. He has entangled himself, or been entangled by the daughter of Colonel Noel, member of Rutlandshire.xxx then than just to <have> rendered things pleasanter at first.
When of age she has fifteen hundred pounds of her own, & as much more at his death; of her & may have whatever more
Lord Barham her grandfather
I have never seen the young Lady. they who have tell me it is no wonder that Harry has been thus attached, – & I who know him think it as little extraordinary on her part. I wish it had not happened, but having happened would, as far as can be, render my own plans subservient to their well-doing; & if they should marry, when Harry sets up to practise, I shall not be unwilling to reside for some years wherever he may fix, to assist him with a home. You will of course perceive how uncertain all this is, nor should I have communicated any speculations upon, or account of, an affair which may very likely end in nothing, but for a sense of something like duty, – at least of impropriety in concealment.
Now for myself. my Uncle advises me to visit Portugal the
sooner the better, – advice which I have every inclination to follow. In the spring I shall be ready, – it is my hope that Edith will consent to accompany me, in which case I would not hurry back; if she
will not I shall make the best use of my time, & work the harder for the sake of speedily returning. I have much to do before my
departure. At least as large a proportion of the Review to supply as in any former yearxxx retarded, & therefore thereby amerced me of the profits of a whole years sale –) will in the
course of the next two years, in all human probability set me fairly beforehand with the world, & make me perfectly at ease in my
circumstances.
My Uncle sent books by the last convoy both to you & to Koster, & I am uneasy at receiving no tidings of either consignment. – Little Edith is cutting her eye teeth, which makes her restless at night & irritable by day: of course I feel some anxiety, tho every thing promises well. I could tell you how sweet a child she is, how forward in speech & in intellect & how winning in all her ways – but these are things not to be talked of beyond ones own fireside – I am only afraid of loving any thing too well whose existence – or rather continuance here is so precarious.
You have seen the Edinburgh review of Madoc& I have seen the reviewer since it was printed – met him in Scotland – travelled with him, &
entertained him here at supper. In all matters of taste he is so mere a child that the absolute contempt I felt when we measured each
others strength in conversation – effectually prevents any feeling of resentment for the language of contemptuous superiority affected
over me by an homunculus