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British Library, Add MS 47890. Previously published: Kenneth Curry (ed.), New Letters of Robert Southey, 2 vols (London and New York, 1965), I, pp. 450–453.
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
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Coleridges departure from Bristol is now probably so near at hand that
it is time for me to say precisely what is to be forwarded here by water & what left at Bristol. The only things which I would have
remain where they are, are the case with the cast of dogs, which I am afraid to trust, & so will contrive if possible to bring with
me in the winter, – & the box with the dejeuné service of Wedgewood. –
Every thing else to be shipt except the box of books which I specified in my former letter,rs L.xxx xxx
in some unfilled box of books – if they are not enough for a separate package. there is the Urn also & the box of hamper
of china &c – & I must beg you to buy us a supper service, with two dozen & a half plates to it
instead of one. you know what I shall like well enough for us to trust to your choice of pattern. And a dozen egg-cups, – if they match
with the xxx supper-service so much the better.
Have you not got my prints of the Armada & the battle of the Mars & Hercule,Mars, a 74-gun third-rate ship of the line, fought in 1798 an action against the French
seventy-four gun Hercule. After a bloody battle, Hercule surrendered, having lost over
three hundred men. On Mars 31 men were killed and 60 wounded, including the captain. One of the combatants was
Southey’s brother Thomas.I want when they appear I will beg you
to ask a frame maker whether he can pack the former safely if framed, & if he can let him paste it, either on board or canvass he
will best know which, & varnish it (– this print from its great size being always so damp) <for it is never
glazed)> & put it in a broad – plain – flat – black frame with a narrow gilt moulding in the inside inner edge. I do
not mean black enamel – but stained wood, far cheaper, & fitter for the purpose.chearfully done by you; – that belief would make my pen flow more
pleasantly. Yet I think you must have seen the weight of the reasons which induce me to stay here. As for the
Coleridges, – (if it be a secret at Bristol as perhaps it may – you will still keep it so –) C. is going to take the two boysxxx have permitted it, which he says flatly to me he would not. This affair is not
in consequence of any disagreement, C. has been brooding over it during
his absence, & for the three months that he went visiting about before he came home, – & this was the purpose with which he
returned to his family. For her it is a very happy thing, for not only his habits are destructive to all comfort, – but – what I should
once never have thought possible, his temper has become so too: & as the thing is done with systematic civility, & they are to
continue the best friends in the world – I think it the wisest thing they can do xxx xxx things being as they are, tho that
they are as they are, I consider, as I have told him, as his own fault. I hope it will prevent him from declaring every where in favour
of easy divorces in the mischievous way he does, which has grievously provoked Rickman. When men of such mighty powers always shift their systems to their suit their own individual inclinations
the mischief they do is very great; – & perhaps C. will be sensible
when he has <openly> divorced himself, that every person must feel this to be his case.
___
We are in the midst of work & workmen. the parlour is finished – I wish you were here to help me to admire it, which I think I never can do sufficiently. It is a very – very – pretty room. The masons finished the ceiling of my study yesterday, they will do the walls within the week, & within the fortnight I expect to take possession again: so that the sooner the books are shipped the better as I shall have the shorter time to look upon empty shelves. – When you come to the Bank of Faith you had better lay hands on it, & let me keep yours.
[MS torn] other improvements J. is going to build a boat-house which will secure the boat from the boys.
I have had a letter from Edward. he found out by [MS torn] being
at Crediton, that Lightfoot was a friend of mine, & called upon him [MS
torn] my direction, – upon L’s asking for what purpose he wanted it he said
his name was Edward Tyler Southey, &c &c – & told a long story – the
result of which was that poor Lightfoot kept him to dinner, & wrote off
in the joy of his heart to tell me he had found my lost brother, – imagining that I knew not what had become of him, – & that he
was likely to do credit to my situation &c – Edwards letters stated that he
had left the regiment because he could not pay for his regimentals, – said not a word about the Roman Catholic business – the French
prisoner nor the horse, – and that he wrote as much in justice to me as to himself, asked me to get him a
commission in the regulars, or in the marines, or a situation as commercial traveller, – if I would do neither a line saying that I
would have nothing to do with him would save me all farther trouble. My answer let him know that I knew more of his history than he
supposed – that I could not do any thing for him, neither if I had the means would it be practicable to procure
him any situation of trust after what had past, but that in whatever situation – however humble – he should learn
to conduct himself decently, & do his duty I should gladly xxx him acknowledge him as my brother.
Espriellathe <a> month I think. It is a pity you have no relish for romance
however I shall send you the book, & one for Rex at the same time – & also a
copy of the small edition of Madoc
Tom has taken a privateer as perhaps you saw in the paper. I know not what it will
give him, but guess from 50 to 100£. – I wish we could expect you this summer – & remember I bespeak you for
the first when you <can> afford the time & the journey. The feeling of being settled at last is a very comfortable one, &
I think when my books are once assembled, if no unforeseen calamity occur to mar my enjoyment, – I shall feel nearly as happy as man
can be. – Did I ever tell you Mrs Fletcher in Edinburgh – (Miss Smithsxxx I was
‘all that was intellectual, but that it was plain from every feature in his face that he was a man acquainted with woe.’ This tickled
me not a little.
I have found laudanum in small doses – 8 drops thrice a day – a specific in incipient colds. Miss Barker told me that nine months ago, & since that that time xxx every
cold which has attacked me has yielded in one day. This is a very valuable recipe to me whose colds used to be so intolerably
violent. Try it when you stand in need. – Delightful weather. I have been bathing, & wish you were here to occupy the cork
jacket.