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British Library, Add MS 28603. 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.
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.
By this x days post I have received a letter from Mr Sotheby.poor a per
<& xxx humble> a performer as myself.
I am less inclined to pity your disappointment than that of the Officer with whom you were to have exchanged. You know
I am no admirer of Ireland, or rather of the Irish. And it is the last country in the world in which (according to my feelings) an
Englishman would like to live in p time of peace, or to serve during actual war. During actual war, which is very likely to
happen there, – if he took prisoners he would have to hang them after the battle; – & if were taken himself, it is likely enough
that he might be served like poor Cookes of Trinity, – who was tied between two planks & thrown into a fire. You know my sentiments
about Catholick emancipation & indeed about granting any further indulgence to the Catholicks. Those sentiments are not likely to
make me look unfavourably upon the conduct of the present ministry towards Ireland. But I must say that if they wished to insult the
Irish Catholicks in the most wanton manner, & to drive them into rebellion, they could not have taken more effectual means for
xxxxx than by appointing Dr Duigenan
See what circumstantial evidence is good for in such cases as Don Manuelfoully, if the language in which she addressed him by [MS torn]
to mind.
I have a great deal to say to Mrs Peachy in excuse, or rather in
eulogy, of my most meritorious self-denial in hurrying home. But at present I have so much to do, that if polypus-like my legs &
arms would grow into whole Robert Southeys, verily I should cut off one of each xxxx xxx xxxxx xx xxxxxxx xxx xxxx xxxxxx xxx xx
xxx just xxx at this time. – All my household join me in remembrance.