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National Library of Scotland, MS 3878. Previously published: Charles Cuthbert Southey (ed.), Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey, 6 vols (London, 1849–1850), III, pp. 238–240.
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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My friends leave Bristol on Monday next, – on their way hither, – you thus perceive how impossible it is that I can now accompany you to Edinburgh, – as I should else willingly have done.
The latter part of your letter requires a confidential answer. – I once wished to reside in Portugal, because
my the great object of my literary life related to that country. I loved the country, & had then an Uncle
xxx settled there. Before Fox came into power this was told him by
Williams Wynn, & when he was in power he was asked by Wynn to
send me there. It so happened that John Allenthe one of the last things
Ld Grenville did was to give me a pension of 200. Till that time I had
received one of 160 from Charles W. Wynn – my oldest surviving friend, – the
exchange leaves me something the poorer, as the Exchequer deducts above sixty pounds. This is all I have. Half my time I sell to the
Booksellers, – the other half is reserved for works which will never pay for the paper on which they are written, but on which I rest
my future fame. I am of course straitened in circumstances, – a little more would make me easy. My chance of inheritance is gone by, my
fathers elder brother was worth 40,000, but he cut me off without the
slightest cause of offence.
You would see by this that I would willingly be served, – but it is not easy to serve me. Lisbon is too insecure a
place to remove to with a family, & nothing could repay me for going without them. I have neither the habits nor talents for an
official situation, nor if I had could I live in London – that is I should soon die there. I have said to Wynn that one thing would make me at ease for life – ‘create for the <me>
the title of Royal Historiographer for England (there is one for Scotland) with a salary of 400 £’.
I am sorry we are not to meet – but it would be unreasonable to expect it now, – & at some more convenient season I
will find my way to you & to the Advocates Library. You will hear from Ballantyne what my plan is for Rhadamanthus,r & Mrs Scott