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Huntington Library, RS 146. Previously published: Charles Cuthbert Southey (ed.), Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey, 6 vols (London, 1849–1850), III, pp. 273–275 [in part; dated 21 January 1810].
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.
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I am one of those lucky people who find their business their amusement, & contrive to do more by having half a
dozen things in hand at once, than if any employed upon any single one of them. It is the Printers fault that you have not <ere this> seen the best of my labours in a ‘tangible
shape,me <he> hurries me I let it sleep & work at my second volume, for which I have collected a considerable
quantity of materials, have pretty well mapped out the arrangement, & am proceeding with the straight forward narration. There are
a few books still wanting which are of more importance to one chapter, & for these I have advertised at the end of my Preface.that <the>
labour is half done, – when they jog me with another proof, I, shall take another heat, & without hurrying myself wr can
write a sheet a week that <which> is as fast as they will print it, leaving my evenings (the best portion of the
writers day) for other calls. You will like what I have said concerning the Catholick Question,xx discharged a little of my
gall upon the Foxites, the Peace-mongers, & Mr Whitbread.set me y make me altogether at ease in circumstances, for by that time my property
in Longmans hands will have cle right cleared itself, – the Constable
will come up with me, & we shall travel on I trust to the end of our journey cheek by jowl, – even if I should not be able to send
him forward xxx like a running footman.
The Quarterly pays me well, 10 guineas per sheet, – at the same measure the Annual was only four.r Holmesquarter, evening, & is at
this moment littering my floor, just as it was unpacked. It will distil to the amount of 40 G. at the O. P.
The next news of my grey goose quill, is, that as I have one quarto just coming out of the press for you, I have
another just going in for Mrs Rickman.
Mathetes
xx luckily by some accident he has just been trained
enough to come within the <protection of the> Habeus Corpus Act.the <his> age. – Lamb I know has
unaccountably taken a dislike to him, & despises him, but this is one of Lambs
crazy humours. Wordsworths reply to Mathetes,xxxxxxx {mouthful} of
moonshine, – ex nihilo nihil fit.
My visit to London must be delayed till my Uncle is settled
at Streatham, & then I shall with much pleasure divide my time between his parsonage,
& St Stephens Court. Tell Mrs R. I shall be very glad
to see the little girls,
The Coalition to which you seem to look on is likely enough to take place – if it should & Dutensbe a there be an entirely
new set of performers. And God knows where they are to go from. Here is Lord Folkestone,
Bedford hinted something about Duppa’s folly. He never spoke a word about it to me, – which is some proof that he is
ashamed of such a fools trick. God Was ever any thing so absurd! – It is letting every body knows, he feels his
education to have been defective, – but as for remedying it in this manner, – it is just as if a man who had been bred up by hand (as
they call it) in his infancy, should fancy when he grew up that his constitution had been hurt by it, & put himself to
wet out to be wet-nursed.
You will serve me during the next sessions by sending as many Parl. Procs. as may be of use towards the Hist. of the year.
y. 21. 1810.