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The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Wilson Library, James Saxon Childers Papers. Previously published: The Lives and Works of the Uneducated Poets by Robert Southey, ed. James Saxon Childers (London, 1925), pp. 213–214 [undated].Dating note: Dating from content; compare with Southey to Walter Savage Landor, 26 March 1810, Letter 1765. The letter is written before the death of Martha Rickman on 1 August 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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Southey’s spelling has not been regularized.
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& has been used for the ampersand sign.
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I am turned beggar, & like other beggars come with a melancholy story. The Poems of which a sample is sent herewith
that they may speak for themselves, were written by Wm Roberts, a Bristol
lad, who died of consumption at the age of 19 & past the last weeks of his illness in correcting & fitting them for the press,
& bequeathd them in trust to two of his friends,these being all he had
to leave her. Circumstances have rendered this poor bequest of more importance than he was himself aware of.
Robertss fathert Augustines back (Rickman will remember that place by virtue of a printers impress)remain <be> a profit of
nearly 300£, – sufficient it is hoped to place Eliza Roberts in a situation of supporting herself & her parents. A little zeal will
accomplish this.
Lediard, who had walked over great part of the world, & many of the worst parts of it, used to say he xx
never asked charity of a woman in vain.xxxx <far> more interested by the account of his life which the Editor (James a banker of Birmingham) will prefix to the book, & by the extracts from his
Letters which have been selected for publication.
I was in hopes that long before this we should have seen you in Cumberland, – & tho I must not be sorry that there
are now two such serious obstacles to the journey, xxx will yet hope that they will not always be obstacles, but that I may
one day row you round Keswick Lake, & lead your poney up Skiddaw. Having so often, & so
long been your guest, I have a claim to be your host.