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. Previously published: Kenneth Curry (ed.), New Letters of Robert Southey, 2 vols (London and New York, 1965), II, pp. 7–9.
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.
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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.
£ has been used for £, the pound sign
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The moment your letter reached me with the ages of the children I wrote to Friend Smith.
Burnetts death has shocked me very much. Rickman told me of it but I knew nothing of the particulars till now.
His hatred to me was undoubtedly pure madness, – I never received a line from him since he left this place, &
certainly was glad that he had chosen to break with me, because his cond manners toward women were sxxx quite
insufferable. Still I would have done any thing which was possible to relieve or serve him, & if C. had opened my letter & seen him, we should then have known his real state of
disease, & he should gave wanted no comfort & no assistance that money could have procured for him. – I have nothing for which
to blame myself, but this does not prevent me from being grieved as well as shocked.
There will be a difficulty (insuperable I fear) about Xts Hospital
This letter has lain some days unfinished & I have not yet heard from Mr Smith.
We have had nothing but sickness after sickness in the house for the last three months, & so it still continues.
Bertha is just recovering from a smart bilious attack, & Herbert now is being dosed with bark for a sore throat & fever: – so I have been kept
in a state of half idleness by disquietude. This throws me back – for which there is no occasion, & my arrangements are terribly
dislocated in consequence. I thought to have been in London the first week in May, & now I must work unremittingly to get there by
the last. My absence must be six weeks at least, – I meant it to be eight, – this brings me to Midsummer. – I begin to fear that this
will end in putting off my journey till the autumn which I am exceedingly unwilling to do because it is time that I should visit my Uncle & his wife.
– Till xxx this be final I cannot write to Hort
You seem to value the xx criticism in the Register more than it deserves – it is flashy & that is all. I
do not know who wrote it, – some Scotchman or he would never have dreamt of comparing xx me with Campbell!xx
xxxxx lucky speech did Lord Grenville make about Portugal last
week!