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MS untraced; text is taken from John Wood Warter (ed.), Selections from the Letters of Robert Southey, 4 vols (London, 1856). Previously published: John Wood Warter (ed.), Selections from the Letters of Robert Southey, 4 vols (London, 1856), II, pp. 233–243.
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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James left us this morning. I went with him a few miles, for the sake of showing him the
Lake of Thirlmere, in a way seldom seen by travellers. He was exceedingly delighted with it; and, as he had three waterfalls, all very
fine ones, to see in the course of the morning, this day, notwithstanding it is that of his departure, will not be the least agreeable
that he has passed in this country. He was very fortunate in the weather, and saw nearly as much as the shortness of the time
permitted; but enough has been left unseen to supply a proper motive for another journey and a longer stay. Remember your sisters are
to visit us next midsummer, and I hope your excellent mother will accompany them.
Thank you for the Buenos Ayres papers, which are to me very interesting and very valuable, but except by your means
would have been inaccessible.
What has been the event of that painful business which you communicated to me when last we met?
Make my respects to Mr. Park,did receive the book he mentions, and that if I did
not write to acknowledge it, as certainly was my intention, I take shame to myself for the neglect.
We had a long and weary round before we reached home. I left Mrs. S. at Bristol, and went to Taunton; returned to her, and went successively to Llanthony in Monmouthshire, to Ludlow, to Teddesley in Staffordshire, to Llangedwin in Montgomeryshire, and to Liverpool, halting a few days with our friends at each of these places. We dined also at Llangollen with the celebrated ladies of the place, Lady Eleanor Butler and Miss Ponsonby. The singularity of their history, the highly ornamented state of their grounds, and the elegance of everything about their cottage, made this a very interesting visit.
James will tell you that we are all well, God be thanked. He will tell you also, perhaps,
something of my new poem.