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MS untraced; text taken from William Knight, Memorials of Coleorton, 2 vols (London, 1887). Previously published: William Knight, Memorials of Coleorton, 2 vols (London, 1887), II, pp. 141–144.
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.
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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It was no little mortification to me on my arrival in town to learn that you had left it, though indeed, from the long
delay of my journey, it was reasonable to expect that this would be the case. Had I however been certain of this, and received your
friendly invitation before my departure from home, it would have been easy for us to have seen you at Coleorton, – a pleasure which on
our return was not within our reach. On the way up we were so near as Nottingham, where we passed two or three days. Our way home was
by Llanthony Abbey, Ludlow, Llangedwyn, and Llangollen, where we passed a day very pleasantly
with the ladies.
Coleridge was the last person whom I saw in the neighbourhood of London. He told me at parting that he should be at Keswick before me. Here, however, I am, and there are no tidings of Coleridge. I found him in better health than usual, and, better still, in better habits; and while I see him so well employed as he has lately been in the
I have been fortunate enough at last to obtain my brother’s
promotion to the rank of commander.
My literary concerns, though upon the whole more prosperous than they have heretofore been, afford a curious proof of the humour of the times, I am best paid for what is worth least; and if I consulted merely my own interest, should leave nothing for posterity, but employ myself wholly in writing such desultory essays as come within the limits of a review, and therefore do not trespass too much upon the leisure of a modern reader. For the last two years my chief and indeed favourite employment has been writing the annals of these most interesting times for the
I am advancing with a poem in blank verse,
Mrs. Southey and her sisters