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MS untraced; text is taken from Charles Cuthbert Southey (ed.), Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey, 6 vols (London, 1849–1850). Previously published: Charles Cuthbert Southey (ed.), Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey, 6 vols (London, 1849–1850), IV, pp. 21–22.
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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Your talents will do every thing for you in time, but nothing in the way you wish for some years to come.
This course is as desirable for your intellectual as for your worldly advancement. Your mind would then have time
and opportunity to ripen, and bring forth its fruits in due season. God forbid that they should either be forced or blighted! A
young man cannot support himself by literary exertions, however great his talents and his industry. Woe be to the youthful poet
who sets out upon his pilgrimage to the temple of fame with nothing but hope for his viaticum! There is the Slough of Despond, and
the Hill of Difficulty, and the Valley of the Shadow of Death upon the way.
To be called to the bar you must be five years a member of one of the inns of court; but if you have a university
degree, three will suffice. Men who during this course look to their talents for support usually write for newspapers or reviews:
the former is destructively laborious, and sends many poor fellows prematurely to the grave; for the latter branch of employment
there are always too many applicants. I began it at the age of four and twenty, which was long before I was fit for it.
The stage, indeed, is a lottery where there is more chance of a prize; but there is an evil attending success in that direction which I can distinctly see, though you perhaps may not be persuaded of it. The young man who produces a successful play is usually the dupe of his own success; and being satisfied with producing an immediate and ephemeral effect, looks for nothing beyond it. You must aim at something more. I think your path is plain. Success at the university is not exclusively a thing of chance or favour; you are certain of it if you deserve it.
When you have considered this with your friends, tell me the result, and rest assured that my endeavours to forward
your wishes in this, or in any other course which you may think proper to pursue, shall be given with as much sincerity as this
advice; meantime read Greek, and write as many verses as you please.