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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. 375–377.
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.
£ has been used for £, the pound sign
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I have for some time been in daily hope of a letter to announce that you were on your way to Keswick: during the delightful weather which we have enjoyed for the last fortnight we have repeatedly wished for you to enjoy it with us. Some of our purposed excursions are postponed till your arrival. The sooner you come the better: every day now shortens upon us, and though I hope we shall manage so as never to want daylight, this is a country in which we cannot have too much of it.
James wrote to me, some week or ten days since, a very pleasing and good letter in
every respect. He expresses a solicitude about taking his degree with some credit, on account of the pleasure which it would give
you. This feeling does him great honour, but I fear he is rather too anxious about it; and it might perhaps
have a good effect if you were to assure him that you see this point in its true light, and attach no undue importance to a thing
which can in no degree affect his future fortunes. You have not sent him to college to seek his fortune by academical pursuits,
but that he may be qualified for the ministry there, and obtain that degree and those testimonials which are very properly
considered as necessary for one who enters into the service of the Established Church. I have said this because it is evident to
me that the fear of not taking an honorary degree haunts him; and this is a bad thing for anybody, especially
for one whose health and spirits cannot afford much wear and tear.
Thank you for the B. Ayres papers.
My poem
Did I tell you that Montgomery sent Mr. Gilbert
As I do not believe with Doctor Reece and Co., that Joanna
Southcott is actually pregnant, I of course believe that she is mad; it is more likely that she has some disease of
which the appearance resembles pregnancy, than that the whole should be blasphemous imposture, with the intention of producing a
supposititious child.