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British Library, Add MS 47891. Previously published: Kenneth Curry (ed.), New Letters of Robert Southey, 2 vols (London and New York, 1965), II, pp. 120–122.
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.
Dashes have been rendered as a variable number of hyphens to give a more exact rendering of their length.
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
All other characters, those with accents, non-breaking spaces, etc., have been encoded in HTML entity decimals.
I am glad to receive a letter from you, – however unwelcome its contents. – If Mr Butcher
x
Charles’s hands. – How the situation may turn out for whom he was so
anxious while he lived God knows – they xx are of a bad stock, – but I will not go to London without making enquiry after the
boy,r
Butcher mentioned my letters, & in my reply I desired that they might be given to you. Do you therefore claim them.
You & I are not among those persons who, as the adage says, are born with a silver spoon in their mouths. This
worlds dross will never stick to our fingers. I have had many drawbacks during its last two years. I lost not less than 400£ by the
Edinburgh Register,goo strong as the sight – & I perceive in it, at times, a speck which floats upon the
book before it, like a mote in the sunbeams.
My sheet anchor at present is the Quarterly Review, & to this a large portion of my time is necessarily devoted,
because a large portion of my expenditure must be raised from it. But I find leisure for better things. My concluding volume of
Brazily one. When much of the merit lies in
diversifying subjects that in themselves have a sameness, no one will <could> serve as a sample of the others
Xxxxx xxxxxxx Xxxxx which for xxxx found xxx xxxx xxxxxx before xxxx xxxx xxxxxx xxx xxxxx xxxxxx & I will not fill
up the paper by sending you now what you will receive ere long in another form. – I shall soon send you my Minor Poemsin a revised form collected in three volumes with many corrections & some additions. They will do to stand on your
shelf, & to lend to your acquaintances. – But I hope you will get time to read the Brazil History when it reaches you, because you
will find in it much curious matter respecting human nature & the progress of society.
So poor Tobin is gone! I am old enough to have outlived half
the persons with whom I was familiar twenty years ago! & old enough to dream, waking as well as sleeping, too much of the past.
Thus it is, – in youth our reveries are of hope, – when we begin to [MS torn] down the hill of life they are made up of remembrances.
Something of this feeling [MS torn] have expressed in some verses to my eldest daug[MS torn] poem upon a Jesuit story
My children occupy some of my time. I hav[MS torn] than I expected to be. Herbert
has completely xxxx fact a good foundation of Greek so that we must soon lay aside the Testament for something more
difficult, – & we learn the German Testament together. You would be very fond of this boy if you knew him, for he has all the
dispositions & aptitudes that could be wished. The youngest
xxx gives me some uneasiness – in November there came a slight watery discharge from the inside of her right ear, – after
which it swelled & gathered on the other outside. Poulticing did not bring it to supperation, & blistering did no
good. The tumour was lanced & some pus discharged. But the inside continues to show sometimes pus, & sometimes an ichorus
discharge, – in the smallest possible quantity, – & a fistulous opening is found close under the ear, which no doubt communicates
with the inside. I have no expectation that this can be healed here, & suppose that I must one day take her to London. I
xx am told however that nothing worse is to be apprehended, – & that by & by it may be healed by
applying caustic to the opening.
Write to me. All that we can know of each other must now be by direct intercourse. Tell me when your affairs are settled – & believe me – I shall be very anxious to hear this.