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National Library of Scotland, MS 42551 . Previously published: Kenneth Curry (ed.), New Letters of Robert Southey, 2 vols (London and New York, 1965), II, pp. 130–133.
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.
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I can send you xx no article but that upon Alfieri & Italian Tragedy for your next number, & this
will not be a long one.xx <during> that time is only as recreation by means
of change. At this time my poem gives me full employment.
I have read Sir J Malcolms book, the first volume with disappointment, the second with much pleasure & instruction.
It is as a traveller & not as an historian that the author excels, & he would have done better to have formed his materials
into a “View of the present state of Persia with researches into the history of that country.” In the historical part the information
is xxx almost exclusively oriental, – when Roman & Byzantine writers might have supplied some interesting detail: &
xxxx there is that want of detail & circumstance the absence of which is as much the fault of xxx modern
historians, as the redundance of them is that of the middle-age chroniclers. There can be no better book for a Reviewers purpose. It is
a principle with me <in reviewing> to say nothing more of the defects of a book which adds to our store of knowledge, than just
suffices xx for making the understanding reader perceive that I perceive them. I happen to be well read respecting Persia,
& can draw up an article which will be attractive in itself, & likewise serve the book, – some such assistance I should
apprehend it is likely to want.
You know I have long had in mind an essay for which the Poor: Society furnish the text, it has long been begun, &
many materials for it are in their place among my Quarterly memoranda books.xxx style I
at once discovered the author. Whom I had seen at my own house, & been pleased with. I have two or three accounts of England by
foreigners (the letters from Albion which I took up one day in town are a palpable imitation of Espriella
The other subjects before me are Salts Travels (too long delayed)
Your mention of Sir Hugh <Hew> Dalrymplexxx struck off: an abominable interpolation,
– for not content with going in direct opposition to xxx the opinion which I had expressed, it stigmatizes that opinion as
factious. When I write to Mr Gifford I shall mention this, & require that
no insertion be xxx xxx <made> in any paper of mine from henceforth, unless had been <be> submitted to my perusal. The passage relates to the Convention of Cintra; xx if it be any
satisfaction to the writer to make me appear to the world like a man who flatly contradicts himself, & says one thing to day &
another tomorrow, – that satisfaction he will have. For the argument which he has used in defence of the Convention is ridiculously
futile, & as such I shall <must> expose it in writing the history of that deplorable transaction.
I spent two hours in very interesting conversation with Mr
Frere the last morning of my stay in town, during which time I learnt a good deal from him, & was confirmed in many
conclusions which I had previously formed.xx enterd into xxx xxx
con diligenza,con amore;xxx already, & the channels of information which are open to me I have no doubt but that this
work will have a degree of authenticity about it, such as xxx <scarcely any> former history has ever possessed.Xx In xxx xx unity of subject, & in every thing which xxx gives diginity & permanent
xx interest xx it has the advantage over every other. Of course I am speaking only of the subject, – Is there
not a Military History of these times published by Goddard [MS missing] some extent?
Your MSS respecting Tongataboo has not reached me.