Material from the Romantic Circles Website may not be downloaded, reproduced or disseminated in any manner without authorization unless it is for purposes of criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, and/or classroom use as provided by the Copyright Act of 1976, as amended.
Unless otherwise noted, all Pages and Resources mounted on Romantic Circles are copyrighted by the author/editor and may be shared only in accordance with the Fair Use provisions of U.S. copyright law. Except as expressly permitted by this statement, redistribution or republication in any medium requires express prior written consent from the author/editors and advance notification of Romantic Circles. Any requests for authorization should be forwarded to Romantic Circles:>
By their use of these texts and images, users agree to the following conditions:
Users are not permitted to download these texts and images in order to mount them on their own servers. It is not in our interest or that of our users to have uncontrolled subsets of our holdings available elsewhere on the Internet. We make corrections and additions to our edited resources on a continual basis, and we want the most current text to be the only one generally available to all Internet users. Institutions can, of course, make a link to the copies at Romantic Circles, subject to our conditions of use.
. Not previously published.
These letters were edited with the assistance of Ian Packer and Lynda Pratt
All quotation marks and apostrophes have been changed: " for “," for ”, ' for ‘, and ' for ’.
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 do not leave home till Wesleyobjection dislike to treat commonplace themes in a
commonplace way, – & the result x naturally is that I neither satisfy myself – nor any one else.
In the present instance I have made so bold an attempt in metre, & so successful a one in my own judgement, as far
as it has gone, that I wish the subject had been different;wh but this hardly
expresses the quantum unless you call to mind that such lines must be estimated by measure as well as by tale. Some three or fourscore
xxx more may bring it to an end; – & then perhaps so long a time may have elapsed that it may be thought better to
withhold it altogether, rather than come so long after the occasion. This would be no loss, as if it be printed I shall only have my
labour for my pains. But if it lies by me, it may acquire value by keeping. I shall finish it as soon as I can, & take council
concerning the publication, with perfect indifference as to the result. But I am satisfied with the experiment.
In the course of next week I shall send the first vol. of Brazil to the press.
If Wynn should have returned to London before my departure, my only stoppage on the road will be at Ludlow, where I shall remain about three days. It is an awkward place to get at, for there are so many stages to change upon the way.
We have had a death in the house, – an excellent old woman, whom we found here, seventeen years ago, & who to the great comfort of her latter years, attached herself to us, & took as much interest in the children as if they had been of her own blood. Of her little money she has left them five pounds each, – & has made me one of her Executors. We had all of us a great regard for her, – & tho latterly from her great age & growing infirmities, she had become an object of anxiety, we feel her release as a loss to ourselves.
I shall be glad to see the boys, – I expect to find them all greatly altered, but Edward the least. My namesake will be just of a proper age to ride pocko, a feat which Cuthbert has not yet achieved. – At present thank God the children are all well, the young one especially thrives as we could wish, & promises well. He is backward with his feet, but appears to have plenty of strength, & to want nothing but aptitude, which will come in due time.
It is an ill-wind that blows nobody good. But the event which gives you your black cloth, is likely to cost me as much
in fees for a new sign manual as it will save you in clothes.
Love to my Aunt –