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.
. Previously published: Charles Ramos, The Letters of Robert Southey to John May: 1797–1838 (Austin, Texas, 1976), pp. 45–47.
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.
Since my last I have visited Burton. I went on foot, sleeping at Shaftsbury.
Bowles
We do not get possession of our cottage till Michaelmas.xxxx space is open & stoned. I look forward to many pleasant summers
there, as much as a man can look forward who has experienced something of the uncertainty of future prospects.
In the interval till Michaelmas Edith, her younger sister & I go into Devonshire, to the Northern Coast. Ilfracombe is the place we look to for our longest residence. I am told the scenery is wild & impressive – there I expect to finish my play, which from the moment I quit this place, & our departure is fixd for Tuesday or Wednesday, will become the great object of my thoughts.
Madoc is finished; even in its uncorrected state, this is a matter of much pleasure to me, & I will lose as little
time as I can in correcting & fitting it for publication. if I live it is my determination not to publish it for many years – I
would build upon it my after reputation, & correct in the maturity of life what was produced in the warmth of younger years: but I
am anxious to have it ready because in case of my death this work might be made of important value to my family; & to neglect it
would be like neglecting to make a will where the property would otherwise be improperly disposed of.
At present it extends to fifteen books. but in one part of my plan I have failed, & so compleatly that it will not
require the sacrifice of more than three hundred lines to alter it: this was the attempt to identify Madoc with Mango Capac.c.1732–1795;
The hours which I gain by early rising are appropriated to a poem which I write with a view to publication &
immediate emolument – you have I believe heard me mention it – The Destruction of the Dom Daniel.
My brother Edward is well recovered. he goes to Birmingham to
the Clergyman
I received on Saturday Harrys half-years account from Mr Maurice, it amounts to £17.16.8. it is of no importance that the payment should pass thro my hands – & at the distance I shall be from you it would only be inconvenient. Maurices address is Normanstone near Lowestoff. Norfolk or Suffolk – I know not which is proper for Normanstone is in Suffolk & Lowestoff in Norfolk.
My miscellaneous volume of poems
<If you could meet with a set of Niebuhrs Travels in French for me I should be much obliged to you. I want the book for my
Dom-Daniel – & the translation is miserably mutilated.>