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Bristol Reference Library, B20862. Previously published: Kenneth Curry (ed.), New Letters of Robert Southey, 2 vols (London and New York, 1965), I, pp. 220–223.
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.
My letter must have reached you while yours was on the road. my mothers desk arrived safely – & Harry has rigged himself with the money you sent.
My life is almost as uniform as yours, & as barren of all occurrencies wherewith to fill a letter. we are both
perpetually busy in unvarying employments. the knowledge of this makes me an unfrequent correspondent – to write is only to spin out
into a sheetfull information not more than the answer to a How d’ye do ? – question. You ask me my
opinion of peace. nothing but a series of defeats or a change of ministers can give it to us. the answer to Bonapartes offers is the
most clumsy piece of insolence & inconceivable stupidity that ever disgraced an obstinate minister.not so long when they
treated last. they would treat if France restored her old monarchy – yet they disclaim xx the idea of
forcing a government of their chusing upon France – & yet they continue the war because France chuses one herself. & this is
all except personal insults to Bonaparte! & all these absurdities & contradictions are in the note – &
for these reasons we are to have another campaign & another expedition! Amen – so be it!
In the mean time what have our ministers done – they have intercepted some Letters from Egypt – they have forged others
– they have put these papers into the hands of Giffard the satirist – who has
interlarded them with the rankest & most virulent abuse of Bonaparte – they have published all this by Authority – & thus
contrived to xxxxx throw another obstacle in the way of peace – by rendering themselves the personal
enemies of the Chief Consul.
There is a dawn of hope but a feeble one in the sentiments expressed by some of the House of Lords
Enough of politics – in what has been said my own peculiar notions have not intruded – they are the arguments which must occur to every man whose interest has not hoodwinkd his common sense.
Lloyds direction is simply Cambridge. what you say about Coleridge could only be answered by entering into particulars, which, as they do
not neither interest you, & would not amuse you, may as well be omitted. With Lloyd I have no quarrel. he remains an acquaintance, whose faults cannot injure xxx, & therefore shall not irritate me. I had long understood his
character, & what I learnt at Stowey in confirmation of it was not from Coleridge.conduct – & is it strange that his word should be as little to be relied on? yet I do not impute this
to conscious falshood – but to an instability of mind – perhaps a derangement.
You will I suppose be more at leisure, & may possibly come home during the summer. if I do not go abroad before the Autumn I shall pass the spring & summer at Burton.
As you are so fond of Taunton I wish you were settled there. the country in that neighbourhood which you have never seen is so beautiful, that I should much like to be in reach of it sometimes. beyond all comparison the North of Somersetshire is the most beautiful part of England that I have ever seen. & if only beauty of landscape were to influence me in choice of a residence – I should at once fix on Porlock.
To Bristol I grow more attached. my intimacy with Davy makes it more agreable than it ever was before to me. if the College Green were but transplanted among the Hottentots then might my Mother live here in peace.
The second Anthology
NB. I drink Port Wine plentifully & “suck air out of a bag.”
y 3.t
Pierres book.took my complaint with me
from Westbury & my mother was
never better anywhere.y 3 ... anywhere’: inserted upside down at
top of fol. 1 r.