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Berg Collection, New York Public Library. Previously published: Kenneth Curry (ed.), New Letters of Robert Southey, 2 vols (London and New York, 1965), I, pp. 298-299.
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.
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Southey’s spelling has not been regularized.
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& has been used for the ampersand sign.
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It is so long since I have heard from you, & I am so tortoise-paced a correspondent, that as a thing of course I
should believe myself to be the defaulter, if it were not for remembering that the last letter between us was my acknowledgement of the
fifty pounds. Howbeit I am not xx clearly acquitted – for you perhaps have lost sight of me, &
supposed that I had removed to Cumberland as was my design. that scheme was unexpectedly frustrated. I still remain at Bristol,
unsettled still – & still expecting a settlement. At present treating for a house in Glamorganshire – a very delightful place near
Neath. so beautifully situated that if as there is every probability, it should be my home next spring, I think the country fine enough
to ask you to come & let me show it you. for it is worth a journey longer than from Hampshire.
My little girl, now fourteen weeks old, grows well & healthy. she
has just had the cowpox. this is our chief news. a child makes a huge alteration in a family. I talk nonsense very fluently to her,
& am a better nurse than you would perhaps imagine. hitherto she has lived wholly upon mothers milk – the natural food, & is a
fine specimen she is that the natural food is the best. I hope Edith may continue
able to support her till her teeth come. For myself I have been unwell from head to foot, but have got rid of all complaints except
weak eyes. which annoy me terribly – & injure me too for they are my trade tools. this Laplandish weather as your old friend Lady
Strathmore
For the politics of the great world, things more important than interesting, I find them sufficiently promising.
Addingtons, & God knows he has
been heavily sinned against! the man in this kingdom who has suffered most, who has been the marked victim of ministerial oppression –
fetterd, imprisoned in a solitary cell till the frost ulcered his feet, his character blasted – & his crime proved – no trial
allowed, no possible justice – for forsooth there is a Bill of Indemnity!
I have no fear of war. Bonapartehe can he gain by it? he will be as little desirous to cope with our fleets, as we can be to encounter
his armies. the same causes for peace will operate whatever be the fate of France, whether he be supplanted by some Adventurer like
himself, or sacrificed as he xx deserves to public Justice & Freedom upon the scaffold, which God
grant. In the strange turn which things have taken here what most pleases me is the returning temper of the country, that liberty of
thought & of speech are again allowed us, & that <any> Englishman may differ with his neighbour & still be his
friend.
And now – let me hear of yourself – of your little girlr Coleman,