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Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, University of Texas, Austin. Previously published: Charles Ramos, The Letters of Robert Southey to John May: 1797–1838 (Austin, Texas, 1976), pp. 71-73.
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
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I have not yet thanked you for Margarets wardrobe, tho she has often been tricked out in her finery. she was just about to leave off her long cloaths when it arrived; as spring comes on her caps are to be laid aside, & she looks so much better without a cap that I feel a sort of womanly wish to have her fashion changed.
Did I not once ask you what was meant in the Church Creed by the Communion of Saints? – Father Parsons,th century. they wer contain much curious matter. one
of them called An Epistle of Comfort to the Suffering Catholics,some much merit, who suffered
death under Elizabeth. In another called the Pilgrim to Loretto
My eyes are much better – but I am still obliged to wear a shade by day. to apply an ointment at night – & abstain
from the manuscript chronicle. I am reviewing some Spanish Poems by the Conde de Norōna,rs Newton
I have now a house in view three miles from Bristol, in a lonely but striking situation. this I hope will suit me. my
design is to furnish just enough to make it habitable at first. according to my means, & in the course of the next winter to put
Madocbest be less than 250 pounds. My history
Thank you for your offer about Tom. he says he shall apply for
employment in the Spring – whenever he does he will doubtless obtain it – but Capt Markhamsliving any other.
There is a delay in Downes’s
Edith joins me in remembrance to Mrs May.