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National Library of Wales, MS 4811D . Previously published: John Wood Warter (ed.), Selections from the Letters of Robert Southey, 4 vols (London, 1856), I, pp. 238-239 [where it is dated 28 September 1803].Dating note: Dated from internal evidence noting the loss of Southey’s books. Friday was 30 September in 1803.
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.
I am thinking – or rather trying to think about a song for you. & if I can make a good one you shall have it. but
motions of the brain are not like motions of the bowels tho Dryden by his remedy of stewed prunes seemed to think them xxxxx so.
My reviewing work lies before me – like a holydays task an ugly job left till the very last. Owen Cambridge
Your wine is ordered as I gave no directions for the payment the merchant has drawn upon the gentleman to whom it is
consigned. I have had a grievous loss. a whole cargo of books for which I had been waiting & my Uncle searching two years – taken in the King George Packet.King George, which sailed between
Falmouth and Lisbon. He died on 11 August 1803, from wounds received when his ship was attacked by a French privateer on 30 July
1803. The King George was taken to the Spanish port of Vigo, and Southey lost his books.
My eyes are very bad again. this is a sore evil & I fear it will cling to me. in other respects I am well & should be sufficiently happy were it not for the stinging recollection how much happier I have been. in company I am not less alive & chearful than ever, but when alone I feel myself sadly different from what I was – as if the roots which attach me to earth were all loosened. my head does not teem with plans & hopes as it used to do. I go to Madoc & my history with a feeling that when I have finished them my work will be done. this feeling makes me regard them with deeper interest & proceed more perseveringly least they should not be finished.