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National Library of Wales, MS 4812D. Not previously published.
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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I send the deed of conveyance to Coutts
We have had miserably cold weather here. I have been groaning for Portuguese sunshine & rejoicing to think that I
am likely to enjoy it next December.
My notes when they are not of sober complection, are made in the quaintness of my heart & what I call quaint may
doubtless by others be called pert or impertinent. The only question is whether they offend more persons than they please – for certain
it is that what pleases one offends another. Coleridge used to beseech
me not to put them at the bottom of the page, for he said he could not help laughing. But to say this was to praise the notes, & by
putting them at the end I thought all objection obviated. However it is a thing to be considered. I had designed to give a statement of
the evidence with Owens help in the next edition.
We are in daily & anxious expectation of Coleridges
arrival.
I have not interest enough with London printers to get large paper copies for my own use. It was a privilege of special
favour from a country printer x to whom my business was of xxxx importance. In London they would charge as much
for striking off one copy in that size as for 250.
A Gentleman of the long robe in old times received forty broad pieces with a brief – he counted them over & saw –
this is well – pugnabo fortiter.
To improve Madoc I ought to read Giraldus – as well the xxxx MSS as the printed works.mappa mundi (Tez Tezozomoc encourages the kings idea of emigrating. he plots with Thalala to cut off Madoc & his chiefs at a
conference, – meaning to kill Yuhidthiton also – but of this Thalala is ignorant. The meeting takes place in an Islet on the Lake, so
that xxx the people are spectators in boats & can take no part. At the moment when they are about to execute their
design the King perceives it & alarms Madoc – & takes his side – Thalala also saves the King – but Madoc is wounded in the arm,
& Tezozomac dying himself tells him exultingly that he must die – for the weapon is poisoned. Madoc immediately heats his sword red
hot upon the altar which has been prepared for the Aztecan rites – & cauterizes the wound. They then part in friendship – & the
immediate catastrophe remains the same – only Thalala instead of finding his wife in Aztlan delivers her himself to Madoc.
You will see in the Annualxx the remark is true, & it does not answer the
objection to say that Providence is implied. Tell me what you think of this conclusion in preference. The whole
ceremonial of the Close of the Century may be retained if it be worth while, & made antecedent to the Lake fight.
One more question. Shall I spangle the poem with similies? I am so well convinced that the poem is good that I would spare no labour to make it better. Only I must make no alteration lightly.
I have written to Tom concerning poor Ld Proby’s papers.Amelia, who, having been
sent to the disease-ridden Leeward Islands station, died on 6 August 1804 at Surinam, from yellow fever. Wynn had asked Southey
if Thomas Southey who was currently serving on the Amelia could recover any of Proby’s papers for his family
and friends; see Southey to Thomas Southey, 7 December 1805, Letter 1130.