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Bodleian Library, MS Eng. Lett. c. 24. Previously published: Charles Cuthbert Southey (ed.), Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey, 6 vols (London, 1849–1850), III, pp. 42–44 [in part].
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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There are two poets who must come into our series & I do not remember their names in your list.of him should be given – It is addressed to a lady, he himself being in a consumptionBotch Botch Hayes, whom we are in duty bound not to forget, & of whom you may say what you will, only let it
be in the best good humour, because poor Botchs heart was always in the right place, when tho <certainly> his wig was
not.xx tree, & to pour a brimming libation of its juice, if we had any reason to think that the spirit of the grape could
reach the spirit of <the> man. Poor fellow – that phrase of being no ones enemy but his own, is not admitted as a set-off on
earth; but in the other world, Grosvenor, if they do not admit such men to pass thro St Peters Gate
Great Gate, there must certainly be a little wicket xxxxxxx hard by where they lift up the latch for themselves, which the
old Porter winks with the right eyex & scolds at them all the while to keep up appearances.
I have been from home these ten days – a reason for not referring to your last, farther than in saying that Mrs Robinson
I wanted your Frenchman xxxxx at Vauxhall – not in the Abbey – for this xxxx reason that the
Abbey letter was written & only required certain insertions. I shall put in what of yours will fit. & insert your wig a-la Cheval elsewhere. but if you can write me one about Vauxhall I shall be glad, & the sooner it comes the
better.
Our last month has been so unusually fine that the farmers want rain. July will probably give them enough. September
& October are the safest months to come down in: tho if you consider Gooseberry Pie as partaking of the nature of the Summum
Bonum
On looking back I see I have spoken of October as a fit month for Laking. It is so; but will not be so for you to lake this year, inasmuch as in October I expect to be entitled to another drawback of five per cent upon my assessed taxes.
I have been inserting occasional rhymes in Kehama,xx I stood in need of somebodys encouragement to settle the balance. It gains by rhyme, – which is to passages of no
inherent merit what rouge & candle light are to ordinary [MS torn] merely ornamental parts also are aided by it – as foil sets off
paste. But where there is either passion or power, the plainer & more straight forward the language can be made the better. Now you
will suppose that upon this system I am writing Kehama. My proceedings are not quite so systematical – but what with revising &
rerevising over & over again they will amount to something like it at last.