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National Library of Wales, MS 4812D. Previously published: Kenneth Curry (ed.), New Letters of Robert Southey, 2 vols (London and New York, 1965), I, pp. 425–427.
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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The Cid grows under my hands, & instead of the few sheets abstracted for you, will make two little volumes, which
if the pleasure of the work do not greatly deceive me, will be as curious & as interesting as any thing of the kind could be.x
is there omitted, referring at the end of every section to the authorities chapter & verse, & noticing every thing which ought
to be noticed even with scrupulous fidelity in the notes, which will be xxxxxx of all kinds, except that nothing has yet
tempted me to a joke in them. – not for any want of a propensity on my part, tho you so do not you take it for a symptom of
amendment. For the language I have as in Amadis
The Scotch seem to think that Ld Melvilles character is cleared by his acquittal.silent <silent> exchange going on,
as I hear there is, I should be very glad if you could get Lieut. Edward BarkerHussar (a 38-gun fifth-rate
frigate launched in 1799) was abandoned after striking the Saints Rocks near Brest on 8 February 1804. British officers taken
prisoner in the Napoleonic wars were often exchanged for French captives and so returned to their home countries, where they
remained on parole. Barker may have been a cousin of Mary Barker, hence
Southey’s efforts to mobilise assistance for him.
You ask me upon what terms I am with John Southeys heir.xxxx
my youngest brother, I called upon him – & this led to an interchange of
dining visits about once in a month or six weeks as long as I was at Bristol. He is below the level of his Peers in society as to
information, neither speaking nor writing grammatically, but in every respect a better man to deal with than his brother, whose humour
amounted to insanity, in the strict – but not the legal sense of the term. I am on as good terms with him as I can be, – that is, there
can be no correspondence between us – except when any family event occurs – & if I were to travel near him I should turn aside to
inn at his house. The best circumstance is that his sister will now live with him,
who lived with my father during the whole of my childhood, & who indeed
is the only one of his family for whom I have any thing like a real family feeling. She I believe loves me well.
I have not seen, nor am I likely to see the new Giraldus.
Ennerdale Lakefor it will Had John
Southeys property devolved to me I would have bought it, built there, & taken root in the valley for life. The land is in
bad order & the situation at present will go for nothing – but it is a beautiful place.
If it were you, instead of your Uncle, who were at the head of
the Board of Controul,retained <allowed> it would be more decorous to retain the church festivals &
abolish the birth days.
Brougham comes into Parliament I hear next election.xxx He will be a strong man in the house. I hope his Negro-politics will not be adopted – those of the Crisis of the Sugar
Colonies seem to me the sounder.