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Bodleian Library, Eng. Lett. c. 24. Previously published: John Wood Warter (ed.), Selections from the Letters of Robert Southey, 4 vols (London, 1856), I, pp. 412–414 [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.
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Southey’s spelling has not been regularized.
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Before I touch upon any thing more serious let me take leave of this curst prefacecust half
speaking – half spitting it like a cats anger – whence I derive this conclusion that a monosyllabic language is favourable to the
expression of anger, & that is the reason why there are so many testy people in England) – I wrote that preface doggedly & without liking to do it, or liking it when done & here, when I thought my hands were washed of it for ever,
down comes a proof in such a barbarous state, xxx so all beblotched & bedevilled with characters which may,
for aught I know, be magical, & bring upon me the fate of the young man who lodged with Cornelius Agrippa
Oh dear dear – Grosevnor! Zounds & the Devil – there it goes. It is all so scrawled that I know not where to find room for a correction!
I have numbered your annotations for the sake of answering them with least trouble
Amen
——
And I hope the next news of the book will be by advertisement in the Courier beginning ‘this day is published.’ & we will review it
nobly in the second edition.
——
I thought when in London that Horace looked miserably ill
– as if some thing was out of order in him, – & I thought too that his mind had taken such a turn – that unless he took a sectarian
turn bias & became Methodist or Quaker he was in danger of derangement. people are sometimes driven mad this way, but
they are also sometimes saved from madness <by it.> their feelings find vent in a regular channel, & they themselves find
persons who sympathize with them. Thus it is that where there are convents madmen are almost unknown. I wish he were acquainted with
Wilberforcethan as all Dr Willis’s
Such prints as yours were too costly a collection – they were it was so large a sum of money
locked up that the interest would be almost a childs portion. The books are a heavier loss, & I wish for your sake the next half
year were over. You have said nothing of your own state of health – & it is for that that I am most anxious.
You ask about my removal from hence – I am fixed here for some time longer – in fact till I can get three hundred
pounds to move with – which is not so soon got. Luckily I am well contented to stay – spite of inconveniences – & should the Coleridges quit the house (as there is some hope they may) then would
there be room for me conveniently, & I should feel much disposed to take root here: for leave it when I will it would be a sore
pang to me.xx to fill up gaps in the first volume, & to commit it to the press.
God bless you – Tis time for the post or I should have filled the sheet.
_____