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. Previously published: Adolfo Cabral, Southey e Portugal (Lisbon, 1959), pp. 424–429 [in part]; Charles Cuthbert Southey (ed.), Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey, 6 vols (London, 1849–1850), I, pp. 267–271 [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.
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I am bitterly disappointed in not finding the Flagellantas written at Brixton, bound decently — &c? I left it with
Cottle to send with your copy; he has the transcriptxxxx on the
latter days of my residence there were occupied by concerns too nearly interesting to allow time for or
collectedness for composition — & you will believe that after quitting Edith
on Sunday evening, I was little fit to write a preface Monday morning. I never saw the whole of it together, & I believe that after
making a few hasty remarks on epic poems I forgot to draw the conclusion, for which only they were introduced. n’importe, the
ill-naturd Critic may exercise malignity in dissecting it, & the friendly one his ingenuity in finding out some excuse. by the by
add the Reviewer to your portraits in the celeberrimated
G Clavis,
What has all this to do with Lisbon — say you. take a sonnet for the Ladies imitated from the Spanish of Bartolomè
Leonardo,
Could not you swear to the author if you had seen this in the newspaper? you must know Bedford I have a deadly aversion to any thing merely ornamental in female dress.
let the dress be as elegant (i.e. as simple) as possible — but hang on none of your gewgaws eye
traps.
Do write to me. & promise me a visit at Bristol in the summer — for after I have returned to Edith I will never quit her again — so that we shall remain there till xx I settle doggedly to law, which I hope will be during the next winter.
I wrote to you & Wynn by the last packet. do write to me & very long letters. for the greatest pleasure I have is in finding the wind fair for Lisbon. when I set foot again on English ground! — Bedford I would lose a finger for the luxury of shaking off your hand at that moment — I am afraid I shall hug one of the boatmen for joy.
I am unchristian enough to wish all the Portugueze were converted to the Jewish faith — for a reason which you may find
in the twenty third chapter of Deuteronomy & the thirteenth verse.
th
r Shandyone Timothy a musician?hymn psalm
singing place that some have supposed it I should like to make interest for the laureates place & write a few hymns occasionally
for the Cherubim & Seraphim that continually do cry.future punishment extracted from Thomas Burnett — Author of The Theory of
Earthc. 1635–1715; th book of Joan.
Tis a vile kind of philosophy that for tomorrows prospect glooms to day — apropos — sit down when you have no better
employment & find all the faults you can in the Retrospect
there is a melancholy sonnet Grosvenor. composd on the mountains of Galicia when my mind & body were equally fatigued.
last night — nay I must mend the pen — last night I was at the Tonkins.
Ερως δ’κ ηρκεσε Μοιραςtell show you all the ways & windings of the female heart — you must however, as I am <a> poor unfledged biped,
come to Bristol in June, & there take a brothers place in one of the best. twould be disagreabell to be taken
prisoner on my return & still more so to be drowned. under which last apprehension I did grievously suffer on coming to Corūna.
remember Grosvenor to pay the English postage when you write otherwise
the letter will be detained. direct with the R. Herbert Hill Lisbon.
if Joan of Arc reaches a second edition — & I have reason to believe it will — I shall make considerable alterations.
What think you of xxxxxxx the xxxxxx the School for Scoundrels xxxxxx xxxxxxxxxx of a newsworthy sergeant? xx
xxxx xxx xx xxxxx xxxxxx xxx xxxxx xxxx xxxxx xxxx xxxxx <xxxxx> xxxx xxxxxx xxxx the xxxx of xxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxx <xx
xx> — xx xxxx in xx xxxxxx xxxx xxxx xx xxx And xxxxx a xxxxxxxx xxx xxxx xxxx. Let the xxxx x xxx xx xxxxxxxxx xx xxxxxxx xxx
xxxx xxxxx xxxxxxxx.
I was going to finish the letter & bid you remember St Davids day 1792 — our birth day of
authorshipxx they will play with a Ladys fan & converse with her with an ease that you & I wonder at — but
when we require more than acquaintance — more than friendship — then we have all the advantage. I never found it difficult to become
intimate with any woman except Edith & then
in her company I experienced always that unquiet state of delight which made me embarrassd & sometimes made me wish myself away:
yes Grosvenor, it is very easy to resolve to speak — but the minute
before guillotting is luxury to the opening the mouth on such an occasion. one of these days we will walk round the garden at Brixton & talk of this. no resolution of celibacy (except in the disappointed) can be stable.
if there be another candidate be you more earnest — for her sake as well as you own for with no one will she be so happy as with you.
make her acquainted with you, & it is impossible that you should not succeed. I am glad you have seen Tom — the facts you corrected for him I can not conjecture. if Tom had had a good education he would have made no small progress — he is now too good for a
sailour — I offered my Uncle to fit Tom for taking orders, & his living, & urged arguments for it, which my Mother as well as myself thought sufficiently strong. my interference was of no avail.
& I had prudence enough to say nothing of the matter to my brother. —
& so you really think notes ought to have some connection with the text? I could laugh at you in some moods, but the book must be its own advocate, & you do not remark faults (as you think them) only. if you read Joan a second time, keep a little book by you & make all your objections I hope to spend three months in correcting it for another edition. I heard nothing from you at Madrid — & know nothing of the Letters you mention but that I am equally obliged as if they had arrived. —
have you not sometimes read as M A— ? Nebuchadnezzarwill may find out — that comments may wander a good way from the text, & yet lead to good. if I
was in London you should introduce me. but this execrable ocean is between us & tho I long to mount the vessel I almost turn sick
in anticipation. I have run on before your letter came, in such a strange manner that I have no room to tell you a very melancholy
story — n’importe Ill een begin another sheet. heigh ho! Grosvenor — I
am a very solitary minded animal — & should <have> no one of my own species to speak to — had I not made
my <a> female friendbxx
we can imagine two people united solely from affection. he died & left her with two very young children;
totally destitute she returned to the wretched home of her parents, where hard labor hardly procures a miserable existence. I saw her —
she was about three & twenty, & even if I had not known her story I should <have thought> her face the most beautiful I
had seen in Spain. there was a melancholy in her dark eyes beyond any description. her dress was suitable to her situation yet her
manners indicated one accustomed to better scenes; & a clean white stocking displayd that shaping of the foot & ancle which may
be deemd the general distinction of the class who do not work. within a very few weeks after her husbands death an Irish man offered to
take this woman into keeping. I can conceive her look when she answered him “you say you love me Senōr — & yet you can insult me by
this wicked offer.” Ld Butes chaplain who travelled to Madrid with us, was
present, & from him I learnt the anecdote. you know not the impression all this made upon me. my next mornings walk produced these
lines — I am ill satisfied with them
———
This intermediate person. of course I can hardly form a conjecture who she is. yet you want an intermediate, whose age being of the same age with yourself may more readily enter into all your feelings — if what you
conjecture be true — I know how to pity you on that score. the most painful feelings that ever harrowd my bosom (& I have had my
share of painful ones) were when after I had engaged the affection of my heart — xx <an> amiable
xxxxxx girl spoke to me in language too plain to be misunderstood. I cannot tell you the acute pain
I felt at being obliged to assume a cold indifference of manner, & in shunning one whom I would have chosen for a sister, only
because she honord me by deeming me worthy of a dearer connection. once only have we met since that day. I was hurrying along the
street & passed her, but immediately turned. — she did the same, & recognised me in a manner of such chastened esteem — that I
arrived still melancholy to pass the evening with my Edith. I have nothing
wherewith to accuse myself — yet I have from that time indulged a natural reserve, & behaved distantly to those young women who
knew not my attachment. I did not dare become the friend of Ann Tonkin
You Grosvenor have but to win the affections of YOUR
M. & to be happy. I hope — that I have only to return & be happy — & for what is past — I will use the experience &
little regard the price it has cost. my existence is now linked to my Edith. her
face will teach you to expect the gradual developement of every good quality; & in proportion as you know her will you love her.
how do I long to see M. — ah Grosvenor! will the days ever arrive that
we dream of? yet you carry them but half way when you talk of hardy honest boys — dream of a few girls too — & then see what
admirable inhabitants we have found for some of our castles. for me — I have only the Bay of Biscay to cross <pass> — but you have not yet crossed the Rubicon. “Ye Gods — annihilate but space & time!”
This foul place! they empt all their filth into the streets at night. “methinks I smell it now. in my minds’ nose
Horatio!”
when I correct Joan I shall call you in. not as plenipotent amputator — but you shall
mark what you think the warts wens & cancers, & I will take care you do not cut deep enough to destroy the life. the fourth
book is the best. do you know I have never seen the <whole> poem together. & that one book was printing before another was
begun? the characters of Conrade & Theodore are totally distinct & yet perhaps equally interesting. there is too much fighting
— I found the battles detestable to write — as you will do to read. — tho there are not ten better lines in the whole piece — than
those “Of unrecorded name” “Died the mean man, yet did he leave behind &c.”
Do you remember the day when you wrote No 3the any that part of the 5th book mind that erratum in the description of the Famine. with jealous eye Hating a rivals look the husband hides His miserable meal.”each man conceals”
& spoilt the climax. I was very much vexed yet I loved Cottle the [MS
obscured]tter for it.
this goes by the Magician frigate to Portsmouth. have you received a letter that left Lisbon Feby
20th?
No Grosvenor you & I shall not talk politics. I am weary of them & little love politicians. for me I shall think of domestic life & confine my wishes within the little circle of friendship. the rays become more intense in proportion as they are drawn to a point. heigh ho! I should be very happy were I in England — with Edith by the fire side — I could listen to the pelting rain with pleasure — now — it is a melancholy music yet fitly harmonizing with my hanging mood.
nd. 1796.
once more — be assured that attention from a good man can not fail. you know your own definition of politeness. — oh
if I were the intermediate friend! — is it not strange to look back on our own minds — from the history of Martin SchramHeroic race?
In many parts of Spain they have female shavers. the proper name of one should be Barbara.
Read this first.
Why is Love like the small pox xxx in when the
procured by art?
because it comes by in-oculation.
Oh execrable conun-drummer!
Why am I having the Pleasures of Imagination like a man with a broken rib?
because I have an Akenside.
Why is a man who plays the fiddle badly like a mischievous school boy?
because he is apt to get into a scrape.
the common people believe here that Jews have tails. if young Thorp
ever talks of coming here give him a friendly hint of the Inquisition.