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British Library, Add MS 30927. Previously published: John Wood Warter (ed.), Selections from the Letters of Robert Southey, 4 vols (London, 1856), II, pp. 15–18.Dating note: In his ‘Text of Robert Southey’s Published Correspondence: Misdated Letters and Missing Names’, Curry gives the date as ‘Sept. 8. 1808’, but this would seem to be a mistake on his part, as he comments that the letter as printed in Warter is ‘correctly dated but placed with letters of 1807’ (142).
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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The Cid has been detained some weeks longer than I expected by Frere.revises as they are called – i.e. second proofs. However I look daily to see it advertised, & Longman has directions what to pack up with your copy, as soon as the publication takes place.
I spent a week tooth & nail at my old letters,
By this evenings Courier I perceive that we had a severe earthquake here just a fortnight ago.
Coleridge is arrived at last, about half as big as the house. He came
over with Wordsworth on Monday, & returned with him on Wednesday. His
present scheme is to put the boys
King Arthur is deposed for misconduct in unnecessarily delaying the review: &
it is well for him he is, as otherwise I should have made a desperate home thrust at him, for having had the impudence to omit the
reviewal of Wordsworths poem,
I am writing in great haste to secure the post. the Wolseleysr George Taylor whom
xx we met last year at Speddings.
The papers say that some of our large ships are to be paid off forthwith as being no longer wanted. In that case I
should think by your account of the DreadnoughtDreadnought was a
98-gun second rate ship of the line launched in 1801. She had fought at Trafalgar (1805) and was now under the command of Rear
Admiral Thomas Sotheby (1759–1831), younger brother of the author, William Sotheby (1757–1833; Danish Danes with this is what is proposed. On the other hand it hardly seems likely that you would be treated with so
little respect.
Kehama gets often interrupted by late hours, or disturbed nights, or much exercise in the preceding day.
Emma has acquired the name of Old Scratch, by reason of her sharp nails. My son rides Pocko whenever he can catch me, & will not be persuaded that
Pocko can be tired. Both he & Edaw as he calls her are equipped this
evening in dark brown stuff gowns trimmed with red – which Mrs Wolseley has made them.
Huzza for Spain. How compleatly have our hopes been justified! It is my firm opinion that Bonaparte has received his death blow. Very probably another year may bring about peace after the extirpation of his royal race.