Material from the Romantic Circles Website may not be downloaded, reproduced or disseminated in any manner without authorization unless it is for purposes of criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, and/or classroom use as provided by the Copyright Act of 1976, as amended.
Unless otherwise noted, all Pages and Resources mounted on Romantic Circles are copyrighted by the author/editor and may be shared only in accordance with the Fair Use provisions of U.S. copyright law. Except as expressly permitted by this statement, redistribution or republication in any medium requires express prior written consent from the author/editors and advance notification of Romantic Circles. Any requests for authorization should be forwarded to Romantic Circles:>
By their use of these texts and images, users agree to the following conditions:
Users are not permitted to download these texts and images in order to mount them on their own servers. It is not in our interest or that of our users to have uncontrolled subsets of our holdings available elsewhere on the Internet. We make corrections and additions to our edited resources on a continual basis, and we want the most current text to be the only one generally available to all Internet users. Institutions can, of course, make a link to the copies at Romantic Circles, subject to our conditions of use.
Bodleian Library, MS Eng. Lett. c. 22. Previously published: Charles Cuthbert Southey (ed.), Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey, 6 vols (London, 1849–1850), I, pp. 283–286 [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
All other characters, those with accents, non-breaking spaces, etc., have been encoded in HTML entity decimals.
I am vexed that I do not see you — & more vexed for the occasion. Pain is an evil — curse all pains — except Tom — & he is dying of an abscess (curse all abscesses) in his side — now could I curse all sides too in my detestation of party spirit. Wynn is gone to Oxford — but your abscess — by its situation — if I understand it — there is no kind of danger — is there?
by God Grosvenor you must not die.
for not being in the best of humours with the world I cannot afford to lose him whom I most love in it. poor Edmund Seward! there snapt one cable — if you were to make your escape I should have but one
cable left — heigh ho! Life is but a bad voyage at the best — particularly if we be sea sick on it. No more of this. your abscess is in
a good part — there is cut & come again there — as old Smiththere tis none of your delicate parts where you must cut to a hair — there is a good bottom to
work upon & an inch or two one way or the other is not much matter — Collins could spare a square foot on either side — you might cut down the barge into a Canoe — & he’d go the lighter for
it.
But Grosvenor — you must send me daily accounts of
yourself. when his Majesty
Seriously I am very anxious. write to me immediately — or if you cannot tell Horace.
I have your letter franked by Sir W.I cannot say where it give me more pain it was a kind of Achilles spear
besides my letters — I write for the Monthly Magazine — this is a new job — you may easily trace me there if it be worth your while. they give five guineas a sheet — but their sheets are sixteen closely printed pages. I manufacture up my old rubbish for them — with a little about Spanish literature — I shall be glad to get rid of all this.
So you abuse Anna St Iveshave not read that book — I
said — God be thanked that I did say it — & plague take the boobies who mutilated it in my absence — I said — I have never been guilty of reading the Pucelle of Voltaire — report speaks it worthy of its author — a man whose wit
& genius could only be equalld by his depravity. I will tell you what a Man, not particularly nice in his moral opinions said to me
upon the subject of that book. “I should think the worse of any man who having read one canto of it could proceed to a second”. it is
blasphemy & obscenity highly seasond with wit — or wit highly seasond with blasphemy & obscenity. now my opinion of Anna St
Ives is dramatically opposite to yours. I think it a book of consummate wisdom. & I shall join my forces to Mr
Knowles
I agree with you that Man is a beast & an ugly beast. but what makes him so??? not God — God made him — in his own image — tell me — do you think yourself a beast? do you think me a beast? do you think Carlisle a beast? do you think Wynn an ugly beast — do you think your brother Harry an ugly beast — do you think such a Woman as you could love — an ugly beast? No. No. No.
are you yourself capable of virtue & happiness? if you are — why are not the rest of mankind? Now — they are a blackguard mob — but remember God made them for young Angels. prove to me that God has made any one being naturally vicious — & I will make you & myself Atheists — inevitably!
I am an Optimist — & believe all things are working for the best. for the mob of mankind I should feel abhorrence if it could exist with contempt. this is the best of possible worlds — yet I wish there were no such things as abscesses in it.
but can you not get well & then come down?
I have a thousand things to say to you & a thousand things to show you. if I were within twenty miles of Brixton I would come & sit by you & you should talk any thing — but Metaphysics to me —
them we would keep for Σνιφελ.
So you have found five translations of Musæus!!!!!
how has this letter been neglected! no more delays however. I am continually writing or reading — the double cacoethes
grows upon me every day — & the physic of John a Nokes
so goes the world! there is not a man in it who is not discontented. however if no Man has more reason for discontent than you & I have, twould be already a very good world for after all I believe the worst we complain of is that we do not find mankind as good as we could wish. — I had forgot the abscess — that is an evil. many of our mental evils — & God knows they are the worst! we make ourselves.
If a young man had his senses about him when he sets out in life he should seriously deliberate whether he had rather never be miserable or sometimes be happy. I like the up & down road best but I have learnt never to despise any mans opinion because it is different from my own. surely Grosvenor our restlessness in this world seems to indicate that we are intended for a better. we have all of us a longing after happiness — & surely the Creator will gratify all the rational desires that he has implanted in us. — if you die before me will you visit me? — I am half a believer in apparitions & would purchase conviction at the expence of a tolerable fright.
George Burnetts Uncle was fore three months
terribly afflicted by the night mare. so much so that by being constantly disturbd his health was considerably impaird. one night he
determind to lie awake & watch for HER
One night, he says he determind to lie awake & watch for HER. at the ritual hour he heard HER coming up the stairs — he got up on his bed — in a cold sweat — he heard HER come into the room — he heard her open the curtain & then ——— he leapt out of bed & caught HER by the hair before SHE — for SHE it was — could fall upon his breast. then did this most incomparable hero bellow to John for a candle — they fought —she pulld & he pulld & bellowed. till John came with a light & then ——— She vanishd immediately & he remaind with a handful of HER hair.
Now Bedford would not you have had that made into a
locket? the tale methinks is no bad companion for your Fathers dream. was the exploit of Mr Burnett is far beyond that of St Withold& they made a bargain
I have written you an odd letter & an ugly one upon very execrable paper. by the by if you have a Prudentius
how mortifying is this confinement of yours — I had planned so many pleasant walks to be made so much more pleasant by conversation.
for I have much to tell thee. much to say of the odd things we saw upon our journey Much of the dirt & vermin that annoyd us. And you should have seen my letters before they went to press & annotated them — & heard the plot of my tragedy — & laughd — not at my tragedy tho — but now! — I have a mortal aversion to all those disjunctive particles — but — & if — & yet — always herald some bad news.
Bedford you must shame for me my long silence by writing directly. perhaps if you are escaped from your bed & able to bear the journey change of air may benefit you — by helping to recruit your strength. would I were nearer you — however I shall be settled in London I hope before Xmas. I do not remember a happier ten weeks than I passed at Brixton — nor indeed a better employd period. God grant me ten such weeks of leisure once more in my life & I will finish Madoc.