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Bodleian Library, Eng. Lett. c. 24. Previously published: Kenneth Curry (ed.), New Letters of Robert Southey, 2 vols (London and New York, 1965), I, pp. 519–521.Dating note: Southey dates the letter ‘Oct 29. 1809’ but this must be an error as it is postmarked 26 October 1809.
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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I called Captain BlighBounty when the ship’s crew mutinied off Tahiti in
the South Pacific in 1789.notorious as the only way in which I could imply that he was a thorough rascal. It was an act of much
self-controul not to accompany the sentence with a bitter sarcasm, saying the Missionaries had a lucky escape, for his unendurable
tyranny might have driven more Christians to desperation.Bounty mutineers in 1794, in which he presented their motives sympathetically, so provoking a public debate with Bligh
(Bounty.Bounty finished its voyage, is the generally accepted
one.xxx xxx <tho> the Admiralty would be very sorry to hang him, some rascal or other would gladly
enough apprehend him for the price of blood, & hung of course he would be; tho <but> if every man had his due
Bligh would have had the halter instead of the poor fellows whom we brought from Taheite. Is not that a sad story of Stewart & the
Taheitian Girl?– the verses are by a young banker of Birmingham by name James,Pandora, sent to bring the mutineers back to Britain
for court martial. Imprisoned in a cell on deck, Stewart was killed on 29 August 1791 when the Pandora
foundered on the Great Barrier reef. The
You will really do me some service by lending his Majestys my quarters pension. Mea negotia sunt mala ad hoc tempus,
erunt melioria mox. Sum valde pono manum cum Longo Homine. Scribo – scribo – scribo quid hunc? populus non emit. Ego abstergam meum
tergum-latus cum Thalabâ, cum Madoco, cumque Kehamâ nil dubito – idem est (quod equidem miror) cum nobilissimo Campedatore. Iste
Campedator dormitxx tam profundi in vico Patrum Nostrum quam in sepulchre suo ad S. Petri Cade Cardinesis. Ego
haurio & haurio super Longum Hominem. Longus Homo est bonus homo ille sinit me haurire, nil contradicens. Habet satis in manibus
suis omne liquidare ad finem. Hoc vero inconveniens est, quod credo alii bibliopolæ darent me bonum summum pecuniae pro pro quolibet
opere novo, et ego non possum ire ad eos, quia hoc modo obligatus sum ad Hominem Longum.
Now as some comfort after this Exposè – I believe this engagement with Ballantyne for his Annual Registermore
than <as much as> 250. Immediately therefore on coming into the receipt of this I shall be enabled to let my copyrights,
which are held in his hands, as a joint concern, xxx xxx xxx <rest &> pay off the balance against me.
As for any thing from the Powers above, that is to say the earthly Powers, – my creed about them is a little like that of
Capaneus;probably
in earnest xxx in his professions, for he could have had no motive in making them, except the intention of carrying them
into effect.
I am doing nothing for the Quarterly which is Murrays fault. Had he
sent me the Methodistical book which I wrote for, before he left town, that article would have been written by this time, or far
advanced,
I also looked at the use which the Butler made of the Cohora, – tho I did not laugh till I came to it, – for want of a
key to the jest. ‘Memoranda Dramatica’,
prices new,
private boxes letpigeon-holes,by Goles,
You forgot to inclose the receipt. When it goes back the cohora shall go also, together with another book of Kehama.
That which you received last ought to please you. The story of Veeshnoos incarnation as the Dwarf is told with lucky facility of
language.to only to think of it.
I have made an attempt to get Tom promoted, which cost me no little
effort, & my hopes of its succeeding are not very strong. It is thro Sir G
Beaumont,