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National Art Library, London, MS Forster 48 D.32 MS 21. Previously published: John Wood Warter (ed.), Selections from the Letters of Robert Southey, 4 vols (London, 1856), II, pp. 252–254.
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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Last night I received Count Julian,whom it has whom it seems to me impossible to imitate. The structure & language of Milton,
& the phraseology of Shakespere may be tho attempted by men immeasurably inferior, may yet be so resembled as infallibly
to remind you us of the prototype, – but in Gebir
Some of the finest passages were new to me. – After that exquisite picture of the Spaniards p 4. there come two lines which I have not yet comprehended –
Julians speech – All men with human feelings &how of what importance it is for a poet to have seen his own scenery. But I must not go thro the volume in this way – I
will only mention the picture description of Julian by Hernando – & the image of the Eagle, – which is to my feeling
xx xxxxxx sublimity xxx xx in <is> the highest degree of sublimity.
What will be the reception of this drama? I could tell you if the Athenians were to decide: being what we are, &
living in an age when public criticism is upon works of fine literature is at the very point of pessimism, I can only guess
that it will pass silently, that a few persons will admire it with all their heart & all their soul & all their strength, but
that Envy & her companions in the Litanytrum trumpets; & abuse it into notoriety.
Except the lost books of the Faery Queen
I sent you a book of Pelayoopen xx xxxx be busier.
Your tenant Charles Betham is of an excellent stock.r Hutchinson
Our army is acquiring a spirit of enterprize at last, which if it be but cherished by the Government & answered by
the nation will prepare them for a more splendid career of triumph than that of Marlborough.produced sent <found> one to aim a dagger at the heart of Buonaparte!
Remember me to Mrs L.