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MS untraced; text is taken from Robert Galloway Kirkpatrick, ‘The Letters of Robert Southey to Mary Barker From 1800 to 1826’ (unpublished PhD, Harvard, 1967), pp. 392–395. Previously published: John Wood Warter (ed.), Selections from the Letters of Robert Southey, 4 vols (London, 1856), II, pp. 265–267 [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.
Heaven knows how long it is since I have written to you; or rather it is known in Heaven if there be that Angel
there who according to Sterne serves in the capacity of Book Keeper,
Your story of the Forgers Fortress is an admirable one.
By the Almanac, & the length of the days it is to be presumed that summer is near at hand, tho there be no symptoms thereof in the fields or gardens. Mrs. Wilson however has heard the Cuckoo this morning. Senhora we used to look for you in the summer, & tho several years have elapsed since we have ceased to expect you, we have not ceased to let out an occasional sort of semi-grumble when we think of it. For as for seeing Sir Ed. here, however much I could wish it it seems too great a risk to be advised. If Buonaparte which God forbid! should live to Sir Edward’s years what would he not give for a nurse like you to watch over him & keep the Devil out of possession!
You know I suppose that the Imperial Colonel has married the widow
of a Creole.
You need make no secret of my little Book.
God bless you. We are well save that Piggarel grumbles a little as you
may have known her do formerly, for a reason which it would not please her for me to hint at, tho I think it, like the Court of
Austria, a ‘blessed circumstance.’