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British Library, Add MS 28603. Previously published: Kenneth Curry (ed.), New Letters of Robert Southey, 2 vols (London and New York, 1965), II, pp. 44–46.
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.
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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 have been very desirous of thanking you & Mrs Peachy for some
excellent brawn, & for want of any certain direction was about to address my letter x to Bury, with a sort of
roving-commission upon the cover, by virtue of which it might have hunted you out; – when luckily the desired information has reached
me thro a very unexpected channel. On Monday I met Calvert at Lord Sunderlin’s, & he had heard of you from Mr Spence.
Lord Sunderlin to lighten a few of the weary hours which his poor sisterbeautiful effect pleasing effect. Ours you know xx is but a scanty
neighbourhood at all times, – the good-natured old Lord however invited every
person with whom he had any xxxx intercourse, – & we mustered about fifty persons besides some dozen or score of
children to see Romeo & Juliet & No Song No Supper.best bad actor I ever saw, – that is he was the very worst, & in these cases you know the worse
the better. To add to his other accomplishments, the compa he had indulged a little too freely in my Lords kitchen, & was in liquor as well as in love. The company were in good humour
& the players, never perhaps before having been either so well paid or so well fed were in high spirits. – The upstairs
entertainment concluded with God save the King in full chorus. We then went down to a cold supper – which did honour to the good
things of Ireland, & to Ld S’s good housekeeper, – who it seems
when he was setting out from for England stuffed his carriage so full of good things, that she hardly left room for himself.
There were two long tables in the dining room, – the children had their feast in the room within (Lord S’s bed-chamber) – & the players & servants made merry the while in the
kitchen. We broke up about one o clock.
This has been a great event in our little circle. The few other events which have taken place in Keswick since your departure are of a different character. First – as what concerns me most
nearly, – our chickens were all stolen one night “at one fell swoop”.xxxxx xxxx <house> has been broken open in
the town, & two others at Ambleside, – but happily a gang has been apprehended, to whom
these burglaries are imputed. We have had riots about the passage of corn from Cockermouth southwards,xxxxxxxxx <nature> were
scattered abroad, – but he showed a proper spirit, such indeed that if he had half a dozen as in case of necessity would do
wonders. At present all is quiet, & has been so for some weeks. The examples at York,
You will see a paper of mine in the next Quarterly upon this subject. It enters into the moral & political state of
the populace, & draws a faithful picture, which I shall be very sorry if any misjudging timidity should weaken or suppress.
Have you seen Rokeby yet?
I have letters from Cadiz to day, which tell me that Ballasteros acted not so much from his own erroneous judgement, as
at the instigation of evil counsellors;
What a change have the last few months produced!
Our Ladies