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Bodleian Library, MS Don. d. 3. Previously published: Charles Cuthbert Southey (ed.) Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey, 6 vols (London, 1849–1850), IV, pp. 34–36 [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.
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Southey’s spelling has not been regularized.
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That you will see me ere long is as certain, according to all appearances, as any thing can be in this uncertain world,
– I have been idling a week at Old Brathay, – the change was needful, & the idleness
also, tho I could have wished it had been at a more convenient season. I shall start for the south as soon as my hands are clear, –
this is unluckily the seaso time of year for interruptions, – Tom comes
to me tomorrow, – the Senhora
has <hourly expects> a merry old Uncle hour who has been to Edinburgh to unmarry his daughter,it my appearance in town will more likely be in the second week of July than in the
first.
You were right in supposing that the sprawler upon the red sofa was <is> your niece Katharine, – who had also the honour of being the original child in the eagles nest, –
for that huge picture was begun & half finished in this house, – wherof a good story when we meet. I do not know
whether the likeness in the great picture has been altered, – it was one of the happiest I ever saw, – & the other (which is to
come when the Exhibition is over) was copied from it.r Downman
I was glad to see your presentation, as indicative that you were in road to preferment.
But there are two thin special things which may be considered as the special cause of this letter. first a
particular des request of Ch. Lloyds, often & solicitously
repeated, that I would mention to you, that Mr Boddingtonxxxx apology for the said
non appearance or rather explanation of it having reached xx him. – My answer to Lloyd was that I supposed you had written a note which had been lost on the way.
Secondly – do you want to make your fortune in the philosophical world? – If so – you may thank Owen Lloydxxx
Wordsworth was there, – & to our utter & unutterable astonishment
did the boys to convince us that these long thin black worms were their own manufactory by the old receipt, lay hold of them by the
middle while they writhed like eels, & stripping their nails down on each side, actually lay bare the horse-hair in the middle,
which seemd to serve as the back-bone of those xxx creatures, – or the substratum of the living matter which had collected
round it. Wordsworth & I should both have supposed that it was a
collection of animalculæ round the hair (which however would be only changing the nature of the miracle) if we could any way have
accounted for the motion upon this theory, – but the motion was that of a snake. We could perceive no head, – but something very like
the root of the hair. And for want of glasses could distinguish no parts. The creature or whatever else you may please to call it is
black or dark brown, & about the girth of a fiddle string. As soon as you have read this x draw upon your horses tail
& mane for half a dozen hairs, be sure they have roots to them, bottle them separately in water, & when you have
they are alive & kicking, call in Gooch, & make the fact known to the
philosophical world. – Never in my life was I so astonished as at seeing what even in the act of seeing I could scarcely believe, –
& now almost doubt. – If you verify the experiment, as Owen & all his brothers will swear must be the case, – the
you will be able to throw some light upon the origin of your friend the tape worm, & all his diabolical family.
No doubt you will laugh, & disbelieve this, & half suspect that I am jesting. But indeed I have only told you
the fact x as it occurred; – & you will at once see its whole importance in physiology, – & the use which you &
Gooch may derive from it, coming forth with a series of experiments, &
with such deductions as your grey-hound sight, & his beagle scent will enable you to soon start & pursue.
And if the horses hair succeeds Sir Domine, – by parallel reasoning you know try one of your
own.
I have left myself no room little room to speak of my own concerns. With this fourth volume I give up the
Register,my the peninsular-matter in those volumes, & bring forth, under all possible advantages of authority a regular
history of the affair of the peninsular from the commencement of those troubles.