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Bodleian Library, MS Eng. Lett. c. 25. Previously published: Charles Cuthbert Southey (ed.), Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey, 6 vols (London, 1849–1850), IV, pp. 58–60 [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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I write to you again because I have something to say. Imprimisth 7th. 8th.
9th & 10th books of Roderick?d 4th & 5th to the printer, &
under the notion that you had returned all except the 11th, have had a ten minutes fruitless hunt for them. – The
three first proofs are now before me; – the poem thus far, looks remarkably well in its new dress, – & when I tell you that some of
your xx criticisms appear to me totally groundless, you will not suspect me of saying more than the truth when I add that
there are others for which the poem is now in many places much the better.
Secondly I hope you have secured the manuscript of my article on the Dissenters,rs Bogue & Bennets mention of Paul & Timothy; – he has retained the quotation & cut out the
comment upon it. I believe the article has lost about two pages in this way. – The only other instance which caught my eye will show
you the spirit in which he has gone to work. B & B claim Milton, Defoe &c as Dissenters. I called them blockheads for not
perceiving that it was “to their catholick & cosmopolite intellect” that these men owed
their immortality, not to their sectarian opinions & the exterminating pen has gone thro the words catholick
& cosmopolite. There is also a foolish insertion stuck in to introduce the last paragraph, which at once attenuates the
it, & xxx says ‘now I am going to say something fine’ – instead of letting the feeling rise at once
from the subject. It is well perhaps that the convenience of this quarterly incoming makes me placable, – or I should some day tell
Gifford that tho I have nothing to say against any alteration
omission which may be made for political or prudential motives, – yet when the question comes to a mere matter of opinion in regard to
the wording of a sentence, my judgement is quite as likely to be right as his. – You will really render me a great service by
preserving my manuscript reviewals. For some of these articles may most probably be reprinted whenever my Operas come to be printed in
a collected form after I am gone; – & these rejected passages will then be thought of most value.
Thirdly I wish you would, as soon as you can, call on Gifford,
& tell him, – not this what I have been saying, – for I have got rid of my gall in thus tell letting you know
what I feel upon the subject, – but that I will review Duppas pamphlett about
Junius, & the Memoirs for his next number.moral view xxxx of political morality than he & his admirers have done.
Some unknown author has sent me a poem called the Missionary, not well
arranged, but written with great feeling & beauty. I shall very likely do him a good turn in the Quarterly.story groundwork with a new story made to fit the leading
facts.