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MS untraced; text is taken from John Wood Warter (ed.), Selections from the Letters of Robert Southey, 4 vols (London, 1856). Previously published: John Wood Warter (ed.), Selections from the Letters of Robert Southey, 4 vols (London, 1856), I, pp. 132–135; Adolfo Cabral (ed.), Robert Southey: Journals of a Residence in Portugal 1800-1801 and a Visit to France 1838 (Oxford, 1960), pp. 143–146 [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.
I have drawn on you this day for 40l., to which amount you will receive a
draught from Wynn. He had directed me to draw immediately on
him, at his banker’s, but it appeared better to me to
proceed as usual. My uncle will pay 25l. for
me into your hands; when you receive it, have the goodness
to remit 15l. to Mr. Danvers,
9. St. James’s Place, Kingsdown,
Bristol.
I had hoped ere this to have heard from you,
but you have of late proved a lax correspondent. With all
our news you are acquainted from other quarters. We have a
pleasant family near us, introduced to our circle by Mr.
Barnes’sdisembargador, my opposite neighbour,
chief librarian, a curioso in the
poetry of the country, and whose collection is rich with the
duplicates among the Jesuit libraries, whose ruins formed
the magnificent public one, so well and liberally
conducted.
You will not think the paper ill employed
that communicates my planrememberably painted. An
ecclesiastical chapter will complete the preliminaries; and
thus a full account be presented of those fermenting
principles that have stagnated into the two miserable
kingdoms. You know that, till Count Henrique’s
Manoel Fariaolla podrida
Of manuscripts, the most important are the
five folio records of the Inquisition, in whose bloody
annals the history of extinguished reformation must be
sought. This is a somewhat awkward task. I have seen with
eager eyes, itching fingers, and heretical qualms of
apprehension this great mass, where and where only the
documents for this very important period are attainable. The
sub-librarian
Our weather, with frequent rain, is still
delightful; it is like a fine English April. I have,
however, little to tempt me from home; and a fire, among my
other comforts, contributes to keep me there. Historical
researches are very interesting, and of so various a nature,
that something may be done even in the most listless moment
of indolence. I should, however, like to indulge in an amanuensis, sit in an easy chair,
screening my face from the fire with a folio, and so dictate
in all imaginable ease. The contortions of the body from
book to paper make my sides ache.
Asiatic history must be separately treated;
La Clede’s
God bless you. Do not omit writing. Have you heard that in one nunnery near St. Jose’s, and unhappily 1 near the emigrant quarters, there are seventeen nuns about to lie in? Edith’s remembrance.