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. Previously published: John Wood Warter (ed.), Selections from the Letters of Robert Southey, 4 vols (London, 1856), I, pp. 181-183; Orlo Williams, Lamb’s Friend the Census-Taker. Life and Letters of John Rickman (Boston and New York, 1912), pp. 65-67 [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.
This morning I called on Burnett, whom I found recovering from a
bilious flux & in the actx of folding up a letter designed for you. he then for the first time
showed me your letter, & his reply. I perceived that the provoking blunder in Lambs direction affected the tone of yours other, & that the seventeen shillings-worth of
anger fell upon George. your caustic was too violent, it eat thro the proud
flesh – but it has also wounded the feeling & healthy part below. the letter which I have suppressed was in the same stile as his
last. I prevailed on him to lay it up in his desk – because it was no use showing you the wound you had inflicted – & your time
would be better any how employed than in reading full pages that were not written with the design of giving pleasure. That your phrases
were too harsh I think & Lamb & Mary Lamb think also. twas a horse medicine – a cruel dose of yellow gamboodge
What I foresaw – or rather hoped would take place is now going on in him. he begins to discover that hackneying
authorship is not the way to be great. to allow that six hours writing in a public office is better than the same
number of hours labour for a fat publisher – that it <is> more certain – less toilsome – quite as respectable. I have even
prevailed on him to attend to his hand-writing – on the possibility of some such happy appointment – & doubt not ere long to
convince him, in his own way, of the moral fitness of writing straight lines & distinct letters – according to all the laws of
mind. he wishes to get a tutors place. in my judgement a clerks would suit him better, for its permanence. nothing
like experience! he would be not think its duties beneath him. & if he were so set at ease from the
daily bread & cheese anxieties that would disorder a more healthy intellect than his – I believe that passion for distinction which
haunts him, would make him in the opinion of the world – the booksellers – & himself – a very pretty historian. quite as good as
any of the Scotch breed – It puzzles me how he has learnt to round his sentences so xx ear-ticklingly.
he has never rough-hewn any thing – but he finishes like a first journeyman.
Write to him some day, & lay on an emollient plaister. it would heal him – & comfort him. a very active man we
shall never have. but as active as nature will let him he soon will be – & quite enough for daily official work. If you could set
him in the Land of Potatoes
Mr Corry & I have met once since my last – & no mention was made about
Egypt – the silence satisfied me – because Portugal is a better & far more suitable subject. it is odd that he has never asked me
to dine with him – & not quite accordant with his general courtliness of conduct. Seeing little of him – I have not formed so high
an opinion of his talents or information as you had led me to conceive. doubtless in his own department he possess both – but on all
other ground I am the better traveller – & he hardly knows the turnpike when I have beat thro all the by ways & windings &
cross roads. I found it expedient to send him my sundry books in compliance with a hint to that effect. he called to thank me – &
this dropping a card has been the extent of my personal & avoidable civility. to my great
satisfaction I have entire leisure – that is to my present comfort – for it does not promise much for the
future.
I had nearly forgotten to ask you for the transfer to the Library.
Your friend Vaughan Griffithsxxx
spirit having left it I suspect Vampirism in its present life.
Coleridge is in town. you should commute your Starits <a>
family likeness to its Half-brothers. Madoc
The letter to which you referred in your money-letter as directed here, never arrived. You who
have the Great Sealstraight. & do give Burnett a line
– your letter was too [MS obscured] – & you would do a kind action by easing him of resentment.