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Bodleian Library, MS Don. d. 3. Previously published: Kenneth Curry (ed.), New Letters of Robert Southey, 2 vols (London and New York, 1965), I, pp. 257-259.
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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I have sent off the Reviewme at Mr Corrys, instead of inclosing it to him – in consequence it was
charged at the Post Office. the outside should be to him only – & remember you cannot send above an ounce weight.
Your reading now would be more immediately pleasant, & every way more profitable – if you erected land-marks as you
went along. Hearing that you are at Ariostowith critically defend the Orlando Furioso – it would not be difficult to get your paper inserted in the same Magazine –
& thus put you perhaps in a way of adding a little to your yearly income, while you improved yourself still more – I should like to
help you in tracing the history of that Paladin story thro all its families, from Turpin
Literary habits are not acquired late in life. if you think them worth acquiring, this is the time. they are always a
source of pleasure – & that pleasure the most lasting. a more palpable & pressing motive may be urged to you. at present you
are plentifully supplied with money, but hereafter you will be compelled to oeconomize, – if the resources of literature should not be
absolutely necessary, you will find them convenient. I would now young
as you are – introduce you to the Reviews – if it were in my power. but in this way I have no influence whatever. I could not even
transfer my own employment on going abroad – neither can I now recover it.
You imagine me in the high road to wealth & power – & travelling full gallop – the whole truth is that for the
next year I have an income without working – not exceeding what I should have else have earned & received.
that what I write – in my vocation – will be for Mr Corry instead of a newspaper or
a bookseller, & that at the years end the only certainty is that I shall be richer – by whatever my leisure hours may have
produced. A possibility exists that some birth may be given me in Ireland – a bare possibility – naked as the legal phrase expre to which I have no claim – of which no expectation. the South of Europe
is still the point of my wishes. a Secretaryship – & the regular salary there is but £300 – would satisfy my wants – & I would
for it abandon far brighter prospects than lie before me. the climate annoys me here, & I find no advantages in England to
counterbalance that heavy evil.
I wish it were in my power to visit Norwich – but God knows when that will be. if there were no other objection – I am tethered here.
Burnett is going on miserably & in a way that distresses all his friends. he
is earning a poor & precarious subsistence by writing for Philipsreally
possesses no knowledge – & from the little use he ever made of leisure I may say, no love of knowledge for its own sake. & now
he has to get knowledge for the sake of getting literary reputation. It is not the first instance I have seen of Vanity misleading a
man – but it is the most unfortunate one. poor fellow – I will do what I can to serve him – & wish heartily more were in my
power.
I have turned over a whole bundle of Anthology <papers> to some new Editorspublish print a third volume. the fault they find with my selection ought to imply severer conduct in
themselves. Wm Taylors Hexametersxxxxx
abuse in the last volume – I smile to hear the Authors of the very dullest poems there complain of the dull pieces inserted.
My Mother is coming to town with Mrs Lovell. I have been expecting them since Friday – & growling at the lazy &
uncivil trick of not [MS torn] to prevent expectation. She was well enough to talk of travelling from Bath to Reading in one day. Of
Tom I have not heard for many months. Edward & his Aunt both grow
worse & worse – every thing I hear of them only vexes & irritates & distresses me –
Ediths love – God bless you –