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British Library, Add MS 30928. Previously published: John Wood Warter, Selections from the Letters of Robert Southey, 4 vols (London, 1856), I, pp. 183-186 [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
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I have delayed writing some time in the hope of recovering your last letter. its loss cannot be attributed to misdirection. a large packet from Rickman has never reached me. by the same post he wrote under cover to Corry inclosing a forty pounds bill – else that also had gone. – If King will house the boxes I shall be greatly obliged to him – it vexes & hurts me that you should be troubled for my account on all sides.
My Mother does not mend. a bowel complaint this last week has much alarmed me.
it is tamed, but a very very little would now destroy her. Edith & her sister are wholly employed in nursing. two days she kept her bed, & she must
not leave her room till a great amendment takes place. I am a good deal there – to the still further lessening of my little leisure.
tho she certainly is not consumptive, the decay is so total that I hardly can hope her recovery. Edith is miserably & vexatiously depressed in spirits. my Mothers are very good – uncommonly good. she suffers no pain, & is even chearful.
only at times she regrets having left Bristol – because she should have liked to have been buried with my father. yet if the xxxxx <winter> should not relapse to its severity we may yet make her weather it out xx xxx xxx – & in the summer take out a new lease. there is no dangerous disease about her – nor has she reached is her age great.
I am very desirous to see the Catalogue – because my Uncle
has bought so many books since my return, that now when a work comes in my way, I do not venture at the hap-hazard to purchase it. my
inclinations more & more lead me towards history – & that pursuit again is continually stimulating me by its abundant subject,
to poetry. I have a treaty on foot – to write in the Courier
Miss Barker is at last settled in town for the winter, with Charlotte Smith,xx common feelings – than most literary women. tho she has done more, & done better than other women
writers, it has <not> been her whole employment – she is not looking out for admiration & talking to show off. I see in her
none of the nasty little envies & jealousies common enough among the cattle – what she likes – she likes with judgement &
feeling, & praises warmly. – Lamb & his sister see us often. he is printing his playhour after supper. one night Lamb was at Godwins with the Mr Fellpick carried off his rum – brandy – sugar –
picked his pockets of every thing – & made off in triumph. Godwin is in a
way to marry a widow with one child.
This is a wretched place for books. buy indeed you can – but there is no other way of procuring them, & buying
<by wholesale> does not suit the buy a retail purchaser. at Bristol your society & your
Library ticket procured me the sight of a tolerable supply – here I have only the book stalls, & my
own stores – enough indeed to occupy me – but the interest is always in proportion to the capital.
Davy supped with me on Saturday – his only visit, he has been & is & will
be usefully busied. Coleridge will go down to the Wedgewoodsso xx procure elsewhere. We expect an important addition to our circle when
Miss Seton arrives, which will be soon. the Barbaulds asked me to dine one day – which I declined – my reason was the
unconscionable distance, since then I met them in the street & they gave a general invitation for all Sundays – which happily
spares the trouble of any particular refusal. I don’t like the breed –. On Wednesday I am to dine with Longman “to meet a few literary friends”. they will probably be xnew to me – & may furnish some amusement. at least I love to see all odd people.
I often wish to see King for his own sake – & now I have at times
certain symptoms that give me a more selfish motive for the sake of my hollow tooth. has he done frog-massacring yet? – remember me to
him – to Mr Rowex waistcoat with sleeves of leather
– thin washing leather – worn under the gown. it preserves the body more equally warm than any other substance.
I wish I could hear of any thing that could serve your brother John.