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British Library, Add MS 47890. Previously published: Charles Cuthbert Southey (ed.), Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey, 6 vols (London, 1849–1850), II, pp. 254–256 [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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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.
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If I had not taken it for granted that you were long ere this beyond the reach of these wet winds, you should of course have heard from me. so strongly was I convinced of this that I have been twice on the point of writing to Barbadoes, when some other letters that required reply have come in & prevented me – & I had now vowed a vow unto the Lord not to let the week pass without doing it.
From this uttermost end of the North it will not be easy, or indeed possible to send any thing to the West Indies
except what will go in compass of a letter – else you should have the Irises
My plan for Madoc stands thus at present, that Longman shall
risque all expences & share the eventual profit, printing it in quarto & with engravings – for I am sure the book will sell the
better for being made expensive. Miss Barker will make the drawings, which will be
chiefly designed to set the dresses, weapons & other unusualities more vividly before his eyes than probably his own imagination
could do. Having now thank God cleared off all my Annual reviewingth section – the Battle
which you received being the 6th.
They tell me that Walter Scott has reviewed Amadis in the
Edinburgh review,
As for politics Tom we that live among the mountains, as the old woman said do never hear a word of news. this talk of
war with Spain I do not believe, & I am at last come round to the opinion that no invasion is designed x but that the
sole object of Bonaparte is to exhaust our finances, booby! not remembering that a national bankruptcy, while it ruins individuals
makes the state rich. One person in twenty (take a very large proportion by guess) would be affected & perhaps one in a hundred
ruined, the rest all so much the richer as the whole xxxxxxx of taxes to pay that interest would be taken off. how long the
present Duncery may go on God knows. I am no enemy to it, for they mean well, – but in this broil with the Volunteers they are wrong,
& dangerously wrong as far as regards their own popularity.
The Edinburgh Reviewers have received a severe & almost deadly blow from John Thelwall, who now lectures upon Elocution, & is beyond all exception the most
egregious coxcomb in existence. In reviewing a book of his they have had the villainy not merely to misrepresent but even to forge
quotations, for the purpose of abusing & ridiculing him. he has published a pamphlet & proves these facts most victoriously,
addressed by name to Jeffray the reviewer.
Ediths love. no news of Edward – he must be with his wise Aunt of course. – Huzza! a negro
commonwealth in St Domingo!