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Huntington Library, RS 51. Previously published: Kenneth Curry (ed.), New Letters of Robert Southey, 2 vols (London and New York, 1965), I, pp. 350–352.
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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Our friend the Captain is in high luck. if we could but make Wm Taylor pilot him thro the Criticalcall than mine – but in vain. he delayed me week after week, & at last sent me only a few notes which I have
inserted, & which you may distinguish by a difference of texture. his language is more technically argumentative, & his
sentences are rounded, whereas mine are pointed – & poisoned into the bargain. I have not said enough – having been hurried in
consequence of his delay, but however the blow is a hard one. time was ‘that when the brains were out, the man would die’xxxxxx in proportion to its power of production, the fault lies in a bad system of society, not in the system of
Nature. Mr Malthus therefore is cast in his action against God Almighty. I have shown also that the perfect system
on his plan would be to breed slaves & regulate population by the knife of the sow-gelder. If he replies to any effect I will
gibbet him in a pamphlet, & draw & quarter him, for I have something of the same sense of strength in me in reference to this
dog that Milton must have had when he made minced meat of Salmasius.
What you say of Wm Taylor gives me much pleasure. he is one of
the three great men of my acquaintance, & the more I know him & the longer I know him, the more do I admire his knowledge &
love his moral character. To see him speculating by authority upon the taxes & Poole upon the Poor laws would give me hopes for the well doing of the country. but you purveying for the Doctor – makes me think the old fable is reversed & that the Lion waits upon
the Jackal.
I have discovered (at least it is a discovery to me) a very extraordinary fact in ecclesiastical history – nothing less
than a design in the Mendicant Orders to ape the Mohammedans – to set Jesus Christ on the shelf & set up Sts
Francisco & Domingot Francisco (which I have written & should like to show you) it is certain that he
set himself up avowedly as the living parallel & pattern of the Redeeming God. I have Franciscan authority that the Friars dropt
the year of Christ at one time & dated from the infliction of the five wounds on their founder. Add to this the Evangelium
Aternumt Brigida
The parcel arrived to day uninjured, tho others which have come by the same conveyance with six fold the circumference
of brown paper have suffered sorely. It was fortunate that the reviewal was delayed, as I am now enabled to prove what I could else
have only hinted cautiously that his Lordship has fathered his own verses upon Camoens.
I am living in total seclusion, never seeing any person out of the family except the old carpenter. & I have made a good weeks run. it is now settled that Longman is to print it (with prints for the love of an outlandish costume) at his cost, & I share the eventual
profits.
Poor Tom has wild weather for his convoy! what are your
speculations upon S Domingo?is, & have good hopes of what will be.
planters throats go for nothing in my calculation of humanity, especially if they be Creoles or Scotchmen.