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. Previously published: Kenneth Curry (ed.), New Letters of Robert Southey, 2 vols (London and New York, 1965), I, pp. 6–8 [where it is dated 30 May 1792].
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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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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At last I can sit down & write the confession of my sins — I have left undone those things which I ought to have done. but a long journey to Brighton two days hard drinking there & (if I do not mind a lie) two days repentance after one day returning no post the next may plead my excuse & acquire absolution or remission of my sins. I have observed every man I saw with the eye of a periodical writer & noted him in my pocket book. I have likewise wrote a paper upon wigs but alas the only chance my paper upon wigs has of ever seeing the public is in the fag end of the Flagellant when we reprint it. Bedford when I left you last I thought that we might print all the letters we received at the end & so make a pretty sized volume.
you understand music. as I am ignorant of the tune I beg you will practise Lillabullero
have you settled the accounts with Jeffery
Look ye I am lazy. I cannot write a decent letter so take this to fill up.
The adieu to Birch
in imitation of
Della Crusca.
________________
Remember I think Della Crusca frequently affected. but in spite of the cry of criticism I think him often beautiful. Watts
all this is the very first sketch which twenty minutes will fill up. you see in spite of laziness here is a to-ler-ra-bly long letter but breakfast is ready the tea making Tom Lamb tying up his boots & his mother pouring out the tea — so quicks
the word — yours.