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Bodleian Library, MS Eng. Lett. c. 22. Previously published: Charles Cuthbert Southey (ed.), Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey, 6 vols (London, 1849–1850), I, pp. 230–234 [in part; where it is dated 8 February 1795].
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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I have been reading the four first numbers of the Flagellant
there is the strangest mixture of cloud & sunshine! an outcast in the world! an adventurer! living by his wits! yet happy in the full conviction of rectitude — in integrity & in the affections of a mild & lovely woman. at once the object of hatred & admiration. wondered at by all — hated by the aristocrats — the very oracle of my own party. — Bedford Bedford mine are the principles of peace — of non-resistance. you cannot burst our bands of affection — do not grieve that circumstances have made me thus. you ought to rejoice that your friend acts up to his principles even tho you think them wrong.
Coleridge is writing at the same table. our names are written in the book of destiny on the same page.
Grosvenor I must put
your brains in requisition. we are about to publish a magazine on a new plan.
one of the prospectus when printed shall be forwarded to you. tis our intention
to say in the title page STC & RS editors. & to admit nothing but what is
good. a work of this kind must not be undertaken without a certainty of
indemnification, & then it bids very fair to be lucrative — so the
booksellers here tell us. to be called the Provincial Magazineyour jokes
Bedford be very wise
& very witty — send us whole essays — hints — good things &c
& they shall cut a most respectable figure. the poetry will be printed
so as to make a seperate volume at the end of the year — & a most choice
volume it will be.
& what think you of this? I should say that the work will certainly express our sentiments — so expressed as never to offend — but if Truth spoken in the words of meekness be offence, we may not avoid it.
I am in treaty with the Telegraph
you will be melancholy at all this Bedford. I am so at times. but what can I do? I could not enter into the church nor had I finances to study physic. for public offices I am too notorious — & have not the gift of making shoes — nor the happy art of mending them. education has unfitted me for trade & I must perforce enter the muster roll of authors.
London must be the place — if I & Coleridge can only get a
fixd salary of 100 a year between us our own industry shall supply the rest. I
will write up to the Telegraph. they offerd me a reporters place but nightly
employments are out of the question. my troublesome guest calld honesty — (that
starving quality) prevents me from writing in the True Briton.
You can give me no advice nor point me out any line to pursue but
you can write to me — & tell me how you are — & of your friends
— let me hear from you as soon as possible. moralize metaphysicize pun — say
good things — promise us some aid in the magazine & shake hands with me
as cordially by letter as when we parted in the Strand. I look over your letters
& find but little alteration of sentiment from the beginning of 92 to
the end of 94. what a strange mass of matter is in mine during those periods — I
mean to write my own life & a most useful book it will be — you shall
write the Paraleipomena
fare you well my dear Grosvenor. have you been
to court? quid Roma facias?
remember me to your father &
mother — & Horace — & all who may enquire for me. I am well &
honest. needs a man more to be happy? x
Bedford Bedford if you
had known Edith you might have been
most happy — I almost think I am so — at least there are hours in the days worth
a little eternity of purgatory. write to me Wednesday I shall be at Bath
Thursday. Peace be with you — & with all mankind is the earnest hope of
your