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British Library, Add MS 30,927. Previously published: Kenneth Curry (ed.), New Letters of Robert Southey, 2 vols (London and New York, 1965), I, pp. 92–93; Charles Cuthbert Southey (ed.), Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey, 6 vols (London, 1849–1850), I, pp. 235–236 [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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Hot with walking & warm repentance I do sit me down to
repair the apparent coolness of neglect. my dear brother when I have been
writing as hard as is necessary to furnish two lectures a week an hour each in
recitation, I have been tempted to fling all down & write to you. I am
giving a course of historical Lectures at Bristol, teaching what is right by
showing what is wrong.
my Joan of Arc goes to the press in about three weeks. a new
letter is casting for it. it will be a most elegant volume & you shall
receive one as soon as it is out. I shall publish another volume of Poems
John Scott has got me a place of a guinea & half per week
for writing in some new work called the Citizen.
if Coleridge & I can get 150 pounds a year between us, we purpose marrying & retiring into the country as our literary business can be carried on there & practising agriculture till we can raise money for America — still the grand object in view.
So I have cut my cables & am drifting on the ocean of life — the wind is fair & the port of happiness I hope, in view.
tis possible that I may be called on to publish my historical Lectures: this I shall be unwilling to do, as they are only splendid declamation. you will however receive whatever I or Coleridge publish, as soon as it is out.
We expect your parcel to night — I shall revere the republican hanger.
my notoriety will not tend to reconcile my Aunt to me. public speaking is awkward at first — but three lectures have accustomed me to it.
my mornings are devoted to hard study. my evenings always engaged — & I generally contrive to pass them with my dear Edith.
I walked over to Bath this afternoon. a good citizen
direct to me at Mrs
Sawiers. 25 College Street
Bristol.all there all be happy there
fare you well
Coleridge would send
fraternity were he here. he is my fellow
with me — we live together & write together.