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. Previously published: Kenneth Curry (ed.), New Letters of Robert Southey, 2 vols (London and New York, 1965), I, pp. 95–96 [in part; verses not reproduced; where it is dated 12 May 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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Southey's spelling has not been regularized.
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ELINOR.
a Monologue.
Scene the shores of New Holland. Morning.
———
————
Ode to a Frog
1
2
3
4
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Did you ever see the cruel experiments tried upon frogs to discover the cause of muscular motion?
Sonnet.
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Sonnet.
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The Soldier’s Wife
(written with Coleridge. <read this aloud & accent it>
There my dear Grosvenor. for RS returning at eleven o’clock — find your letter & immediately write thus much — you will allow no small miracle. now my eyes ache & I must to bed — by the by before I bid you good night take these lines which tickle me hugely
Good night my dear Grosvenor. I will to my worst companion — the pillow! heigh ho! — God bless you.
Now my dear Grosvenor you see why you could not receive this on Wednesday — because you directed to Bath & your letter came to me at eleven last night. you shall have another letter from me very shortly with what poetry I have yet unseen by you — but I have a good piece to send you soon — the first book of Madoc. I will ask your question tho methinks there would be but little probability of erring if I answered in the affirmative. perhaps the female heart is more alive to affection than mans — & the dangerous error entailed upon them by education is — that they almost always act from their feelings & not from fixed principles. you may be assured that no fixed principles can possibly form a resolution of celibacy.
I would willingly pass a fortnight with you could I quit this
place. but I fear me that love makes a man very selfish when he seems to himself
the most remote from selfishness. in truth Bedford I have almost
insulated myself from mankind — I shun all company as much as possibly &
when not with Edith love to be
alone — that if unemployed in reading & writing I may enjoy solitary
thoughts. this is better than sitting silent in company, & observing the
little errors & follies of all around me — for I am grown an acute
observer of men & agree with Burns that “they are an ugly squad.”
fare thee well. I could say very much — & will write to
you very soon. “be just & fear not”.
*the language of the look the meaning of those attentions that really spring from a sincere desire of pleasing can never be mistaken. God bless you. remember me affectionately to your father & mother — & Horace. I will write soon to Wynn. — God bless him!
my Joan goes to the press immediately.