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Bodleian Library, MS Eng. Lett. c. 22. Previously published: Kenneth Curry (ed.), New Letters of Robert Southey, 2 vols (London and New York, 1965), I, pp. 97–98 [in part; second extract from Joan of Arc not reproduced].
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.
All quotation marks and apostrophes have been changed: " for “," for ”, ' for ‘, and ' for ’.
Any dashes occurring in line breaks have been removed.
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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I am hard employed that I may soon visit you. in getting forwards with Joan, & as more than three parts of the poem will be entirely rewritten you may suppose this is no light task. as soon as I shall be a fortnight before the press I will absent myself for that time.
do you know Grosvenor I hate the idea of coming to see you for a fortnight. poor Seward — I thought to have seen him this summer. you know I detest the idea of writing upon a lost friend — yet the frame of mind so occasiond will tinge what we are employed upon. these lines are in the first book.
speaking of the old hermit Bizardo.
I think of him Bedford when alone — methinks a man has no right to gloom a company with his own melancholy feelings.
Cottle my bookseller (a good man & one whose liberality might rescue the fraternity from all obloquy —) is soon coming up to town — chiefly to get a good frontispiece engraved. this is the subject. it requires to be well designed & by a man of genius.
And this my dear friend is what I am doing at Bristol! as for the future — I can only hope that it will be — the future in rus.
however I earnestly hope & labour to be with you in a fortnight. & then you shall know what I am doing & how I hope to live.
I am very earnest to see Wynn. God bless him!
Strachey has got the Greek Epigrams. I have heard well of him from Billsborrow (who wrote those lines prefixd to the Zoonomia).
remember me to C Collins. it is a twelvemonth since I have either seen or heard of him.
that twelvemonth has been a very busy one — & has improved my head & heart whatever effect it may have had on my happiness.
write to me Grosvenor. the sight of your handwriting rouses a long train of associations of the pleasing order.
I have put your name & titles to decorate my list & lengthen it. but as I wish you to have a specimen of our B[MS torn] binding as well as typery — you must let me provide your [MS torn]y. the list of subscribers is at Cadellsst of January.
fare you well.