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Bodleian Library, MS Eng. Lett. c. 22 [address leaf]; Bodleian Library, Eng. Lett. c. 27 [main text of letter]. Previously published: Kenneth Curry (ed.), New Letters of Robert Southey, 2 vols (London and New York, 1965), I, pp. 100–102 [where it is dated [October 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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A good phrase of Sir P Sidneys for looking foolish. he lookd like
an Ape that had newly taken a purgation.
Grosvenor why is the house in which I sleep at Bristol like your one horse chair? after you have spent half an hour in vainly guessing look in the left hand corner of the bottom of the third page of this sheet for an explanation
has Harry written me those notes yet? any drawing would be useless. the sooner I have them now the better as the eighth book will be printed this week & for that they are wanted.
where is Wynn now?
And this is all I have to say. Time will fill the sheet — if I can spare time.
————
I have received a very handsome letter from Ld Carysfort including some
criticisms on the Retrospect.
Would I were settled. I wish much to see you for you have much to
tell me. not a word in your last letter of ——— perhaps I may be xxxx in London very soon. If my Uncles answer be as I wish — you
& I shall spend many a winters evening together Grosvenor. if not — here
I remain for where the carcass is there will the Eagles be gathered
together.
my poems go not to the press till January. so much the better. in
the mean time consider whether you will be Damon or Strephon or Alexis or Colin
or Sylvio or Corydon — in your birth day ode your name is often introduced
& you shall dub yourself what you please for the vacancy. that I forgot
you this year — forgive me — my excuse must be much business in almost rewriting
Joan — a mind sufficiently agitated — & of late more so by suspense.
Coleridge too has
behaved wickedly towards me — of this I will tell you the particulars when we
meet. altogether my xxxx mind has been upon the
continual stretch.
Grosvenor I am made of
excellent stuff. my heart is as warm as ever — & my head a little
cooler. my spirits are unbroken — the prospect fair before me. — xxx how happy I shall be if I can live within a
mile of Brixton! Grosvenor you knew my
college breakfast cups. then for Utopianizing over our breakfast!
When does your Quaker
With Carlisle I must be better acquainted.
I will translate those lines for you, you Turk! they are not easy. if you have any ideas for a battle or a coronation send them me.
JOAN of ARC will be out in seven weeks from this present writing.
you will not know your old acquaintance — so totally is she altered.
Of Citoyenne Rolands appealth Fructidor
remember me to all your friends. tell Horace I am in the land of the living — & that if he would by letter give me the same information I would win an hour to write to him.