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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. 283–286 [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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I am vexed that I do not see you — & more vexed for the occasion. Pain is an evil — curse all pains — except Tom — & he is dying of an abscess (curse all abscesses) in his side — now could I curse all sides too in my detestation of party spirit. Wynn is gone to Oxford — but your abscess — by its situation — if I understand it — there is no kind of danger — is there?
by God Grosvenor you must not die.
for not being in the best of humours with the world I cannot afford to lose him
whom I most love in it. poor Edmund
Seward! there snapt one cable — if you were to make your escape I
should have but one cable left — heigh ho! Life is but a bad voyage at the best
— particularly if we be sea sick on it. No more of this. your abscess is in a
good part — there is cut & come again there — as old Smiththere tis none of your delicate parts where you
must cut to a hair — there is a good bottom to work upon & an inch or
two one way or the other is not much matter — Collins could spare a square foot
on either side — you might cut down the barge into a Canoe — & he’d go
the lighter for it.
But Grosvenor — you must send me daily accounts of yourself. when his
Majesty
Seriously I am very anxious. write to me immediately — or if you cannot tell Horace.
I have your letter franked by Sir W.I cannot say where it give me more pain it was a
kind of Achilles spear
besides my letters — I write for the Monthly Magazine — this is a new job — you may easily trace me there if it be worth your while. they give five guineas a sheet — but their sheets are sixteen closely printed pages. I manufacture up my old rubbish for them — with a little about Spanish literature — I shall be glad to get rid of all this.
So you abuse Anna St Iveshave not read that book — I said —
God be thanked that I did say it — & plague take the boobies who
mutilated it in my absence — I said — I have never been guilty
of reading the Pucelle of Voltaire — report speaks it worthy of its
author — a man whose wit & genius could only be equalld by his
depravity. I will tell you what a Man, not particularly nice in his moral
opinions said to me upon the subject of that book. “I should think the worse of
any man who having read one canto of it could proceed to a second”. it is
blasphemy & obscenity highly seasond with wit — or wit highly seasond
with blasphemy & obscenity. now my opinion of Anna St Ives is
dramatically opposite to yours. I think it a book of consummate wisdom.
& I shall join my forces to Mr Knowles
I agree with you that Man is a beast & an ugly beast. but what makes him so??? not God — God made him — in his own image — tell me — do you think yourself a beast? do you think me a beast? do you think Carlisle a beast? do you think Wynn an ugly beast — do you think your brother Harry an ugly beast — do you think such a Woman as you could love — an ugly beast? No. No. No.
are you yourself capable of virtue & happiness? if you are — why are not the rest of mankind? Now — they are a blackguard mob — but remember God made them for young Angels. prove to me that God has made any one being naturally vicious — & I will make you & myself Atheists — inevitably!
I am an Optimist — & believe all things are working for the best. for the mob of mankind I should feel abhorrence if it could exist with contempt. this is the best of possible worlds — yet I wish there were no such things as abscesses in it.
but can you not get well & then come down?
I have a thousand things to say to you & a thousand
things to show you. if I were within twenty miles of Brixton I would come & sit by you
& you should talk any thing — but Metaphysics to me — them we would keep
for
Σνιφελ.
So you have found five translations of Musæus!!!!!
how has this letter been neglected! no more delays however. I am
continually writing or reading — the double cacoethes grows upon me every day —
& the physic of John a Nokes
so goes the world! there is not a man in it who is not discontented. however if no Man has more reason for discontent than you & I have, twould be already a very good world for after all I believe the worst we complain of is that we do not find mankind as good as we could wish. — I had forgot the abscess — that is an evil. many of our mental evils — & God knows they are the worst! we make ourselves.
If a young man had his senses about him when he sets out in life he should seriously deliberate whether he had rather never be miserable or sometimes be happy. I like the up & down road best but I have learnt never to despise any mans opinion because it is different from my own. surely Grosvenor our restlessness in this world seems to indicate that we are intended for a better. we have all of us a longing after happiness — & surely the Creator will gratify all the rational desires that he has implanted in us. — if you die before me will you visit me? — I am half a believer in apparitions & would purchase conviction at the expence of a tolerable fright.
George Burnetts Uncle was fore three months terribly afflicted by the night
mare. so much so that by being constantly disturbd his health was considerably
impaird. one night he determind to lie awake & watch for HER
One night, he says he determind to lie awake & watch for HER. at the ritual hour he heard HER coming up the stairs — he got up on his bed — in a cold sweat — he heard HER come into the room — he heard her open the curtain & then ——— he leapt out of bed & caught HER by the hair before SHE — for SHE it was — could fall upon his breast. then did this most incomparable hero bellow to John for a candle — they fought —she pulld & he pulld & bellowed. till John came with a light & then ——— She vanishd immediately & he remaind with a handful of HER hair.
Now Bedford would not you have had that made into a locket? the tale
methinks is no bad companion for your Fathers dream. was the exploit of Mr Burnett is far beyond that
of St Withold& they made a
bargain
I have written you an odd letter & an ugly one upon very
execrable paper. by the by if you have a Prudentius
how mortifying is this confinement of yours — I had planned so many pleasant walks to be made so much more pleasant by conversation.
for I have much to tell thee. much to say of the odd things we saw upon our journey Much of the dirt & vermin that annoyd us. And you should have seen my letters before they went to press & annotated them — & heard the plot of my tragedy — & laughd — not at my tragedy tho — but now! — I have a mortal aversion to all those disjunctive particles — but — & if — & yet — always herald some bad news.
Bedford you must shame for me my long silence by writing directly. perhaps if you are escaped from your bed & able to bear the journey change of air may benefit you — by helping to recruit your strength. would I were nearer you — however I shall be settled in London I hope before Xmas. I do not remember a happier ten weeks than I passed at Brixton — nor indeed a better employd period. God grant me ten such weeks of leisure once more in my life & I will finish Madoc.