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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. 290–292 [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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Southey's spelling has not been regularized.
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I have run plenum sedxx let <not> Carlisle dissect dogs &
frogs alive. of all experimental surgeons Spallanzan iis the only fair one I
ever heard of — he kept a kite & gave him all his food in little bags
tied to a long string which he used to pull up again to see the progress of
digestion
Wynn is at Elton with his Uncle —
I wrote to him to day — told him your skylight was mended — & added that
I hoped you would no longer play Squallitz
You will perhaps hear of me in Sussex. certainly if you go to
Rye which is only ten miles
distant <from Hastings>. I wish you may see the Lambs — for tho Tom ran with all the vices
& follies of Oxford I should like to hear of him — & still more
to hear something of his father & mother. Mrs L is a
very pleasant woman. I was a great favorite there once — more so than I shall
ever be anywhere again — for the same reason that people like a kitten better
than a cat — & a kid than the venerable old Goat. their eldest daughter
must be now nearly seventeen. she has lost the use of one leg entirely — yet when I knew her she was a charming girl —
with that susceptible disposition easily which
feeling pleasure & pain acutely is likely to render the possessor
miserable — because the quantum of misery in existence is perhaps the greatest.
perhaps — boarding school has altered her — go to Rye
Grosvenor — &
call on Lamb — if it be merely
to make a report to me on the state of the family — you will give me much
pleasure — & perhaps you may give them some by telling them that I am in
the land of the living.
I have been very happy at Rye
Grosvenor — &
love to remember it. you know the history of the seventeen anonymous letters
that Tom & I sent down the day before we went ourselves — there is a
windmill on the bank above the house — with the glass I used to tell the hour by
Rye Clock from the door — which Clock by the by was taken among the spoils of
the Spanish Armada.
Charles Collins wrote a Sonnet upon Hastings Castle — which Horace once showed me — it was ——— fourteen lines. I wrote a good many bad verses in Sussex — but they taught me to write better — & you know not how agreable it is to me to meet with one of my old lines or old ideas in Joan of Arc.
do not object to Grosvenor —
Peter
— tis a great advantage to have a London bookseller. they can put
off an edition of any book however stupid — & without great exertions in
its favor no book however excellent will sell. the sale of Joan of Arc in London
has been very slow indeed. six weeks ago Cadell
not we would
<not> mingle with the herd because the effluvia from so many foul
lungs is not very agreable — & because there are certain vermin
<that crawl> on the head of other things besides the body politic.
we would look at the booths where they who make themselves the greatest fools
get the most money. See children with their rattles & jumping Joans —
& their parents amusing themselves with sugar plumbs — & after
we were tired with these sights we would visit the more respectable race of
quadrupeds whom the worst monster in creation has imprisond in a close cages & shows for sixpence a
piece! the elephant — the royal tyger — the hyena — & even his own first
cousins!
But you are probably by this time better employed. would I were
with you; for tho I hate to be on the sea — I yet wish to pitch my tent on the
shore. I do not know any thing more delightful than to lie on the beach in the
sun & watch the rising waves, while a thousand vague ideas — pass over
the mind — like <the> summer clouds over the water. then it is a
noble situation to Shandeize.r Rossers
dilatory devils — & looking on with no small impatience to the time when
I shall renounce the Devil & all his works.
I translated this little piece from Quevedo
1
2
3
4
———
the poetry will form a pleasant part of my volume. I wrote an
inscription last night for a column at Truxillo the birthplace of Francisco
Pizarro.
I am about to leave off writing just when I have learnt what to write & how to write. however I may still employ a Sunday better than in going to church. I mean to attempt to get a tragedy on the stage — for the mere purpose of furnishing a house — which a successful play would do for me. I know I can write one — beyond this all is mere conjecture. it is however worth trying — for I find lodgings very disagreable. lodge however I must in London; & you will be good enough to look out for me — I hope — ere long. two rooms the Brixton side the water —.
I have a thousand things to say to you [MS torn] long absence
seems to have produced no effect on us — & I still feel th[MS torn]
perfect openess in writing to you — that I shall never feel to any other human
being. Grosvenor when we
sit down in Shandy Hall
I have projected a useful volume which would not occupy a month.
specimens of the early <x> English
Poets
Grosvenor that half letter which Carlisle wrote to me — appeard atheistical. I care not whether he be atheist or not. for a mans principless are the last things I shall ever trouble my head about. no doubt Beelzebub professes very excellent principles.
You see the Monthly Magazine. who wrote the letter “What Man is
made for? with the Linnæan
Now for the soul of me — when a man or woman — with a face of serious concern recommends me to read one of these books — I cannot tell him — the book is nonsense. nonsense — the word is too weak — it is a medley of folly & madness & blasphemy.
farewell — you shall have an ode this year. it is now tossing about the intellectual surges of my cerebrum & cerebullum & Friday night it shall be tost about in the Mail — & on Saturday morning it shall reach Palace Yard — & on Sunday you may open it.
I expect soon to hear that you will share the fate of Esculapiusfor raising the
dead.