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Kenneth Spencer Research Library, University of Kansas. Previously published: Joseph Cottle, Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey (London, 1847), pp. 201–202 [in part, where it is misdated ‘London, 1797’].Dating note: The dating of this letter is based on internal evidence, which proves that Joseph Cottle’s endorsement is incorrect. The letter was written whilst Southey was living in Bath in 1796 (he only moved to London in February 1797) and refers explicitly to the printing of Poems (1797), which took place in December 1796.
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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You have four old engravings of mine in the Barton, by the Vivares:
they are old & dirty; I am going to write a poem upon one of them, & therefore must have it before me.
my dear friend I physiognomize every thing: even the very oysters may be accurately judged by their shells — I discovered this at Lisbon where they are deformed — hump-backed & good for nothing. is it not possible by the appearance of a river to tell what fish are in it? in the slow sluggish stream you will find the heavy chub — in the livelier current the trout & the pike. if a mans loves prints you have an excellent clue to his character. take for instance the inventory of mine at college. four views of the Ruins of Rome. Charles Fox.
In the mean time I shall write the two ballads, & if the weather be walkable bring them over on Tuesday morning: on which day Biggs will want four pages to make up his half sheet. if the weather be bad — I must supply him by the coach & come over the first fine day. Rosser shall at the same time receive a reinforcement.
I intend to make up one copy of the Poems with prints profiles & drawings. I think between us we may furnish our own copies very valuably thus. the profiles should be taken in red & the page they are on stained with tobacco water & bordered. there may be mine, Bedfords & Ediths as I have a sonnet addressed to her to prefix to the whole. we may get prints of Mary Wollstonecraft — Hambden — Falkland
I am now again settled. my books are organized in the closet, & this evening I set off again on my race. by the by can you feel among Mr Floorsthat <it> by him on Monday next.
we have a story of a ghost here who appears to the watchman — the spirit of a poor girl whose life was most abandoned, & death most horrible. I am in hopes it may prove true as I have a great love for apparitions. they make part of the poetical creed. fare you well
Ediths love to you & your sisters.