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Bodleian Library, MS Eng. Lett. c. 23. Previously published: Charles Cuthbert Southey (ed.), Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey, 6 vols (London, 1849–1850), I, pp. 299–301 [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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but txxxxxx it except that it is not the present. it is the country I want. a field thistle is to me worth all the flowers of Covent Garden.
However Bedford happiness is a flower that will blossom anywhere — & I expect to be happy — even in London. you know who is to watch at my gate, & if he will let in any of your club — well & good.
Time & Experience seem to have assimilated us. we think equally ill of mankind, & from the complexion of your late letter, I believe you think as badly as I do of their rulers. I fancy you are mounted above the freezing point of aristocracy to the temperate regions degree where I have fallen. am I not obliged to Carlisle for leading you round? but your mind is yet in a revolutionary state — mine is calm & settled. I have a belief in politics & religion, both of which I apprehend you want. methinks Grosvenor the last two years have made me the elder, but you know I never allow the aristocracy of years.
I must be on the Surrey side of the water. this will please suit me & please you. I am familiar with the names of your club — shall I ever be so with them sober? naturally of a reserved disposition, there was a considerable period of my life in which high spirits — quick feelings — & principles enthusiastically imbibed, made me talkative; experience has taught me wisdom, & I am again as silent — as self centering as in early youth.
After the nine hours law study — I shall <have> a precious fragment of the day x <at> my own disposal. now Grosvenor I must be a miser of time — for I am just as sleepy a fellow as you remember me at Brixton. I tell the story of John & the robbers, & never see a wasp without thinking of the myriads we destroyed. you see I am not collected enough to write — this plaguey cough interrupts me & shakes all the ideas in my brain out of their places.
A long interval Grosvenor & it has not been employed agreably. I have been taken ill at Bristol. my trullibubs were in a state of insurrection & sent every thing up that I sent down, I was afraid of a fever — but the timely aid of some pills opened the back door — & I hope all the mutinous particles have been ejected. a giddiness of the head which accompanied this seizure rendered me utterly unfit for anything. I was well nurst & am well.
this happened at the house of Charles Danvers — excepting Cottle — the only man whom I shall leave with regret in this part of the world. when I get to London I have some comfortable plans made but much depends on the likeability of your new friends. you say you have engaged some of them to meet me. now if you taught them to expect any thing in me they must owe their disappointment to you. remember that I am as reserved to others as I am open to you. you have seen a hedge hog roll himself up when noticed? even so do I shelter myself in my own thoughts —
I will not ask you to explain some few little mysteries [MS torn] your last. we shall meet so soon — but you may send me your Musæus
I have sketched out a tragedy on the Martyrdom of Joan of Arc which is capable of making a good closet drama my ideas of tragedy differ from those generally followed. there is seldom nature enough in the dialogue. even Shakespere gets upon the stilts sometimes. the dramatist ought rather to display a knowledge of the workings of the human heart, than his own imagination. high straind metaphors can rarely be introduced with propriety — similies never —. do you think I shall strip tragedy of all its ornaments? this time must discover — yet look at the dramatic parts of Joan of Arc they are best — the dialogue is impassioned but it is natural. John Doe & Richard Roe
fare you well. I shall write with my book which the frost has delayed. it all be done this day week.