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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. 321–322 [in part, where it is dated 2 August].
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 like the plan you propose, & see no objection to it at present. but you know how feasable those things appear which we wish. one circumstance only may happen to prevent it — I have some hopes that my mother will come & live with me. this I very earnestly wish & shall use every means to induce her, but it does not appear so probable as I could desire. this I shall know in a short time — & if then you have not changed your intentions — you know how gladly I should domesticate under the same roof with you. in that case I should certainly prefer keeping a servant for various oeconomical reasons.
I think you would derive more good from Epictetus
As for the Law I am less surprized at your laying it down than at your taking it up. with your prospect of independance I think your leisure could scarcely be worse employed than in learning that which you would only wish to remember in your profession. for myself I think I know Blackstone
I write now in haste. my time is fully employed & I must walk into town, on an errand already too long delayed.
Are the Hendersons
To recur again to the first part of this letter. I have many acquaintance strangers to you. many worth your knowing — some not — these last meet only with mere civility from me. how far their occasional calls would be disagreable to you — you best know.