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National Library of Wales, MS 4811D. Previously published: Kenneth Curry (ed.), New Letters of Robert Southey, 2 vols (London and New York, 1965), I, pp. 146–147.
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 do not suspect Dapple of being your
anonymous adviser. the hand is certainly very similar to his — so much so as to
make me think when I opened your letter that the enclosed was from him. But he
could not have written with such plenitude of inanity. nothing disgusts me so
much as the affectation of xxxxxxx fine
language. Godwins Enquirer
I am somewhat sorry that you should think I thought your
criticisms peremptory, because my own replies were so. Of the lines &c
(particularly in the opening of the third Book, where they were very awkward) it
would be endless to transmit you the innumerable alterations. the “Was not a
man” I must I believe concede — as I believe my predilection for it is but a
prejudice. bravelier is not my coinage — I remember it in
Drayton
Holinshed & Froissartc.1525–1580?;
xxxx I doubted not that you would agree with me
in thinking very highly of quaint old Quarles. you shall see his Argalus
& Parthenia
I much want the latter books of Amadis, subsequent to those which
Tressan
the lines on Brissot end with — “wept by the good ye fell.
have you the Clovis of Desmarests? if so I should be very glad of
the extract rel describing the descent of the
holy oil.
You will find the large copies of my Poems with Bedford. I have written
Richards’s
In my next I will send you some of my insertions. now I am
somewhat weak of eye — being just returned from a walk of 33 miles, in which I
have been pickled with sea spray, washed fresh with the rain — half buried in a
sand shower which would not have disgraced thx
Arabia — & if after all — driven back by such squalls
<prevented> by tempestuous weather from crossing an arm of the sea
not more than a quarter of a mile, so that we would not get at Corfe the object
of the expedition. we embarkd in a good wind but were driven back. I am somewhat
tired. God bless you.
When do you leave Wales? I would your countrymen encouraged
researches into their antiquities somewhat more. I want more Welsh poetry than
is got-atable — particularly that of Gwalchmai & Owain Cyveilioc.