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Bodleian Library, MS Eng. Lett. c. 23. Previously published: Kenneth Curry (ed.), New Letters of Robert Southey, 2 vols (London and New York, 1965), I, pp. 149–151.
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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God speed you Grosvenor! send me the proces-verbal of your
proceedings — & believe that these few words express a great deal.
& now for egotism. a man may know himself — but it x may be doubted if he can know any one else.
———
My birth day was Friday 12 August. 1774. the time of my birth
half past eight in the morning according to the family bible — according to my
astrological friend Gilbert it
was a few minutes before the half hour, in consquence of which I am to have a
pain in my bowels when about thirty, & have
a <Jupiter is my> deadly antagonist in Jupiter, but I may thank the stars for “a
gloomy capability of walking thro desolation.”
I am no believer in the Helvetian system.tabula rasa in a letter to the Editor of the opin
opinions upon the subject. I think I can trace it in myself — I was stubborn —
obstinate — by the blessing of God I have continued so.
now have I Grosvenor like a blockhead suffered a kitten to play with the pen I write with — & her paws have blurred the writing. you must thank Puss for the blots.
my feelings were very acute. they used to amuse themselves by
making me cry at sad songs & dismal stories. I remember Death &
the Ladyts at Chevy Chace.
My Aunt was very fond of me. it was a mischievous fondness. she made me sleep with her. now my Aunts bed room was a sanctum sanctorum accessible to none. so when she went out to <an> evening visit, which was often or rather always — I was at 8 o clock put into the Maids, & then removed when she returned. a hideous transportation! there was I to be without moving head or foot till eleven the next morning. luckily fingers were at liberty — & I used to play with them from six o clock — for wise Nature woke me betimes. or else fancy pictures in the green squares of the check curtains.
I must tell you two quaint dreams of this period, because they
have made a deeper impression upon my memory than any circumstances of infancy.
I thought my head was cut off for cursing the King — & after it was done
I laid my head down in my
mothers lap — & every now & then lookd up &
cursed <him> — xxx xxxxxxx xx xxxxx
xxxx.
In the other I was in a room with only Miss Palmer. you know her by name,
this is not the place for a character of that good Lady. I was sitting with her
when the Devil came to pay her a morning visit. she put him a chair — “dear Mr Devil — pray sit down Mr Devil”
& smirked & smiled all politeness while I sat & looked
at his cloven foot, & perspired at every pore.
My time was mostly passed at Bath with my Aunt. I had no playmates there.
if my Aunt was writing letters, I
was to sit silent. there was a garden — but in playing there my cloaths might be
soiled, & perhaps all this must
necessarily have injured the young animal. my father once when he came to
see me found me pale & thin. I had just recovered from a fever &
have not yet forgotten the tea-cup in which the bark was given me, & a
foul sweet medicine, I have the resurrection of its cursed maukishness now on my
minds tongue. he returned home in a rage — swore my Aunt would kill “the boy”
& in consequence I was transported to Bristol. this was great joy to me.
I had a play-mate in poor Eliza —
my sister a year younger than myself. I could dirt my cloaths — & might
play in my grandmothers garden at Bedminster.
they sent me to school — to Ma’am Powell
here I was at intervals till my sixth year, & formd a
delectable plan with two school-mates for going to an island & living by
ourselves. we were to have one mountain of gingerbread & another of xxx candy. at the age of 23 I think of
Utopia.
I had a great desire to be a soldier. Colonel Johnesin the who lived opposite,
& promised to give me a sword. th this
took a strange turn when I was about nine years old. I had been reading the
historical plays of Shakespere — concluded that there must be civil war in my
own time & resolved to be a very great man, like the Earl of
Warwick.
my Aunt took me often to the play. her acquaintance with Miss Palmer gave her theatrical
connexions. Hendersontho I got I was one of the least boys in the
school, used to fight a dozen battles a day & of course got a dozen
threshings.
write.