The Collected Letters of Robert Southey. Part 1: 1791-1797 A Romantic Circles Electronic Edition Southey, Robert, 1774-1843 Lynda Pratt Romantic Circles General Editor, Neil Fraistat General Editor, Steven E. Jones General Editor, Carl Stahmer Technical Editor Laura Mandell 2009-03-15 rce261 letterEEd.26.261 Romantic Circles, http://www.rc.umd.edu, University of Maryland College Park, MD March 15, 2009

Material from the Romantic Circles Website may not be downloaded, reproduced or disseminated in any manner without authorization unless it is for purposes of criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, and/or classroom use as provided by the Copyright Act of 1976, as amended.

Unless otherwise noted, all Pages and Resources mounted on Romantic Circles are copyrighted by the author/editor and may be shared only in accordance with the Fair Use provisions of U.S. copyright law. Except as expressly permitted by this statement, redistribution or republication in any medium requires express prior written consent from the author/editors and advance notification of Romantic Circles. Any requests for authorization should be forwarded to Romantic Circles:>

Romantic Circles c/o Professor Neil Fraistat Department of English University of Maryland College Park, MD 20742 fraistat@umd.edu

By their use of these texts and images, users agree to the following conditions: These texts and images may not be used for any commercial purpose without prior written permission from Romantic Circles. These texts and images may not be re-distributed in any forms other than their current ones.

Users are not permitted to download these texts and images in order to mount them on their own servers. It is not in our interest or that of our users to have uncontrolled subsets of our holdings available elsewhere on the Internet. We make corrections and additions to our edited resources on a continual basis, and we want the most current text to be the only one generally available to all Internet users. Institutions can, of course, make a link to the copies at Romantic Circles, subject to our conditions of use.

British Library, Ashley 2884. Previously published: Kenneth Curry (ed.), New Letters of Robert Southey, 2 vols (London and New York, 1965), I, pp. 152–153.

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.

All quotation marks and apostrophes have been changed: " for “," for ”, ' for ‘, and ' for ’.

Any dashes occurring in line breaks have been removed.

Because of web browser variability, all hyphens have been typed on the U.S. keyboard.

Dashes have been rendered as a variable number of hyphens to give a more exact rendering of their length.

Southey's spelling has not been regularized.

Writing in other hands appearing on these manuscripts has been indicated as such, the content recorded in brackets.

& has been used for the ampersand sign.

£ has been used for £, the pound sign

All other characters, those with accents, non-breaking spaces, etc., have been encoded in HTML entity decimals.

 NINES categories for Genre and Material Form at http://www.performantsoftware.com/nines_wiki/index.php/Submitting_RDF#.3Cnines:genre.3E on 2009-02-26 Architecture Artifacts Bibliography Collection Criticism Letters Drama Life Writing Politics Folklore Ephemera Fiction History Leisure Manuscript Reference Works Humor Education Music nonfiction Paratext Perodical Philosphy Photograph Citation Family Life Poetry Religion Review Visual Art Translation Travel Book History Law Southey Letters: Biographies Southey Letters: Places Laura Mandell XSLT Transforming Averill Buchanan corrections from proofing Laura Mandell XSLT Transforming Averill Buchanan TEI Encoding
261. Robert Southey to John May, 6 October 1797 Address: To/ John May Esqr/ 4. Bedford Square/ London Stamped: BATHPostmark: BOC/ 7/ 97Endorsements: 1797 No. 9./ Robert Southey/ Bath 6 October/ recd: 7 do/ ansd: 11 do MS: British Library, Ashley 2884Previously published: Kenneth Curry (ed.), New Letters of Robert Southey, 2 vols (London and New York, 1965), I, pp. 152–153.
Bath.
Oct. 6. 1797 My dear friend

My Mothers objections to quitting the house are all removed, & nothing now remains to be overcome but the difficulty of doing it. Thomas will be here on his way to London in November. there is a person who may possibly take the lease, but she is not in Bath, but daily expected. should this probability fail it will be necessary to advertise the house, but that cannot be done till something be settled with regard to my Mothers debts. if on her quitting this place it be necessary to discharge those debts which are each seperately too trifling to be deferred upon security, I will not hesitate in applying to you for assistance, should it be wanted.

Coleridge has so far compleated his tragedySamuel Taylor Coleridge’s Osorio. that he has only the task of correcting it to perform. he passed thro Bath & read it to me. it is wonderfully fine — it must secure its own success, & my own opinion of it is so high that I should not be surprized were it again to make tragedy fashionable. you know SheridanRichard Brinsley Sheridan (1751–1816; DNB). requested him to write it. his profits will be 5 or 600£. I heard him mention two ways of employing this sum — that of sinking it an in an annuity for Mrs Coleridges life was one. the other of studying medicine in Germany. If however his play succeed, as I cannot doubt, he will probably make it his business to write for the stage, & little industrious as his habits are, he may well produce a play yearly.

Lloyd is here. he has met with a heavy & unexpected disappointment, but he bears the inconstancy of a woman as a man ought to bear it. his mind is now employed in developing all his feelings & principles in the form of a novel, & exposing the evil tendency of other systems. I never saw a mind so indefatigably active; what he does has done pleases me very much, & if he perseveres with the same ardour that he has begun, I shall expect to make him read the compleat work to you when we reach London.

I have myself been very busy upon the first book of Joan of Arc. I have rejected every thing miraculous except what is historically unaccountable. the first 344 lines are therefore omitted, & the progress of her mysterious character more philosophically developed. it is finished & to my own satisfaction. I have corrected the first proof.

Do you recollect the story I told you of the poor woman at Burton? I have thrown it into verse & would send it you, but that it will appear in the Monthly Magazine. Southey’s ‘Hannah, a Plaintive Tale’, which appeared in the Monthly Magazine, 4 (October 1797), 287. From 1799, it was incorporated into his sequence of ‘English Eclogues’ and retitled ‘The Funeral’. the little poemThe poem that follows was published anonymously in the Morning Post, 2 June 1798. A version dated ‘SAT. Feb. 4, 1797’ is in Southey’s Common-Place Book, ed. John Wood Warter, 4 series (London, 1849–1850), IV, pp. 38–39. you ask for was written the first evening of my residence in London.

Bristol! I did not on thy well-known towers Turn my last look without one natural pang, My heart rememberd all the peaceful years Of childhood, & was sad. me many cares Have changed. I may revisit thee again, But never with that eager glow of joy, As when from Corston to my mothers arms I hastend with unmingled happiness, Returning from first absence. thy old towers Again may from the hill-top meet my view, But I shall see them dimly thro the tear. There is a stranger in my fathers house, And where my evil fortunes found a home From the hard world, the gate has closed upon me, And the poor spaniel that did love me, lies Deep in the whelming waters. fare thee well O pleasant place! “I had been well content To seek no other earthly home beside!”A paraphrase of sentiments found in William Cowper (1731–1800; DNB), The Task, A Poem, in Six Books (London, 1785), Book 5, ‘The Winter Morning Walk’, p. 205.

————

My brother is gone to join his ship. the Mars Capt. Alex. Hood.Alexander Hood (1758–1798; DNB), who was killed in action between the Mars and the French ship L’Hercule on 21 April 1798. a 74. he left us on Wednesday.

I thank you for your offer of a bed. I do not come up before Edith as she is more skilled in taking lodgings than I am myself — if however it be not inconvenient to you, I shall be obliged for one nights shelter.

God bless you.

Yrs affectionately Robert Southey.