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<title type="main">The Collected Letters of Robert Southey. Part 1: 1791-1797 </title>
<title type="subordinate">A Romantic Circles Electronic Edition</title>
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<name>Southey, Robert, 1774-1843</name>
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<editor>Lynda Pratt</editor>
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<idno type="nines">rce270</idno>
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<sourceDesc>
<p>Beinecke Library, Robert Southey
                        Collection, GEN MSS 298, Box 1, folder 32.  Not previously published.</p>
<p>These letters were edited with the assistance of Carol Bolton, Tim Fulford and Ian Packer</p>
<p>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
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											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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
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<div n="270" type="letter">
<head>270. Robert Southey to <ref target="people.html#ThomasWilliamBowyer">William
                        Bowyer Thomas</ref>, <date when="1797-11-11">11 November 1797</date>
<note place="foot" resp="editors" type="headnote">Address: For/ M<hi rend="sup">r</hi> W B Thomas/ with —— Downes Esq<hi rend="sup">r</hi>/
                        Hereford<lb/>Stamped: BATH<lb/>MS: Beinecke Library, Robert Southey
                        Collection, GEN MSS 298, Box 1, folder 32<lb/>Unpublished.</note>
</head>
<opener>
<dateline rend="right">
<date when="1797-11-11">Saturday. 11. Nov. 1797.</date>
</dateline>
<salute>My dear Thomas</salute>
</opener>
<p rend="indent2"> I am now anxious to see you. <ref target="people.html#SoutheyMargaret">my Mother</ref> has met with a person
                    to take the house — &amp; furniture at a fair appraisement — thus is the
                    greatest difficulty removed, &amp; I should hope the whole business may soon
                    be settled, with little trouble to you, &amp; little expence to <ref target="people.html#HillHerbert">my Uncle</ref>.</p>
<p rend="indent1"> We returned from Bristol yesterday; it is my intention to go to
                    town on Monday the 20th &amp; keep the term the ensuing day. if you hold
                    your intention of entering at Grays Inn — we may dine there together.</p>
<p rend="indent1"> perhaps the remainder of this paper cannot be better employed
                    than in sending you Mrs Barbaulds<note n="1" place="foot" resp="editors">Anna
                        Letitia Barbauld (1743–1824; <title level="m">DNB</title>), ‘To S. T.
                        Coleridge, 1797’.</note> lines to <ref target="people.html#ColeridgeSamuelTaylor">Coleridge</ref>.</p>
<lg type="stanza">
<l rend="indent2">Midway the hill of science, after steep</l>
<l rend="indent2">And rugged paths that tire the unpractisd feet,</l>
<l rend="indent2">A grove extends, in tangled mazes wrought,</l>
<l rend="indent2">And filld with strange enchantment. dubious shapes</l>
<l rend="indent2">Flit thro dim glades, &amp; lure the eager foot</l>
<l rend="indent2">Of youthful ardour to eternal chase.</l>
<l rend="indent2">Dreams hang on every leaf; unearthly forms</l>
<l rend="indent2">Glide thro the gloom, &amp; mystic visions swim</l>
<l rend="indent2">Before the cheated sense. athwart the mists</l>
<l rend="indent2">Far into vacant space, huge shadows stretch</l>
<l rend="indent2">And seem realities, while things of life,</l>
<l rend="indent2">Obvious to sight &amp; touch, all glowing round,</l>
<l rend="indent2">Fade to the hue<del rend="strikethrough">s</del> of shadows.
                            <hi rend="ital">Scruples</hi> here</l>
<l rend="indent2">With filmy net most like the autumnal webs</l>
<l rend="indent2">Of floating gossamer, arrest the foot</l>
<l rend="indent2">Of generous enterprize, &amp; palsy hope</l>
<l rend="indent2">And fair ambition, with the chilling touch</l>
<l rend="indent2">Of sickly hesitation, &amp; blank fear.</l>
<l rend="indent2">Nor seldom Indolence these walks among</l>
<l rend="indent2">Fixes her turf-built seat, &amp; museful sits</l>
<l rend="indent2">In dreamy twilight of the vacant mind,</l>
<l rend="indent2">Soothd by the whispering shade, for soothing soft</l>
<l rend="indent2">The shades, &amp; vistas lengthening into air</l>
<l rend="indent2">With moon beam rainbows tinted. here each mind</l>
<l rend="indent2">Of finer mould, acute &amp; delicate</l>
<l rend="indent2">In its high progress to eternal truth</l>
<l rend="indent2">Rests for a space in fairy bowers entranced,</l>
<l rend="indent2">And loves the softend light &amp; tender gloom,</l>
<l rend="indent2">And, pamperd with most unsubstantial food,</l>
<l rend="indent2">Looks down indignant on the grosser world</l>
<l rend="indent2">And matters cumberous shapings. Youth beloved</l>
<l rend="indent2">Of Science, of the Muse beloved, not <hi rend="ital">here</hi>,</l>
<l rend="indent2">Not in the maze of metaphysic lore,</l>
<l rend="indent2">Build thou thy place of resting. lightly tread</l>
<l rend="indent2">The dangerous ground, on higher aim intent,</l>
<l rend="indent2">And be this Circe of the studious cell</l>
<l rend="indent2">Enjoyd, but still subservient. Active scenes</l>
<l rend="indent2">Shall soon with healthful spirit brace thy mind,</l>
<l rend="indent2">And fair exertion for bright fame sustaind</l>
<l rend="indent2">For friends, for country, chace each spleen-fed [MS
                        obscured]</l>
<l rend="indent2">That blots the wide creation.</l>
<l rend="indent2">Now Heaven conduct thee with a Parents love.<note n="2" place="foot" resp="editors">Anna Letitia Barbauld’s poem appeared
                            unsigned as ‘To Mr C__ge’ in the <title level="j">Monthly
                                Magazine</title>, 7 (April 1799), 231–232.</note>
</l>
</lg>
<p rend="indent6"> ———</p>
<p>I hate metaphysics as much as Mrs B. can do. but <del rend="strikethrough">her</del> these verses are trite. an old allegory — <del rend="strikethrough">&amp; the</del> &lt;patchd with&gt; shreds
                    of <ref target="people.html#ColeridgeSamuelTaylor">Coleridge</ref>
<del rend="strikethrough">with which she has patched it</del>. I like the idea
                    of “things of life, obvious to sight &amp; touch, fade to the hue of
                    shadows.” it is well conceived &amp; well expressd — but the half line, “all
                    glowing round,” adds nothing to the picture — &amp; destroys the meaning, by
                    contradicting directly what follows.</p>
<p rend="indent1"> let me hear from you. <ref target="people.html#SoutheyMargaret">my Mother</ref> must not commence another quarter here.</p>
<p rend="indent2"> God bless you.</p>
<closer>
<salute rend="indent3"> yrs affectionately</salute>
<signed rend="indent5"> R Southey.</signed>
</closer>
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