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British Library, Add MS 30,927. Previously published: Kenneth Curry (ed.), New Letters of Robert Southey, 2 vols (London and New York, 1965), I, pp. 154–155.
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 cannot walk London streets on a Sunday, for two weighty
reasons; an I never enter them but to call on
some person, & the idle day is the most unlikely time to find them at
home. & as the book stalls & picture shops are shut, there is no
amusement. so it is a day of rest & of letter writing with me.
Harry comes to town
tomorrow, on his way to Yarmouth.
As you may well suppose Harry is happy — & well may he be so — for let him but behave as he should do, & he will not have one care to disturb him till he enters this ugly world. we shall keep him some week or ten days in London, to look about him; & visit the theatres &c. Edith has the same routine to go thro — & so you see I kill two birds with one stone.
My Mothers letters have
considerably distressed me. the moment she is left to herself she considers only
the obstacles to quitting the house, & seems ready to let slip the
present opportunity of getting it off her hands. Thomas says he cannot come to
Bath. this is unhandsome conduct, & perhaps my last letter may influence
him to change it. at any rate lest it should fail, I have written to Cottle begging him to go over
& manage the business. there is little to do — to show Williams
& Brake
Coleridges play
Our pers present situation is a
convenient one — & that is all. those friends whom I see most frequently
live near, & its neighbourhood to the Inns of Court will save me many
long wet & weary walks when I shall be with a Special Pleader. I
& the Law go on & agree as well can as can be wished — it is almost as foolish for a man to quarrel
with his profession as with his wife. a man is an ass if either he is enraged with what he cannot an ill which he cannot remedy, or
if he endures one that he can. he must bear the gout — but there is no occasion
to let a fly tickle his nose.
in 1799 — God permitting — I shall be practising — &
making money — & when I have made enough — & my wishes are
bounded by my wants, (no man has fewer.) — when I have enough Tom — tho my little house in the
country be not bigger than Miss Barnes’s
Harry is arrived. before he set off my Aunt spent an hour in warning him against Burnetts wicked principles, whom she calld a fool. if people will not do good, they should at least abstain from doing evil.
Lloyd desires to be remembered. Harry & Ediths love. God bless you.