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Bodleian Library, Eng. Lett. c. 22. Not previously published.
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 have two apologies to make before I begin the main subject of this letter. one for troubling you with two in one week. the other for ever touching upon politicks when I ought to have recollected that we differd in opinion — this last shall never happen again — & most heartily do I add Amen to your prayer.
I wrote some short time back to Strachey intending to renew our <a> correspondence with one
whom I could have wishd to still think my friend — the expressions I usd at
least blamed myself as much as him — I am sorry I kept no copy to send you — the
answer I have just received & you have it —
Dear Southey — Yours bearing date the 11th came to hand in
the beginning of last week. from my having taken so long a time to consider of
it, you will naturally conjecture that I have been at loss for an answer. indeed
your letter is nearly unintelligible, but from the little I have been able to
decypher you seem to hint (& that not very obliquely) that our
Correspondence owes its interruption to me. if such is your meaning to say the
least your insinuation is unjust. had you impartially
considerd the matter, your justice must have condemnd yourself only. but surely
Selfishness should not so far have made you forgetfull of all Modesty as to deny
even a share of the blame when you are entitled to the whole. with the same
Justice with the same Modesty that you cast the burden from yourself you throw
it upon me. But you mistake me Southey. I am no Pack-horse. you have been
travelling up & down the country from Bristol to Oxford from Oxford to
Bristol & I know not whither — pray how was I to discover your direction
even if I thought a letter from me would have proved agreeable? I thank you for
your enquiries by Lamb &
Collins — if you really
thought proper to consider the Correspondence as droppd surely a verbal message
could never be calculated to renew it, & your last letter much less so.
after the coolness which had taken place at Westminster (of which perhaps the
Flagellant was the cause) you might have been certain that the first must have
appeard haughty to any one — but your Favour of last
week was so in an higher degree tho’ half conceald under an affected humility.
However gratified I might have been with the continuance of your Correspondence
yet I must not forget what is due to myself as to accept even a pleasure when
offerd in so Cavalier-like a manner. — yet tho I must decline the
Correspondence* — thus offerd — I trust I never shall consider Southey in any
other light than that of affection & esteem — so I may sign myself with
all sincerity yr constant well wisher George Strachey.
* these words written after on the other side.
This is exactly his letter markd with —— as in the original I send you now my answer. when his letter reachd me I had just begun an ode to Phillis my spaniel. I finishd it & immediately wrote as follows
Dear George I have
only taken a few minutes to consider your letter (tho it would admit of
consideration whether I ever ought to notice it or not) my answer to every
paragraph is so easy that (tho I really think think you neither expected or wishd to hear more of me) I could not
refrain giving it. let me first say it required some time
to persuade yourself that your charges in that letter were upon any score
justifiable.
you throw the whole blame upon me in recrimination. I kept no
copy of my letter to your therefore cannot speak positively but I do not think I
did entirely exculpate myself then, I do now. go back to last Xmas — the only
notice you then took of me was to send a note to Wynn. with regard to the
Flagellant, your prudence I highly commend. your behaviour with regard to every
other tie you cannot approve yourself. availing yourself of that knowledge which
my credulous friendship had given you & of that exemption which your
inconsistency & insincerity had procured you, you amused yourself at
school in sporting with that knowledge till you had made every one guess at the
truth & not content with that, without regard to any promise you
mentioned my name to Rough. — the
fact is this Strachey you were
tired of one who ever scrupled to tell you of your faults — may they never
occasion you more regret than you feel at the loss of my friendship — the excuse
of not knowing my direction is so very flimsy, that I wonder at your inserting
it even among others so very unjustifiable. supposing that you had forgotten it
with as much facility as you had me Collins
Lamb
Combe or Bedford could have given
it you. even had they not you must have known that the old direction would find
me. I wrote to you without knowing where you were
You talk of what is due to yourself. I conceive your meaning.
state the case however with that impartiality of the want of which in my letter
you so much complain. you had acted ungenerously & unkindly to me. I
wrote to you, perhaps in an angry stile, such you deservd but I offerd to renew
our correspondence, an offer which I now think I ought not to have made in any
manner. you reply that I am solely in fault, talk of what is due to yourself
& decline the correspondence — the words “thus offerd” wrote afterwards
are meant only to appear as palliating. Was you not certain
that the Flagellant occasioned the coolness on my part? can you forget that your
idleness first checkd our correspondence? can you say that you knew not my
direction? I will save you the trouble of answering these queries — you wanted
to shake the blame on me. you were conscious of a behaviour equally ungenerous
& unjust, & in the space of ten days composd an artful letter to
which you never imagined I would have returned an answer.
I have now done with reminding you of your faults — it is a hateful task & for twelve months my intercourse with you has been little more. that intercourse is now over for ever. not without regret on my part, on yours it will be treated with the same levity you display upon every subject.
your well wisher Robert Southey.
I think Bedford will not disapprove of my conduct. I have done with Strachey for ever. will you show this to Collins he knows much of his behavior with respect to the Fl. to him I owd respect. I have twice written to apologize for my former neglect as yet he has answered neither letter. if those apologies are not sufficient you may make as many more as you think proper. the firm consistency of his conduct deserves them —
Yours which you directed to Oxford reached me after my last was dispatched — how you could direct there when in my recent letter I mentioned the day of my departure I am little able to guess — still less so how it could ever find me at so great a distance. you say it is difficult to answer a letter that requires no answer — out of thine own mouth will I convict thee. I had beggd your Chartreuse verses in October they reach me on the 20th of November & at the same time that you send them you tell me mine required no answer. I am much obliged to you for them & for your Horace some stanzas of which I much like, but some of the verses are rough a fault which the transp[MS torn]tion of a few words would rectify — take my translation
You seem to expect something beside this translation — as I am ignorant of what you want I send you this epistle as an equivalent — if however you will mention in your next any production of mine it is much at your service
Berenice to Titus
__________
________________
Upon second thoughts I do not think Stracheys letter deserves any answer at all. I will not yet send it if I ever do —
you will be puzzled I fear to read this vile writing as well as tired but it will be some time before you hear again from me.
remember to your
brother & little Joseph. if your brother will come with you to the Installation
& put up with such inconveniences as the season
will permit I shall be very glad to see him —