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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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<resp>General Editor, </resp>
<name>Neil Fraistat</name>
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<name>Steven E. Jones</name>
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<resp>General Editor, </resp>
<name>Carl Stahmer</name>
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<publisher>Romantic Circles, http://www.rc.umd.edu, University of Maryland</publisher>
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<date when="2009-02-20">March 15, 2009</date>
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<p>Bodleian Library, MS Eng Lett. c. 453.  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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											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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<head>44. Robert Southey to <ref target="people.html#LightfootNicholas">Nicholas Lightfoot</ref>, <date when="1793-03-25">25 March 1793</date>
<note place="foot" resp="editors" type="headnote">Address: Nich.<hi rend="sup">s</hi> Lightfoot Esq<hi rend="sup">r</hi>/ Ball. Coll/ Oxford/ Single<lb/>Stamped: WORCESTER<lb/>Watermark: Figure of Britannia; WT [or TW?]<lb/>Endorsement: 2/6<lb/>MS: Bodleian Library, MS Eng Lett. c. 453<lb/>Unpublished.</note>
</head>
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<dateline rend="right">
<address>
<placeName>
<ref target="places.html#SapeyW">Sapey.</ref>
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</address>
<date when="1793-03-25">March 25. 1793.</date>
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<lg type="stanza">
<l rend="indent2">Since no mortal on earth could have packd our things better</l>
<l rend="indent2">You deserve at least <ref target="people.html#LightfootNicholas">Lightfoot</ref> the thanks of a letter —</l>
<l rend="indent2">A long one indeed full of thanks — but — God knows</l>
<l rend="indent2">I cannot pack a letter as you pack up cloaths.</l>
<l rend="indent2">As you put a stocking where a shirt will not fit</l>
<l rend="indent2">Could I fill each loophole of sense full of wit</l>
<l rend="indent2">What a letter were mine! but with this be content</l>
<l rend="indent2">Tho’ tis badly performd tis exceeding well meant.</l>
</lg>
<lb/>
<lg type="stanza">
<l rend="indent2">Perhaps you suppose that poor <ref target="people.html#SewardEdmund">Seward</ref> &amp; me</l>
<l rend="indent2">Side by side are fallen down &amp; dead felo-de-se</l>
<l rend="indent2">Or whilst all our unhappy limbs blister &amp; ache</l>
<l rend="indent2">Laid up on the road have found out our mistake.</l>
<l rend="indent2">No, no, no mischances like these can I tell.</l>
<l rend="indent2">Here we are both arrived both alive &amp; both well</l>
</lg>
<lb/>
<lg type="stanza">
<l rend="indent2">We set off Wednesday morn but too lazy were you</l>
<l rend="indent2">To bring us on our journey a furlong or two — </l>
<l rend="indent2">Of Braybrook &amp; Woodstock &amp; Heythrop &amp; Enstone</l>
<l rend="indent2">Of Salford &amp; Kitebrook were tedious to mention</l>
<l rend="indent2">At Morton we slept, miles from you twenty seven</l>
<l rend="indent2">In state apostolic &amp; equal &amp; even.</l>
<l rend="indent2">For when in the morning together we rose</l>
<l rend="indent2">He had seizd all the bed &amp; Id taken the cloaths.</l>
</lg>
<lb/>
<lg type="stanza">
<l rend="indent2">Do not think for a rhyme only I have been cobling</l>
<l rend="indent2">When I ask why old grave one walkd like M<hi rend="sup">r</hi> Hoblyn? </l>
<l rend="indent2">For like him he was. but how you must discover.</l>
<l rend="indent2">And so pray suppose that our breakfast was over.</l>
<l rend="indent2">From Broadway six miles unto Evesham we came</l>
<l rend="indent2">A place much renownd for monastical fame</l>
<l rend="indent2">In grandeur majestic the Gothic piles stand</l>
<l rend="indent2">In age more admird &amp; in ruins more grand.</l>
</lg>
<lb/>
<lg type="stanza">
<l rend="indent2">Memorial where Priesthood once stretchd his fell sway</l>
<l rend="indent2">But Priesthood dear <ref target="people.html#LightfootNicholas">Lightfoot</ref> has seen his best day</l>
<l rend="indent2">The Nation resumes all the long lazy grounds</l>
<l rend="indent2">And the twelve great Apostles melt into half crowns —</l>
<l rend="indent2">Een the old Abbots bones into bullets are made</l>
<l rend="indent2">Which when hurld at the foe but continue his trade</l>
<l rend="indent2">Mid the heretic ranks as they ravage pell mell</l>
<l rend="indent2">And whom he anathematisd hurry to hell.</l>
</lg>
<lb/>
<lg type="stanza">
<l rend="indent2">How often did I all my hungry thoughts please</l>
<l rend="indent2">With devouring in fancy the brown bread &amp; cheese</l>
<l rend="indent2">Like a great carp just taken — expanding his jaws</l>
<l rend="indent2">In the place of good water thin air only draws</l>
<l rend="indent2">So I dreamt of good eating &amp; fed upon air</l>
<l rend="indent2">For me no cameleon most horrible fare.</l>
<l rend="indent2">At last upon Friday we came — o ye powers</l>
<l rend="indent2">That preside over the cheese which your votary devours</l>
<l rend="indent2">(For surely some Numen<note n="1" place="foot" resp="editors">In Roman mythology, the name given to a spirit or deity that presides over a place.</note> presides over the cheese</l>
<l rend="indent2">So give him what name &amp; what virtues you please)</l>
<l rend="indent2">O ye powers ye beheld what I fear to relate</l>
<l rend="indent2">How I eat till I almost had swallowed the plate.</l>
<l rend="indent2">Old Gravity eat quite as hearty as me</l>
<l rend="indent2">And we left off our dinner to fall to our tea.</l>
<l rend="indent2">Thus the French Democrats take one king a head shorter</l>
<l rend="indent2">And set off directly the others to halter,</l>
<l rend="indent2">And as Dumourier<note n="2" place="foot" resp="editors">Charles-Francois du Perier Dumouriez (1739–1823), French General, victor at Jemappes, 1792. After defeat at the battle of Neerwinden in March 1793, he switched allegiance to Austria and her allies.</note> does as old Joshua<note n="3" place="foot" resp="editors">The Old Testament hero, Joshua, who conquered the land of Canaan.</note> of yore</l>
<l rend="indent2">So we eat as you, I &amp; <ref target="people.html#CombeEdward">Combe</ref> once eat before.</l>
</lg>
<lb/>
<lg type="stanza">
<l rend="indent2">To describe as truth wills all the country around</l>
<l rend="indent2">The high towering hill or the well wooded ground</l>
<l rend="indent2">The hoarse stream roughrolling oer each craggy stone</l>
<l rend="indent2">Besprinkled with foam &amp; with green moss oergrown</l>
<l rend="indent2">The house on the bank whence the eyes ample gaze</l>
<l rend="indent2">Oer hills mountains vallies &amp; rivulets strays</l>
</lg>
<lb/>
<lg type="stanza">
<l rend="indent2">All these to describe — indeed <ref target="people.html#LightfootNicholas">Lightfoot</ref> I would</l>
<l rend="indent2">With truth &amp; with elegance too if I could</l>
<l rend="indent2">But here Reason bids me my Rashness restrain</l>
<l rend="indent2">Nor attempt to describe where description were vain.</l>
</lg>
<lb/>
<lg type="stanza">
<l rend="indent2">Let Burke<note n="4" place="foot" resp="editors">Edmund Burke (1729/30–1797; <title level="m">DNB</title>), author of <title level="m">Reflections on the Revolution in France</title> (1790).</note> talk of Freedom &amp; bellow away</l>
<l rend="indent2">Let Reason attend be convinced &amp; obey</l>
<l rend="indent2">Of humility modesty let Bishops preach</l>
<l rend="indent2">And enforce by their lives what their sermons but teach</l>
<l rend="indent2">Let Pitt<note n="5" place="foot" resp="editors">William Pitt, the Younger (1759–1806; <title level="m">DNB</title>), Prime Minister 1783–1801 and 1804–1806.</note> fear to give &amp; his slaves take a bribe</l>
<l rend="indent2">And then I perhaps may attempt to describe</l>
</lg>
<p>this drawing may exercise the speculative abilities of you &amp; <ref target="people.html#LewisRichard">Lewis</ref> till our return.</p>
<p>[Southey adds a rough sketch of the ground plan of the Sewards’ house &amp; garden] </p>
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