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Huntington Library, HM 44802. Previously published: Roland Baughman, ‘Southey the Schoolboy’, Huntington Library Quarterly, 7 (1944), 276–280 [prose in full, but the verse in part]; Charles Cuthbert Southey (ed.), Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey, 6 vols (London, 1849–1850), I, pp. 188–189 [in part; one paragraph from 7 November 1793 section, which is misdated 30 October 1793].
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
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a long time my dear friend has elapsed since I began my letter
with those villainous verses which can only amuse you from their badness. you
know me too well to suspect me of dispraising myself to gain a compliment. the
lines are bad & I can write better. but Nemo omnibus horis &c.
in this interval however my baggage has arrived & no poor
devil at the foot of the gallows was more overjoyd at a reprieve than I was at
the recovery. I have begun to transcribe Joan of Arc — read Enfield History of
Philosophy.nd & begun Adam
Smith
Time passed pleasantly at Brixton. the last Sunday Grosvenor went with me to
Maize Hill intending to breakfast
with your good family. I rose in time but you know our friends invincible
indolence. he never left Brixton till
near nine & then with mulish obstinacy would go wrong & put up
the chaise a mile out the way, so that we found your father & mother
drest for church & troubled them for a second breakfast. we returned to
dinner in spite of the friendly intreaties of Mr &
Mrs C & indeed of <our> own wishes
but Grosvenor had
promised to return & as I had prophesied, repented of his promise. the
Doctor was not with
us.
I am in hopes to see Horace at Balliol the next term — he seems
to have fixd his choice unalterably. in fact for what profession is he fit but
the church? at Brixton he is ruining
himself as you well know — contracting habits peevishness &
particularities all which a little society would cure him of. I want to rub him
down — you to perform the same friendly office upon me & Grosvenor upon you — each
sees his neighbours mote — thus wags the world away. when you write to himself <touch> upon this subject
& tell him what service a few years at college would do him. he will
sweat away his consitution & abilities in the collection room unless he
very soon is settled.
if you should happen to meet Burnet I will be much obliged to you to enquire if any letters are expecting me at Balliol. I expect one which I wish much to receive. will you be good enough if you chance to see him, to take the letters & direct them — scratch out the old direction & put Miss Tylers Bristol.
remember me to Wynn & tell him of the Gesta Romanorum which I will bring to Oxford next term. I have much for his perusal. perhaps all my writings are owing to my acquaintance with him he saw the first & I knew the value of his praise too much to despise it — for head & heart I do not know his equal. Wynn will like many parts of my Joan but he will shake his head at the subject, with propriety if I had designd it for publication — but as the amusement of my leisure I heeded no laws but those of inclination. he will be better pleasd to hear I have waded thro the work of correcting & expunging my literary rubbish. there is something very vain in thus writing of myself, but I know the regard which Wynn entertains for me whilst he sees the vanity will make him pleasd with the intelligence.
is Lamb arrived at Oxford — desire his Majesty to give me a little information relative to our friend Tom. I wrote the King a long letter but whether he ever receivd it I know not. his Highness will honour Bath with his presence at Xmas I suppose if so we may perhaps meet. & now when I have enquired for Peckwell & Martin Butt I have run thro the list of my friends
let me hear from you as soon as you can spare time. you have at last if not a rational certainly a harmless letter, & did you know the self satisfaction we felt at our joint production you would certainly endure a little horse raillery for the sake of so delighting your friends.
Grosvenor & I
used to fall out about politics (that is quarrel amicably) he is as visionary as
I am & the old fable of the pot & the kettle may well be applied
to us. as for the Doctor he
would stare thro his spectacles in silence. I must laugh at him upon the subject
& you know how he dreads my raillery — Southey Southey for Gods sake
dont put that in the life &c &c — o nunquam reditura dies!
Horace means to leave off spectacles if he comes to Oxford — he now understands the theory of shortsightedness & talks of it most eruditely — of course we laugh at him — then comes pish fool blockhead contemptible stuff, & I laugh the more. but Horace has a thousand good qualities to counterbalance a few failings occasiond by seclusion. do you know I have almost cured him of rhapsodizing — now you will exclaim Physician cure thyself — I am dosing myself with philosophy & calculations to get rid of the rhapsody fever — & you will see some of this is written in a lucid interval — I am now going out & must dress — laugh at the expression in me — but I must change my cloaths so farewell.
<write in verse since you can no longer>
<plead inability.>