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Bristol Reference Library, B28505. Previously published: Charles Cuthbert Southey (ed.), Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey, 6 vols (London, 1849–1850), I, pp. 190–191 [in part; 1 paragraph].Dating note: The letter is possibly written over several days from 3–7 November.
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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Ecce iterum — not Crispinus
you say in your letter, you was on the point of requesting what
would be too much for you to ask. my dear friend ask freely — if I have ability
to perform it you know I have will & if I have neither I will freely say
so. that you have relinquishd our plan does not surprize me — for myself I have
employment enough with Joan & the Library. how your employments should
take up so much time I know not — I read & write till my eyes ache
& still have Time hanging as heavy as a stone round the neck of a
drowning dog. probably I may visit Devonshire soon & see Lightfoot. he is a good fellow
& will be without the Pot — this place strange as it may sound is to me
most unpleasant — omne solum forti &c
We live in a vile world — the good things are so badly
distributed that Fredericss is born — his infancy is neither embitterd by fashionable nursing
his puberty by absurd education or his life by the anxieties so frequent
& indeed unavoidable in civilized society. his bow & arrows
furnish him with food — he gives the pipe of peace to the stranger &
lives free as the game he pursues — teach him the value of money & the
no-value of every thing else & he becomes miserable
perhaps ten years hence I may laugh at my rhapsodies — when time
has annihilated my feelings & hardend my heart. they wish me at home to
be like other young men — whilst I am ready in the words of the Pharisee to
exclaim ‘I thank thee o God that I am not as other men are.
nineteen years have elapsed since I set sail upon the ocean of
life — in an ill provided boat — the vessel weatherd many a storm & I
took every distant cloud for land — still pushing forward for the Fortunate
Islands till I discoverd that they existed not for me & that like many
others wiser xxx better than myself I must be
content to wander about & never gain the port. nineteen years —
certainly a fourth part of my life — perhaps how great a part! & yet I
have been of no service to society — why the clown who scares crows for two
pence a day is a more useful member of society — he preserves the corn which I
eat in indolence —
these damned dumps will one day drive me mad & draw the
trigger — I have done. send me an account of Hydershear congratulate you as a fellow collegian
very shortly. yesterday is just one year since I enterd my name in the Vice
Chancellors book — it is a year of which I would wish to forget
<the> transactions could I only remember their effect. my mind has
been very much expanded — my hopes I trust extinguishd — so adieu to Hope Fear
but not to Folly — I must trifle away time.
I shall soon write to Grosvenor. remember me to Harry when you see him & to Kate — never tell me that Man is naturally vicious look at children & see how easily kindness begets esteem & love — but — why will it not when the child is grown up — God bless you.
I have half a letter written to C Collins.
I am reading Adam Smith on the Wealth of Nations.