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Bodleian Library, MS Eng. Lett. c. 22. Previously published: Charles Cuthbert Southey (ed.), Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey, 6 vols (London, 1849–1850), I, pp. 197–199 [in part; misdated 22 Dec 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.
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and now to the subject of your letter. recollect Horace that Love is a perishable passion & however we may paint its immortality with the vivid colors of youth — must ultimately mellow with friendship. I say must — for it is physically impossible that it should endure. Honor my dear friend is everlasting & immortal & inspires that conscious dignity which will dilate the soul when the less pure flame of Love shall have consumed itself. past errors are always the best future guides. a strong head & a good heart have almost miraculously rescued you from vice & folly — you have experience at eighteen — a constitution naturally good which exercise will brace. tho you have errd that error is reparable. I am more & more convinced that Oxford would be of essential service to you — solitude is the mother of melancholy — hourly experience tells me so too forcibly. the college life is not what I delight in — female society is wanting there but any damnd soul would be happy to avoid hell by flying to purgatory & so I look forward with comparative pleasure to Balliol. indeed with positive pleasure when I reflect that I am going to a society of men who are temperate & liberal — who return my friendship for them & perhaps expect our meeting with the same pleasure felt by me. Seward resides with us six months longer & that <as being> unexpected is doubly agreable. you will seldom Horace find a better acquaintance not to mention your friends at XChurch or mine at Corpus.
I have accomplishd a most arduous task. transcribing all my verses that appear worthy the trouble (except letters). of these I took one list. another of my pile of stuff & nonsense & a third of what I have burnt & lost, upon an average 10-000 verses are burnt & lost — the same number preservd — & 15-000 worthless consider that all my letters are excluded & you may judge what waste of paper I have occasiond. three years yet remain before I can become any way settled in life & during that interval my object must be to pass each hour in employment. the million would say I must study divinity — the Bishops would give me folios to peruse little deeming that to me every blade of grass & every atom of matter is worth all the fathers. I can bear a retrospect — but when I look forward to taking orders a thousand dreadful ideas crowd at once upon my mind. oh Horace my views in life are surely very humble — I ask but honest independance & that never will be my lot.
I have many epistolary themes in embryo. your brothers next will probably be upon the advantages of long noses & the recent service mine accomplished in time of need — philosophy & folly take me by turns — I spent three hours one night in last week in cleaving an immense piece of old oaken timber — without axe hatchet or wedges. the chopper was our instrument one piece of wood wedged another & a third made the hammer of death — Shad liked it as well as myself so we finishd the job & fatigued ourselves. on Sunday night I amused myself after writing your letter with taking profiles. to day I shall dignify my own & Shads with pasteboard — marbled border & a bow of green ribbonds — to hang up in my collection room. by the by this is an excellent method of taking likenesses it hides all defects <botts &c.>
the more I see of this strange world the more I am convinced that
society requires desperate remedies. the friends I have (& you know me
to be cautious in chusing them) are many of them struggling with obstacles which
never could happen were man what Nature intended him. a torrent of ideas burst
upon my mind when I reflect upon this subject — in the hours of sanguine
expectation these reveries are agreable but more frequently the visions of
futurity are dark & gloomy — & the only ray enlivening the scene
beams on America. you see I must fly from thought. to day I begin Cowpers
Homer
so now to conclude let me hear from you soon. remember me to all
friends — & you <may> give my compliments to my
correspondent Mr Miles
now for my ode in an excellent mood.