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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. 162–163 [in part; dated 1792].
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 ought certainly to have returned you my best thanks as well for your letters as your giving up the Flagellant. I would have wrote sooner but I have no longer the consolation of having acted either properly or consistently — what had happened from malice & tyranny I could bear but when I have stooped to mean<n>ess & falshood I cannot find that pride in reflection necessary to comfort. I look upon myself with contempt & fly from the hideous retrospect. Bedford I have been obliged to write to Vincent to confess myself wrong — I deserve to be despised I deserve to be shunned but I do not think you will despise me — more than once have I approachd the very brink of destruction still however I live in the hope of revenge & that hope is the only thing which can render life supportable.
your last leaves me in an unpleasant suspense you have some virtuous &c action to tell me — accustomed as we are to such complicated meanness & villany it must be something very bad to surprize me — I am not quite eighteen & few men of eighty have been more persecuted — but disappointment & misery are the portion of all my family & I must bear my part — were I to lay open the whole history of these misfortunes you would think it scarcely credible, still less so that I could survive them — hope & the firm dignity of conscious merit have hitherto supported me, the last of these is gone — I am despicable in my own eyes & criminal in those of my friends where then can I look for assistance — hope can bring little.
the Flagellant is gone — still however do I think that our joint production may acquire some credit — the sooner we have a volume <published> the better — the Medley — the Hodge Podge — the Whatdoyoucall it — or to retain our old plan Monastic lucubrations any of these titles or any better you may propose will do. shall we dedicate it to Envy Hatred Malice & all Uncharitableness?
Powerful arbitrators of the minds of men — ye twin sisters who have already honoured us with your marked attention — ye who can convert innocence into treason & shielded by the arm of power remain secure &c &c &c
x shall we dedicate it to the Shade of Elizabeth
Gentlemen
To you in whose breasts neither Envy nor Malice can find a place, who will not be biased by the clamors of popular prejudice nor stoop to the authority of ignorance & power &c &c &c &c
I see no reason why we should not publish pretty soon it will be at least four months before we can prepare it for the press & surely by that time we may venture again upon the world
You like the plan of publishing a volume — what says Wynn? if you think proper Collins may speak to Rough upon the subject but this I leave entirely to you — we can do without him certainly but I think it would be as well to ask him. & as we must delay publishing for some months till we are ready if you can persuade little Collins it will be much better — explain your liberal actions in your next