Material from the Romantic Circles Website may not be downloaded, reproduced or disseminated in any manner without authorization unless it is for purposes of criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, and/or classroom use as provided by the Copyright Act of 1976, as amended.
Unless otherwise noted, all Pages and Resources mounted on Romantic Circles are copyrighted by the author/editor and may be shared only in accordance with the Fair Use provisions of U.S. copyright law. Except as expressly permitted by this statement, redistribution or republication in any medium requires express prior written consent from the author/editors and advance notification of Romantic Circles. Any requests for authorization should be forwarded to Romantic Circles:>
By their use of these texts and images, users agree to the following conditions:
Users are not permitted to download these texts and images in order to mount them on their own servers. It is not in our interest or that of our users to have uncontrolled subsets of our holdings available elsewhere on the Internet. We make corrections and additions to our edited resources on a continual basis, and we want the most current text to be the only one generally available to all Internet users. Institutions can, of course, make a link to the copies at Romantic Circles, subject to our conditions of use.
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. 206–207 [where it is dated 28 May 1794].
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
All other characters, those with accents, non-breaking spaces, etc., have been encoded in HTML entity decimals.
I am writing to you upon a subject which you little imagine — but which is the hinge on which my future destiny will turn. you know my objections to orders & the obstacles to any other profession. tis now my wish to be in the same office with you. on this business I spoke yesterday to Wynn. opened him to my views in life. that such was my wish when settled with a small sufficiency in any office where I earnd my salary — to marry shortly & depend for the less necessary agreables of life upon my writings. Wynn much approved all the plan but wished me to remain single at least a year. he likewise thought there would be little difficulty in obtaining such a situation. do my dear Grosvenor give me some information upon this topic. I speak to you without apologizing — you will serve me if you can & tell me if you cannot. it would be a great object to be in the same office with you.
in this plan of life the only difficulty is obtaining such a place. & for this my hopes rest on Wynn & you. in case of success I shall joyfully bid adieu to Oxford. settle myself in some oeconomical way of life — & when I know my situation, unite myself to a woman whom I have long esteemd as a sister & for whom I now indulge a warmer sentiment.
tis an interesting interval when future happiness hangs in the scale ‘& the balance yet trembles with Fate’.
Write to me soon. I am sanguine in my expectations. if you can procure my admission — promotion is a secondary concern tho of that I have hopes. my pen will be my chief dependance. in that situation where a small income secures from want — interest will urge me to write but independance secure me from writing so as to injure my reputation. even the prospect of settling honestly in life has relieved my mind from a load of anxiety.
in this plan of life every thing appears within the bounds of probability. the hours devoted to official attendance even if entirely taken up by business would pass with the idea that I was doing my duty & honestly earning my subsistence. if they should not be fully occupied I can pursue my own studies — & should I be fortunate enough to be in the same office with you it would be equally agreable to both. what situation can be pleasanter than that which places me with all my dearest friends.
I would write more were not my mind so fully occupied upon this one subject. God bless you. may our correspondence soon cease in the more agreable communication of personal intercourse.