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: Kenneth Curry (ed.), New Letters of Robert Southey, 2 vols (London and New York, 1965), I, pp. 53–56; Charles Cuthbert Southey (ed.), Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey, 6 vols (London, 1849–1850), I, pp. 207–208 [in part; 1 paragraph].
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.
Your letter reached me this morning. before I proceed to reply to the objections you raise, tis necessary to mention my reasons for for wishing a situation apparently so opposite to my education & temper. To the church I have many & insuperable objections. upon every religious system I deny the necessity of an etablished faith, & of a religious establishment. upon my own principles I doubt (to say the least) the system my friends destine me to support. & the hope of content in life would induce me to avoid a prospect which leads to starving in creditable celibacy upon 40 pounds a year. such are the reasons that militate against my taking orders. to this I am destined. but two years & a half must intervene before I could forfeit my integrity & self applause for so paltry an income — & two years of dependance to one who already feels & knows himself burthensome to his relations is a long & dreadful period — in no other profession is there a possibility of my engaging. one only way remains to rid myself of such a melancholy view — by procuring some certainty in London which may afford a plausible cause for my residence there & enable me by my own efforts to exist in expectation of future affluence. Grosvenor I will be sincere. there is no alternative I will not prefer to taking orders. I may forfeit happiness but God forbid that I should ever cease to deserve it.
the obstacles you alledge have in no ways altered my determination. is it better that I should suffer inconvenience myself or let my friends suffer it for me? is six hours misery to be preferred to wretchedness of the whole 24? Grosvenor I have only one alternative. some such situation or emigration. tis not the sally of a momentary frenzy that says this. either in six months I fix myself in some honest means of living or I quit my country — my friends — & every fondest hope I indulge, for ever. I may be wretched but never will I be a villain.
what Wynn can do for me he will. he approves most highly of the system I have adopted. the official situation is more an object of temporary convenience than future necessity. I want an obvious reason for abandoning Oxford & a certainty of existence till my own ability allow me to marry. till I have a compentency twere absurd to think of marriage — when I have it twere criminal to think otherwise. my dear friend I both hope & fear that the destiny of another depends on mine. tis easy to live on hope. but if despair be my food I will feed on it in a country where neither my name nor life can be known & where in the society of mechanics I may gradually forget that I was ever qualified for or accustomed to a higher situation.
were I once settled in London I have not the smallest doubt of success. my abilities are only fixd in the principle of Justice. in application they are versatile. I can turn them from one species of composition to another & experience tells me that my success is the same in all. I am above vanity — but I despise the affectation of modest Falshood. — pause for one moment & reflect on my situation. I am <at> present burthensome to my friends & weary of my own reflections — worn out with anxiety & sensibly impaired by the ceaseless agitation that preys upon me. this state can only end in taking orders. on the contrary I have a possibility (& but a possibility) of enjoying the company of my dearest friend & by following my favourite pursuit of ultimately attaining my fondest wishes. the alternative is labour obscurity & emigration. a solitary life embittered by remembrance — & a premature death unalleviated by one comfortable reflection.
do not believe that I can shrink from even this prospect. & do not my dear friend be sorry that I express myself so strongly. you see how I am situated & tis yours to judge how I should act. I know my existence here distresses my relations. think Grosvenor on the hours of anguish which that knowledge must occasion — & judge if any alternative be not preferable.
Wynn has seen your letter. we are neither of thus alterd by its perusal. he will thro his mother apply to Ld Grenville.
I have not told Wynn the alternative remaining. I will not. already is every prejudice & every affection of the human heart against me. but Justice must & shall prevail.
Grosvenor the perusal of this will give you pain. I know it will. but reflect that it is my duty so to act & if I rightly appreciate your character you will be more pleased to see me <your friend> cursed with integrity x than lingering out in negative sufficiency or rioting in affluence which <he> had lost the wish to possess & the power to enjoy. if Wynn can procure me the situation I wish he will.
God bless you my dear friend. when I think of the happiness I might enjoy in your society — & hereafter, in that of her whose happiness must constitute mine — when I think how little would render me so happy — & how probable it is that the very reverse must happen — my soul saddens at the prospect.
no more of the subject. what Wynn can do he will. write to me soon as usual. forbear this topic & believes me however my affections are concenterd there — I can still sufficiently command every passion to philosophize & reason upon indifferent topics.