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.
Duke University Library . Previously published: John Wood Warter (ed.), Selections from the Letters of Robert Southey, 4 vols (London, 1856), I, pp. 56–57.
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 thought I recognized your seal – & it gave me very great pleasure to find myself not forgotten by persons who I often recollect with pleasure & gratitude. Six years have elapsed since I left school, & since last I saw you. All my views in life & many of my opinions have been changed more than once during that period; the result is – that at twenty four I am married, without a want, almost without a wish unsatisfied. Time & Experience have done me much good, & somewhat tamed me: imagine me taller & still thinner than in 1792, & with even spirits which nothing either elevates or depresses, & you will have most of the alterations that the interval has produced.
I have been married two years, according to
the Gipsey prophecy at Norwood,
hitherto we have been obliged to live in lodgings. I have now the prospect of soon enjoying the comforts of a house. at present I am employed in settling my mother, & with her we shall pass the Autumn, for I am sorry to add that my wifes health has obliged us to quit London for the present, & thus interrupted my professional pursuits. I have been alarmed by her indisposition, but she is now better, & indeed my prospects are in every direction brightening. I have had some difficulties, but they are over. necessity joined with inclination to make me an author, & now only the pleasant motive remains. I acquired some money & more reputation. the one soon went, but it supported me when I had no other support. the other I trust will not be lost. I have many plans & great ones to execute should it please God to allow me life & leisure.
The second edition of my best work is lately
published.
I beg my remembrances to all your family. I have often thought of them, & recollected Rye with pleasure. the newspapers have [MS torn] given me some [MS torn] of my old acquaintance in that part of the world. [MS torn] shall hope sometimes to hear of them by a [MS torn] channel.