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British Library, Add MS 30927 . Previously published: Charles Cuthbert Southey (ed.), Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey, 6 vols (London, 1849–1850), I, p. 340 [in part].
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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Southey's spelling has not been regularized.
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Here we are, & you see have christened the house, properly I assure you as the Martins have colonized all round it, & doubly lucky must the house be on which they so build & bemire. We hesitated between the appropriate names of Rat-Hall, Mouse Mansion, Vermin Villa, Cockroach Castle, Cobweb Cottage & Spider Lodge – but as we routed out the spiders, brushd away the cobwebs, stoppd the rat holes, & found no cock-roaches, we bethought us of the animals without & dubbed it Martin-Hall.
I am sorry Tom you could not see us settled. you would like the
old house, & the view from the drawing room &
garden is delightful. we have turned too most notably. but once the house was an
inn or alehouse, & we have had applications to sell beer, & buy a stock
of tobacco pipes. Much has been done & much is yet to do; the rooms are
large, the garden well-stocked, we cut our own cabbages, live upon currant
puddings & shall soon be comfortably settled.
We got your letter from Taunton, there is perhaps another at Cottles, my mother is going to Bristol & will see. We are just beyond the two miles stone. I wish you had been here, you might have been up to your eyes in filth & rubbish.
We are anxious to hear what is become of you. money ran short –
& it was well I had a bank to draw upon. We have put up a bed in the
Admirals
You & Lloyd ornament the great room. I have bespoke some shelves there for my books, & we are about to colour the white-limed walls in watercolours, a pale green, then up go the prints. the shelves are just arrived – – –
[section in Margaret Southey’s hand begins]
My dear Child I long to know how you will proceed so write as soon as you have any thing to tell us – I am now going to see your Aunt.