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Bodleian Library, MS Don.D3. Previously published: Charles Cuthbert Southey (ed.), Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey, 6 vols (London, 1849-1850), I, pp. 341–343 [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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& has been used for the ampersand sign.
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I thank you for your ode of Anacreon.th & 5th lines. an old woman cannot read them
out of the proper cadence. indeed this is correct enough in the whole ode except
in the word changed which is too commonly made two syllables to be stand at the
in an Anacreontic as one.
I think this metre much improved to an English ear by sometimes
ending a line with a long syllable instead of a trochee. this you will see
regularly done in the following translation from the Spanish of Villegas.
____
Danvers is about to send a parcel to Burnett in which you will find a letter from your Mother & a guinea & half – enough to buy a hat & some stockings. the stockings you had better buy at Nottingham. I have written to Burnett by the same conveyance.
We are now tolerably settled at Martin-hall. I have laboured much in making it comfortable, & comfortable it now is. our sitting room is large, with three windows, & two recesses once windows, but now converted into book-cases, with green baize hanging half way down the books as in the College Green. the room is papered with cartridge paper bordered with yellow vandykes edged with black. I have a good many books tho not all that I want, as many of my most valuable ones are lying in London. I shall be very glad to get settled in a house at London, where I may collect all my chattels together & move on contentedly for some dozen years in my profession.
You will find little difficulty either in Anacreon or in Homer, the language will soon become familiar to you, & you will I hope apply yourself to it with assiduity. I remember William Taylor promised to give you some instruction in German when you were well enough acquainted with the ancient languages to begin the modern ones. I need not tell you how valuable such instruction would be, or how gladly I should avail myself of such an opportunity were it in my power. It is of very great advantage to a young man <to> be a good linguist; he is more respected & may be more useful; his sources of pleasure are increased, & what in the present state of the world is to be considered, in case of necessity he has additional means of supporting himself. the languages Harry which I learnt almost as an amusement have considerably contributed, & still in some degree do contribute to my support.
You will send me your other translations from Anacreon & in
return I will always send you some piece which you had not before seen. I wish
you would sometimes on a fine evening walk out, & write as exact a
description of the sunset – & the appearances of every thing around as you
can. you would find it a pleasant employment, & I can assure you it would be
a very useful one. I should like you to send me some of these sketches – not of
sunset only, but of any natural scene. if you have Ossian
I should have sent you a copy of Joan of Arc