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National Library of Wales, MS 4811D. Previously published: John Wood Warter (ed.), Selections from the Letters of Robert Southey, 4 vols (London, 1856), I, pp. 66–68 [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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My last letter which was written before I received your
accusation of laziness will I think acquit me of it. Queen Mary& make Tarquin
The difficulty I find in every subject that has occurred to me is
to make enough of it. I cannot wire-draw a subject story. this will seem odd to you who think me prolix &
dilated. however in Queen Mary there is enough I have no other doubt respecting
it but that of its suiting the feelings of an audience. there will be no
clap-traps. no loyalty − nothing about Britannia rule the waves. & however
orthodox my sufferers may be, they were dissenter then − & that will be
sorely against them.
The theatrical taste of the public is certainly very bad. & but the managers are more to blame than the
public. they never give them an opportunity of supporting any thing good. they
bring forward Boadens Tragedies & Reynolds’s Comedies!
Your story of the old man dying at Elizabeths
You know I am fond of Monodramas. the dramatic turn which my
thoughts have for some time taken, has suggested to me the thought of narrating
in <dialogue> poems not much longer, such historical, or other, facts which <as> would make noble scenes
only.
The German plays have always something ridiculous − yet
Kotzebued Jacobinical feelings − almost irresistibly − in
every one that I have yet seen (Benyowsky excepted) some old prejudice or old
principle is attacked. there is a very good comedy of his lately translated −
the Reconciliation. full of those quick strokes of feeling that like Sterne
The Song of which I had the credit
I do not continue to mend. the Spring has been too cold as yet. We have no news of Ediths brother − & little hope of any except that he may be a prisoner.