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British Library, Add MS 47888. Previously published: Charles Cuthbert Southey (ed.), Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey, 6 vols (London, 1849–1850), II, pp. 15–17 [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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Your letter my dear Edith reached me not till late last evening –
& it could hardly have arrived more opportunely – for it was on my return
from a visit to a Mr Boltbyxx they
gave up all defence & asked for some substituted name & Carlisle changed him for Count
Rumford.
I have not seen Mr Peacock.rs Opie,r Mott of Cambridge whom you remember, & Miss
Christall.
The Almanach shows me a lucky mistake in my calculations. I shall
be home on the 28th instead of the 29th.
I do little here but read. for Stuart I have written one only
letterm Taylor has written to me from Norwich & sent me Bodmers Noah
Carlisle has some fine
speculations that I must not talk about. he has a pupilCarlisles him
& me too – for his hair was a little ragged & I had not silk stockings
on. he made them ashamed of this at dinner. never did you see any thing so
hideous as their dresses. they were pink muslin with
white-pocket-handkerchief-round-little spots. waists down God knows how far –
& xx buttoned from the neck down to the end
of the waist – with a bosom protuberance before as ugly as the old
fortifications – or merry thoughts – or what-dye callums that made the women
drink over the shoulders. I could have kickd them for their fool fashions.
Well Edith – here have I written you a letter full of nothing –
nor have I ought to say save the endless repetition that I am home sick – that I
want to be with you – & often as this has been repeated I believe you are as
little weary of hearing as I am of repeating it. the news of the day is that
Buonaparte is doing wonders, & the Pacha who wrote that letter to denounce
his vengeance on “Buonaparte, whom God curse.” as he said, has been by the Turks
own account “miserably defeated.”
I look for another letter from you. there is pleasure in
expecting, in receiving & in remembering one. supper time now approaches
& then thank God comes bed time – & I have had walk enough to be
somewhat sleepy. to my mother I
will write & to Cottle. I have
also Carlisles advice for Wm Reid.t Pauls you already know my
judgement if you have received my last which stupidly enough I had franked to
Bristol. but probably it will follow you remember me to your sister & to Moses whom I should very
gladly see again, but God knows when that will be.