The Collected Letters of Robert Southey. Part 2: 1798-1803 A Romantic Circles Electronic Edition Southey, Robert, 1774-1843 Lynda Pratt Romantic Circles General Editor, Neil Fraistat General Editor, Steven E. Jones Technical Editor Laura Mandell 2011-08-15 rce427 letterEEd.26.418 Romantic Circles, http://www.rc.umd.edu, University of Maryland College Park, MD August 15, 2011

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. Previously published: John Wood Warter (ed.), Selections from the Letters of Robert Southey, 4 vols (London, 1856), I, p. 73.

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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 NINES categories for Genre and Material Form at http://www.performantsoftware.com/nines_wiki/index.php/Submitting_RDF#.3Cnines:genre.3E on 2009-02-26 Architecture Artifacts Bibliography Collection Criticism Letters Drama Life Writing Politics Folklore Ephemera Fiction History Leisure Manuscript Reference Works Humor Education Music nonfiction Paratext Perodical Philosphy Photograph Citation Family Life Poetry Religion Review Visual Art Translation Travel Book History Law Southey Letters: Biographies Southey Letters: Places Laura Mandell XSLT Transforming after latest corrections Laura Mandell XSLT Transforming Averill Buchanan corrections from proofing Averill Buchanan Part II added
418. Robert Southey to Charles Watkin Williams Wynn, [24 June] 1799 Address: To/ CWW Wynn Esqr/ 5 Stone Buildings/ Lincolns Inn/ LondonPostmarks: BRISTOL JUN 25 99; FREE JU 26 99; B/ JU 26/ 99Endorsement: June 25/ 99MS: National Library of Wales, MS 4811DPreviously published: John Wood Warter (ed.), Selections from the Letters of Robert Southey, 4 vols (London, 1856), I, p. 73. Monday. Midsummer day. 1799 My dear Wynn

I seize a leisure minute & a disfurnished <room> room or what the Dutch would call an ungemeubeleerde kamer,The Dutch translates as ‘unfurnished room’. to write to you. we are in all the bustle of quitting house, I go the latter end of the week to Burton to see the place which has been taken for us there & superintend the necessary alterations. it will not I suppose be quite a palace, for the rent is to be 8 guineas. but I expect to make it thoroughly comfortable.

I had neglected to write so long that the very recollection has half kept me silent. since my return my health has continued better. My poems (the first volume) are again going to Press.A third edition of Southey’s 1797 collection Poems. The poems mentioned in the rest of the paragraph had all appeared in the first and second editions, both published in 1797. The third edition appeared later in 1799. you were to point out alterations in the Hymn to the Penates. I think of removing the two odes on New Years Day & December, because they will make a part of the KalendarSouthey’s planned – but unexecuted – project for a series of poems based on the calendar. hereafter, & in their place inserting the Retrospect cut down to half its present length. I wish Donica could be mended − it is a very fine story & I have made a very indifferent ballad of it. Mary too does not half please me. there is an Irish word in the last stanza which has annoyed me when ever I have remembered it − engages the eye.Southey did not carry out any of these proposed changes to the third edition of his Poems (1797). − Of the other Poems the best need no correction, & the worst deserve none.

think of the Penates will you & propose your corrections − in the mean time receive this as an apology, & a promise of a longer & leisure letter.

God bless you. yrs truly. R Southey.