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Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, University of Texas, Austin. Previously published: Charles Ramos, The Letters of Robert Southey to John May: 1797–1838 (Austin, Texas, 1976), pp. 49–50.
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.
All quotation marks and apostrophes have been changed: " for “," for ”, ' for ‘, and ' for ’.
Any dashes occurring in line breaks have been removed.
Because of web browser variability, all hyphens have been typed on the U.S. keyboard.
Dashes have been rendered as a variable number of hyphens to give a more exact rendering of their length.
Southey's spelling has not been regularized.
Writing in other hands appearing on these manuscripts has been indicated as such, the content recorded in brackets.
& has been used for the ampersand sign.
£ has been used for £, the pound sign
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We arrived here on Tuesday night – to meet ill news &
discomfort. Edith glanced her eye
upon a newspaper & saw that Tom
was a prisoner at Ferrol.Sylph, on which Tom
Southey was serving, had been captured and was at the Spanish port
of Ferrol.
To day the sunshine & I am in hopes that the flood gates are
shut & the deluge abating. the country exhibits a sad appearance. here the
marshes are flooded of course, this does no harm & makes by moonlight a
scene of magnificent dreariness. it impressed me much on my arrival – the ruins
& church by moonlight & the waters out – & the sky stormy &
wild, the moon rolling among scattering clouds. & the xxxxx x the rush of the waters now mingling with
the wind, now heard alone.
In the winter I hope to see you here. the circumstance that detains you in town is an affecting one. death is a strange thing – life & death are both mysteries, which it is well to contemplate that we may feel our own littleness. it is wonderful how we use words & understand them not – or not below the surface of their meaning.
I did not leave Exeter without some reluctance. in no strange
place did I ever experience more kindness. there is a painter & his wife
there
Will you be good enough to remit the remainder of my mothers money here. the old direction – Burton near Ringwood. this indeed was the purport of my writing. I must now to work & to get settled as soon as possible. this state of laborious idleness is the most unpleasant in the world.