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British Library, Add MS 30927. Previously published: Charles Cuthbert Southey (ed.), Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey, 6 vols (London, 1849-1850), II, pp. 30–32 [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.
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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For these last three weeks you have been
“poor Tom!” & we have been lamenting the capture of the
Sylph – & expecting a letter from you dated
“Ferrol”.Sylph,
on which Tom
Southey was serving, had been captured and was
at the Spanish port of Ferrol.
Five weeks were we at Exeter – I wrote to you
directing Torbay – & I walkd round Torbay.Sylph, had not been captured, but had safely
returned to Plymouth after a long cruise; see, for
example,
We are in Hampshire, & shall get into our palace on Wednesday next. you will direct as formerly Burton near Ringwood.
Do you know that your old Captain
Faulkner
So much hope had I of seeing you when I
walked down to Dartmouth & round by Brixham & the
Bay that I put the Annual Anthology
Our dwelling is now in a revolutionary state – & will I trust be comfortable. small it is & somewhat quaint. but it will be clean, but there is a spare bed-room – but there is a pavilion which you know is not always to be found at Burton. & a fishpond, & a garden in which I mean to work wonders. & then my book room is such a room that like the Chapter House at Salisbury it requires a Column to support the roof. Tom I wish Portsmouth instead of Plymouth were your rendezvous then we might look to see you.
But you ought to have been taken Tom – for consider how much uneasiness has been thrown away – & here were we on seeing your handwriting expecting a long & lamentable tone & particular account of the loss of the Ville de Paris – the lapelles – the new shirts, books & all the Lieutenant-paraphernalia – & then comes a pitiful account of a cruise & 100 £ prize money instead of all these adventures!
Here was my Mother working away to make a new shirt thinking you would come home shirtless & breechesless, stinking garlick out of every pore – all oil! one great flea bite – & able to talk Spanish.
My Mother
will write speedily, I am scrawling in haste that we may not
lose the post. when will there be a hope of seeing you? I
have no news to tell except that we expect Harry
home for the Xmas holydays. Concerning my own employments –
the Dom-Daniel Romance is re-christened – anabaptized
Thalaba the Destroyer.employmen more business on your hands.
God bless you. my shaving water is cooling all this while & the dinner waiting. love from Edith & my Mothe[MS obscured]
And now dear Miss hus[MS obscured]