Material from the Romantic Circles Website may not be downloaded, reproduced or disseminated in any manner without authorization unless it is for purposes of criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, and/or classroom use as provided by the Copyright Act of 1976, as amended.
Unless otherwise noted, all Pages and Resources mounted on Romantic Circles are copyrighted by the author/editor and may be shared only in accordance with the Fair Use provisions of U.S. copyright law. Except as expressly permitted by this statement, redistribution or republication in any medium requires express prior written consent from the author/editors and advance notification of Romantic Circles. Any requests for authorization should be forwarded to Romantic Circles:>
By their use of these texts and images, users agree to the following conditions:
Users are not permitted to download these texts and images in order to mount them on their own servers. It is not in our interest or that of our users to have uncontrolled subsets of our holdings available elsewhere on the Internet. We make corrections and additions to our edited resources on a continual basis, and we want the most current text to be the only one generally available to all Internet users. Institutions can, of course, make a link to the copies at Romantic Circles, subject to our conditions of use.
Princeton University Library, Robert H. Taylor Collection, Box 17. Previously published: John Wood Warter (ed.), Selections from the Letters of Robert Southey, 4 vols (London, 1856), I, pp. 101–104; Adolfo Cabral (ed.), Robert Southey: Journals of a Residence in Portugal 1800–1801 and a Visit to France 1838 (Oxford, 1960), pp. 71–72 [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
All other characters, those with accents, non-breaking spaces, etc., have been encoded in HTML entity decimals.
Before my departure from England I proceed to
state to you all my arrangements, as far as they are made.
first as to pecuniary matters reviewing of course must be
suspended, & I have for some months ceased writing for
the news-paper,na name Elmsly)
understanding from Wynn that I was going abroad, immediately offered
me, thro him, an hundred pounds: a sum which will defray the
expences of the journey, the voyage, & the personal
expences necessary to clothe us for a twelvemonths absence. this
done, my annual income remains, f £160.xxx there
will be also from ten to twenty pounds due from the Critical
Review, which I shall direct to be paid to you. – I shall
send over my Thalaba for publication from Lisbon – this will
assuredly, tho I reserve the afte copyright of the after editions, produce
£100. Some one of my friends,
My brother Harry –
this is the most awkward circumstance. I had been looking on
to a house in London where he could have had a home when he
left Mr Maurice. Harry was
sixteen in January last – I know not how he can be better
situated – or indeed
otherwise situated, than where he is.
My Mother will remain with her sister. I wished her to have passed the summer at Burton – where she might easily have found some acquaintance to have accompanied her, & shared her house-keeping expences. she is never happy with her sister – a miserable women with whom no one can be happy. nothing <unpleasant> but this recollection will accompany me.
My worldly affairs, in case of death, are
easily arranged. a copy of Madocxxxxx but if my Mother
will not live with Edith, the little annuity that may be raised must
not be lessened by the smallest part going into the College
Green. My two younger brothersprocure continue – or procure
them friends, & their abilities remain a better
inheritance than wealth.
Thus much for all that is of importance. we purpose setting off for Falmouth on the Thursday in the next week. but it is possible that I may not receive the money for my journey &c by that time. it passes thro Wynns hand & he may not then be in London. Edith is unwell – & I think of a journey to Falmouth on that account with unpleasant forebodings. I believe <a good> climate is almost as essential to her health as to my own.
In a few days you will receive the second
Annual Anthology;