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 rce635 letterEEd.26.626 Romantic Circles, http://www.rc.umd.edu, University of Maryland College Park, MD August 15, 2011

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MS untraced; text is taken from Robert Galloway Kirkpatrick Jnr, ‘The Letters of Robert Southey to Mary Barker From 1800 to 1826’ (unpublished PhD, Harvard, 1967), pp. 20-21 [where it is dated December 1801]. Previously published: John Wood Warter (ed.), Selections from the Letters of Robert Southey, 4 vols (London, 1856), I, pp. 180–181.Dating note: Miss Barker had visited Southey in London and left by 3 December 1801 (Southey to Danvers 2-3 December 1801, Letter 634). This letter was written in reply to a letter of Mary Barker’s and in expectation of her visit. A date of mid-late November 1801 can therefore be suggested for this letter.

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 ’.

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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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 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
626. Robert Southey to Mary Barker, [mid-late November 1801] Address: To/ Miss Barker.MS: MS untraced; text is taken from Robert Galloway Kirkpatrick Jnr, ‘The Letters of Robert Southey to Mary Barker From 1800 to 1826’ (unpublished PhD, Harvard, 1967), pp. 20-21 [where it is dated December 1801]Previously published: John Wood Warter (ed.), Selections from the Letters of Robert Southey, 4 vols (London, 1856), I, pp. 180–181.Dating note: Miss Barker had visited Southey in London and left by 3 December 1801 (Southey to Danvers 2-3 December 1801, Letter 634). This letter was written in reply to a letter of Mary Barker’s and in expectation of her visit. A date of mid-late November 1801 can therefore be suggested for this letter.

Charlotte SmithCharlotte Turner Smith (1749-1806; DNB), poet and novelist; author, among many other works, of Celestina (1791) and The Old Manor House (1793). I see is better acquainted with John BunyanJohn Bunyan (1628-1688; DNB), author of Pilgrim’s Progress (1678-1684). than with Robert Southey. that she will find out whenever we meet.Mary Barker was an old friend of Charlotte Smith; they spent the winter together in London in 1801-1802. as for panegyric, I never praised living being yet except Mary Wollstonecraft Southey’s ‘To Mary Wollstonecraft’ first appeared in Poems (Bristol, 1797), p. 3. – not even BonaparteNapoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821, First Consul 1799-1804, Emperor of the French 1804-1814). in his honest days. she I perceive still clings to France – but France has played the traitor with Liberty. – Mary Barker – it is not I who have turned round. I stand where I stood looking at the rising sun – & now the sun has set behind me! –

England has mended – is mending – will mend. I have still faith enough in God & hope enough of man. but not of France! Freedom cannot grow up in that hot bed of immorality. that oak must root in a hardier soil – England or Germany. a military despotism! – popery reestablished – the negroes again to be enslaved!Southey mentions Napoleon’s assumption of control in France by a military coup on 9 November 1799, the signature of a Concordat between France and the Papacy in July 1801, and preparations for an expedition, which sailed on 14 December 1801, to re-conquer the French colony of Haiti. – Why had not the man perished before the Walls of AcreNapoleon’s plan to advance from Egypt into Palestine was halted by his failure to take the city of Acre in a siege of March-May 1799. in his greatness & his glory! – I was asked to write a poem upon that defeat, & half tempted to do it because it went to my very heart –

I wish we could offer you a bed – lodgings cramp one sadly. Ediths love. – we are eager to see you –

yrs R Southey.