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British Library, Add MS 47890. Previously published: Kenneth Curry (ed.), New Letters of Robert Southey, 2 vols (London and New York, 1965), I, pp. 259-262.
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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The travellers reached us on Monday evening.
they had delayed their journey till the bad weather & so
were obliged to come half the way with four horses. My Mother
bore the journey exceedingly well – no good symptom this –
& indeed she is far worse than I had expected. Carlisle has
been to visit her – she has faith in him – & faith works
wonders. he thinks it an even chance that she may get thro
the winter. so long ago as when he saw her at Westbury he thought
her consumptive, & wonders she has lived till now. it is
at least a satisfaction that she has every possible comfort
& alleviation – poor Margaret had
none! – This cursed disease is I now see a family one – an
Uncle
God bless your good Mother!
– I am writing on the noble desk & the noble carpet –
equally delighted with the polish of the one & the
colours of the other. the hearse is admirable. I wish that was unnecessary – that in a house
I might draw out my papers in battle array – & my
boards, & have a table made for my carpet – & write
more luxuriously than ever did Poet before me. this vagabond
life will not last very long. if at the years end Corry & I
should part – & I should be again afloat – I sho will then go to Keswick – to the same
house with Mrs Coleridge & economize
there – almost indifferent whether any advancement in life
should remove me or not. We should be magnificently lodged
for 25£ a year – & my annual expences if settled there –
would not outrun 150£. an odd scheme for a Secretary you
will say – & yet it is my favourite one & seems most probable.
I am of no use whatever to Corry – my place
is actually a sinecure – & he will find me too expensive
a part of his establishment – if he ever thought of making
me a statesman – I never thought of it, & he must easily
discover my unfitness. One conversation is enough for that.
not for any thing opposite to his own opinions which he
hears – an old Jacobine & a new Ministerialist
necessarily now talk the same language. both say peace on
any terms – the success of Bonapartecould have been done sooner –
but I have never yet been a free agent.
Davy has paid me two morning visits. one the first day of my entering the lodgings – & before I had got in, so that we did not meet. the silent estrangement which I foresaw is growing between us – his regard for & attachment to me grew up briskly – but the thorns have choaked it. this is in the natural course of things – our habits of life & of thinking & of study grow more & more dissimilar. it is not a thing to wonder at – hardly to regret. Coleridge & he have a knot of union in their metaphysics. a foul weed that poisons whatever it clings to. I have been so accustomed to some glaring folly or fault in almost every one with whom it has been my lot to be connected, that of necessity I am all-tolerant.
Thursday – I should have finished &
dispatched this yesterday, but on my return from a walk – a
head ache had so increased as to disable me for the day.
My
Mother had a good night – her fever is removed,
& we have contrived to keep her feet warm at night.
these are alleviations – & that is something. Edith – God
bless her! – is a kind & watchful nurse – I wish she
were better herself. certainly she never is so well in
London as she is in any other place. today Corry has found
out an employment for his Secretary – to attend his son
Burnett is
employed thro Coleridge in the easiest way – yet I doubt his
ability. merely to glean the French
papers & Peltiers ‘Paris’
Hamilton
Wynn has left
town & cut off my supply of franks – a vexatious loss. I
have been fortunate in my old-book-hunting, not so much to
Ediths joy
as to my own. Our Cintra friend Miss Barker has
been with us – she is coming to spend the winter with
Charlotte Smith
Your politics about Corrys removal are
quite unfounded. the Assize of Breadtalk with the old aristocrats
& act with the Amenders. yet this
is what he is at. Gray is bargaining.