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British Library, Add MS 30928. Previously published: John Wood Warter, Selections from the Letters of Robert Southey, 4 vols (London, 1856), I, pp. 183-186 [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.
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I have delayed writing some time in the hope of recovering your last letter. its loss cannot be attributed to misdirection. a large packet from Rickman has never reached me. by the same post he wrote under cover to Corry inclosing a forty pounds bill – else that also had gone. – If King will house the boxes I shall be greatly obliged to him – it vexes & hurts me that you should be troubled for my account on all sides.
My Mother does not mend. a bowel
complaint this last week has much alarmed me. it is tamed, but a very very
little would now destroy her. Edith
& her sister are wholly employed
in nursing. two days she kept her bed, & she must not leave her room till a
great amendment takes place. I am a good deal there – to the still further
lessening of my little leisure. tho she certainly is not consumptive, the decay
is so total that I hardly can hope her recovery. Edith is miserably & vexatiously
depressed in spirits. my Mothers
are very good – uncommonly good. she suffers no pain, & is even chearful.
only at times she regrets having left Bristol – because she should have liked to
have been buried with my father. yet if the xxxxx <winter> should not relapse to its severity we may yet
make her weather it out xx xxx xxx – & in
the summer take out a new lease. there is no dangerous disease about her – nor
has she reached is her age great.
I am very desirous to see the Catalogue – because my Uncle has bought so many
books since my return, that now when a work comes in my way, I do not venture at
the hap-hazard to purchase it. my inclinations more & more lead me towards
history – & that pursuit again is continually stimulating me by its abundant
subject, to poetry. I have a treaty on foot – to write in the Courier
Miss Barker is at last settled in
town for the winter, with Charlotte Smith,xx common feelings – than most literary women.
tho she has done more, & done better than other women writers, it has
<not> been her whole employment – she is not looking out for admiration
& talking to show off. I see in her none of the nasty little envies &
jealousies common enough among the cattle – what she likes – she likes with
judgement & feeling, & praises warmly. – Lamb & his sister see us often. he is
printing his playhour after supper. one night Lamb was at Godwins
with the Mr Fellpick carried off his
rum – brandy – sugar – picked his pockets of every thing – & made off in
triumph. Godwin is in a way to
marry a widow with one child.
This is a wretched place for books. buy indeed you can – but
there is no other way of procuring them, & buying <by wholesale> does
not suit the buy a retail purchaser. at Bristol
your society & your Library ticket procured me the
sight of a tolerable supply – here I have only the book stalls, &
my own stores – enough indeed to occupy me – but the interest is always in
proportion to the capital.
Davy supped with me on Saturday –
his only visit, he has been & is & will be usefully busied. Coleridge will go down to
the Wedgewoodsso
xx procure elsewhere. We expect an important addition to our circle
when Miss Seton arrives, which will
be soon. the Barbaulds asked
me to dine one day – which I declined – my reason was the unconscionable
distance, since then I met them in the street & they gave a general
invitation for all Sundays – which happily spares the trouble of any particular
refusal. I don’t like the breed –. On Wednesday I am to dine with Longman “to meet a few literary
friends”. they will probably be xnew to me –
& may furnish some amusement. at least I love to see all odd people.
I often wish to see King
for his own sake – & now I have at times certain symptoms that give me a
more selfish motive for the sake of my hollow tooth. has he done frog-massacring
yet? – remember me to him – to Mr Rowers Danvers
will like me rejoice at the thaw. perhaps if severe weather returns she may find
serious benefit from what Carlisle advises my
mother to wear – a x waistcoat with
sleeves of leather – thin washing leather – worn under the gown. it preserves
the body more equally warm than any other substance.
I wish I could hear of any thing that could serve your brother
John.