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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. 275-277.
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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Southey's spelling has not been regularized.
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I have been procrastinating my letter day after day in the hope
of knowing when we may escape from London, a place which fine spring weather is
rendering intolerable. There are some particulars which should be ascertained
before my departure – & these are not in my own reach. I wish to know
whether I am to continue doing nothing for Corry another year – probably not. – in that case – is it necessary
that I should dangle after him to Ireland for a couple of months. these things
Rickman will find out for me. my
hope is to leave town on Tuesday in the next week. Of
what is to be done thereafter it would be foolish to say anything – as we know
nothing. only – if as I believe my unsecretaryfying takes place I shall wish to
fix somewhere.
Days & weeks slip away one like another – & from the
eternal round of visiting in which I am unavoidably involved, so little is done
that I wonder so much time can have past so idly. Since my last we have had Harry in town & by this
time he is in Paris: he is wonderfully improved. you will rarely see so fine a
young man. & we have had a procession – a beggarly one God knows to proclaim
Peace.
Now that my journey to Bristol is so near you will not wonder
that I think of half a hundred walks, long & short. the bare recollection of
a green field & an open horizon makes me gasp for fresh air. the sound of a
brook & the smell of some hedge bank flowers will be a half heaven to me. I
am weary of this unsettled vagabond life & seriously disposed to fix
somewhere in the country – devote myself to my history
_______
The Welsh Bard is here – Edward Williamsrs
Southey & she was Mrs Thomas S. a proud &
ill-looking woman who probably passes for handsome. we did not make out the
actual angle of cousinship. there was some old Southey who had nine sons – &
when nine lines flew off at a tangent they puzzled my <our> poor heads. I knew nothing more than that, reasoning
from analogy, I must had a grandfather. The Welshmenxxxxxxxx. things will go on smoothly if I can but
stay in one place. That old scoundrel Lovell! – if I can but shame him into any thing it will be well.
Coleridge is getting well
Mrs C.
writes word. we hear nothing of seperation. As he has wisely made it the gossip
of all his acquaintance here. Burnett is very happy, with a happy insensibility to the future –
dreaming what great things he will do, but he has not yet made up his mind which
thing to do first. poor fellow he was certainly cut out for a gentleman – one of
lifes butterflies, – I see him very often. he provokes me by sawneying ever so
purportless an existence – but for all that George is a good fellow – &
there is something in him that makes me love him better than nine tenths of my
acquaintance. We are going to Richmond on Thursday to pass the day & night
with John May. Edith has never yet been there. then
I trust our visiting ends – I will come on the Tuesday if possible – not only
because I wish to come – but because I am afraid to stay – being in bodily fear
of [Southey inserts profile sketch of a man with a very large aquiline
nose]
Kings is an excellent drawing.
A statue to Pitt!!!xxxx of xxx I thought directly how
Thomas was cut down.
Addington