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 rce726 letterEEd.26.717 Romantic Circles, http://www.rc.umd.edu, University of Maryland College Park, MD August 15, 2011

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Bristol Reference Library, B28476. Not previously published.

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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 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
717. Robert Southey to Jonathan Boucher, 7 September 1802 Address: To/ The Revd J. Boucher/ Epsom/ SurryStamped: 122/ BRISTOLPostmarks: SEP 7 1802; B/ SEP 8/ 1802MS: Bristol Reference Library, B28476Unpublished. Sir

I ought sooner to have acknowledged & thanked you for the favour of your Letter. you will I trust excuse me. a domestic circumstance of the dearest nature – the birth of a first child – had made me forget it.

Mr BrittonJohn Britton (1771-1857; DNB), antiquary and topographer. had led me to believe that you had collected some interesting facts which threw some light upon Chattertons character.Southey and Joseph Cottle were preparing The Works of Thomas Chatterton (1803). I do not purpose to enter the controversy. indeed my whole business in this undertaking is merely to compile – & it has been done to serve the family, not from any pleasure which the object itself afforded. A quantity of unpublished poems have been discovered – for the most part mere rubbish – party-poems or personal – but always discove displaying a facility & sometimes a power of language, which might I think have produced great things. Chattertons character appears to me to be solved by madness. It is the family disease. his sister has been confinedMary Newton (1749-1804), the sister of Thomas Chatterton (1752-1770; DNB). The Southey-Cottle edition was intended to benefit her and her daughter. – & her daughterChatterton’s niece died in 1807. The Moravians were an evangelical sect that had spread from Germany into Britain in 1738. They were well represented in Bristol from 1755 onwards. is a rigid Moravian. the light in his eyes – which is so particularly mentioned – was probably the glare of derangement. this is my own opinion – but as it is deduced from the circumstances of his living relatives – it would be indelicate to publish it.

With many thanks Sir for your favour I remain your respectful & humble Servt – Robert Southey.

Kingsdown . Sept. 7. 1802.