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Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, University of Texas, Austin. Previously published: Charles Ramos, The Letters of Robert Southey to John May: 1797–1838 (Austin, Texas, 1976), pp. 70-71.
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 ’.
Any dashes occurring in line breaks have been removed.
Because of web browser variability, all hyphens have been typed on the U.S. keyboard.
Dashes have been rendered as a variable number of hyphens to give a more exact rendering of their length.
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
All other characters, those with accents, non-breaking spaces, etc., have been encoded in HTML entity decimals.
Last night arrived a letter from my Uncle of
which what follows is an extract. “I have just written to
Dr Thomas respecting the application of
the fine (the long disputed business with Downes
As this has led me upon matters of business – let me say something of myself. When Corry made me his secretary I hoped soon to have discharged my debt to you: how that became impossible ought to be explained. the salary was 400, & the first quarter being paid in Ireland <was> one tenth less. from Keswick to Dublin – a ten days residence there – a journey back to Keswick & thence to London, intrenched far upon the first quarter. I was nearly eight months in London where the whole expences of living are about 40 per cent above what they are here. the bills which I have paid on my mother & cousins account are from 90 to 100£. another years salary that had had no such draw back as this last would have set me upright – lasting so short a time as it did it just enabled me to meet that expence & the others which it occasioned – & left me no richer than it found me. My household expences are now increased by having my brother Tom with me, who has been with me three months & is likely to remain till the Admiralty chuse to employ him. five weeks ago I thought of all this as difficulties easily surmountable – for then I could calculate upon the labour of every day & its produce sooner or later. now these unlucky eyes condemn me to an unprofitable & uncomfortable indolence.
I have said this to justify myself, & because there are times when the thought of this had been painful. my ways & means are sufficient – but not more <than> so, & not without exertion.
Every line that I write in my historyed for a permanent source of income. meantime –
well as I know you – it was
<is> right to say this & thank you & tell you
that I neither forget debts nor obligations.