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Berg Collection, New York Public Library. Previously published: Kenneth Curry (ed.), New Letters of Robert Southey, 2 vols (London and New York, 1965), I, pp. 298-299.
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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It is so long since I have heard from you,
& I am so tortoise-paced a correspondent, that as a
thing of course I should believe myself to be the defaulter,
if it were not for remembering that the last letter between
us was my acknowledgement of the fifty pounds. Howbeit I am
not xx clearly acquitted
– for you perhaps have lost sight of me, & supposed that
I had removed to Cumberland as was my design. that scheme
was unexpectedly frustrated. I still remain at Bristol,
unsettled still – & still expecting a settlement. At
present treating for a house in Glamorganshire – a very
delightful place near Neath. so beautifully situated that if
as there is every probability, it should be my home next
spring, I think the country fine enough to ask you to come
& let me show it you. for it is worth a journey longer
than from Hampshire.
My little
girl, now fourteen weeks old, grows well &
healthy. she has just had the cowpox. this is our chief
news. a child makes a huge alteration in a family. I talk
nonsense very fluently to her, & am a better nurse than
you would perhaps imagine. hitherto she has lived wholly
upon mothers milk – the natural food, & is a fine
specimen she is that the natural food is the best. I hope
Edith may
continue able to support her till her teeth come. For myself
I have been unwell from head to foot, but have got rid of
all complaints except weak eyes. which annoy me terribly –
& injure me too for they are my trade tools. this
Laplandish weather as your old friend Lady Strathmore
For the politics of the great world, things
more important than interesting, I find them sufficiently
promising. Addingtons, & God
knows he has been heavily sinned against! the man in this
kingdom who has suffered most, who has been the marked
victim of ministerial oppression – fetterd, imprisoned in a
solitary cell till the frost ulcered his feet, his character
blasted – & his crime proved – no trial allowed, no
possible justice – for forsooth there is a Bill of
Indemnity!
I have no fear of war. Bonapartehe can he gain by it? he will
be as little desirous to cope with our fleets, as we can be
to encounter his armies. the same causes for peace will
operate whatever be the fate of France, whether he be
supplanted by some Adventurer like himself, or sacrificed as
he xx deserves to public
Justice & Freedom upon the scaffold, which God grant. In
the strange turn which things have taken here what most
pleases me is the returning temper of the country, that
liberty of thought & of speech are again allowed us,
& that <any> Englishman may differ with his
neighbour & still be his friend.
And now – let me hear of yourself – of your
little girlr
Coleman,