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MS untraced; text is taken from Robert Galloway Kirkpatrick Jnr, ‘The Letters of Robert Southey to Mary Barker From 1800 to 1826’ (unpublished PhD, Harvard, 1967), pp. 44-48 [where it is dated 1 June 1803]. 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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Southey's spelling has not been regularized.
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Better late than never if not among the Proverbs of King
Solomon,
We are still in quest of a house & still without success –
but – whenever you come the better pleased shall we be: My brother is gone to fight the French
& we can offer you his bed – to have offered you half of it you know would
not have been exactly proper. And here is Margaret almost old
enough to learn the rest of her commandments, for you must know I have made a
sort of synopsis of the law & gospel adapted for her tender years &
condensed into one commandment. ‘thou shalt not heydiddlediddle thy father.’ If
you were here I should have one job which would I am sure please you to do for
me – to copy a drawing – a likeness – a portrait, drawn in
India – & from the life of the Simorg.
And I will show you here a clump of trees whose fluted &
twisted trunks, & bare roots, would beyond all comparison form the finest
study for a painter that ever I beheld. & which are worth coming from Congreve to study. do trees grow in
Staffordshire? & I will show you the Boiling Well
One other inducement I know not if it be quite delicate to
mention. a gentleman – a single gentleman – & a great favourite of yours who
you saw in London – & – who admires you greatly, is come to reside in
Bristol – & – if you come to visit us who knows what may happen? I however
do beforehand stipulate & insist that I do have a large portion of the
wedding cake if you should espouse the Author of Alfred.
I have done a world of work here in Bristol. Amadis
[start of section in Edith Southey’s hand]
I am glad there is no date to this letter for I should be ashamed
were you to know how long it has lain in this unfinished state, & all my
fault, I requested it might be left for me to finish but this god daughter of
yours occupies so much of my time I have no leisure for anything. This is a
pretty scrawl of Southeys & some nonsense I think, notwithstanding, I beg
you will attend to its contents I mean the part which concerns your coming, to
Bristol do lay by your Weasel
Weasel here for you he has no doubt but he can procure a
Ferret there being several Rabbit Warrens near us, how
exceedingly witty he is, How do you like this his first Poem upon Margaret, you must come
to see her, from his description you will think her a little monster. I assure
you she is not so ugly. her eyes are not grey, neither are they sore. her face
is full of intelligence she is almost too lively, she will soon manage me, if
she want anything of me she can help herself. as you are such an excellent
manager of children do come & be here at the weaning, yet no I shall not
wean her these three months & we will not wait so long for your coming as
that. Margaret has cut
one tooth at last. & left off her cap –
[end of section in Edith Southey’s hand]
[start of section in Edith Southey’s hand]
it was not enough for me to tell you in Prose but he must tak xxx pen & tell it you in verse – If I were
you I should be provok xxx burn his letters
before I had read them half thro with his trumpery Poetry. I have been obliged
at last to send Bella
many persons who saw Southeys picture in the ExhibitionFiddle-strings about the subject of your last
letter to me.
June the first. Margaret is nine months old to day. Mary & Martha send their love to you.
remember me to your Sister.
[end of section in Edith Southey’s hand]