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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text is taken from Robert Galloway Kirkpatrick Jnr, ‘The Letters of Robert Southey to Mary Barker From 1800 to 1826’ (unpublished PhD, Harvard, 1967), pp. 52-56. Previously published: H. Spencer Scott, ‘Some Southey Letters’, Atlantic Monthly, 89 (1902), 39-40 [in part].
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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I am glad I am not at Amsterdam,
And also Rotterdam – if I had gone to Rotterdam, as I wished to go to Rotterdam, I often said of Rotterdam & sung of Rotterdam, & sighed for Rotterdam, I should now [be] at Rotterdam, have been tired of Rotterdam, a prisoner at Rotterdam, tho on my parole at Rotterdam, yet confined to Rotterdam, obliged to eat in Rotterdam, drink in Rotterdam, sleep in Rotterdam, walk in Rotterdam & never go out of Rotterdam, verily if I were at Rotterdam I should say of Rotterdam rot Rotterdam.
There is a cheap Coach set up to & from Birmingham – for a guinea. Come while it lasts –
That volume of Giberish Poetry
I am glad – heartily glad to hear your report
of your own pictures. for landscape you will find fine
studies here if you are equal to a walk of five or six
miles. wood & rock scenery – & the Welsh mountains
in distance, & the channel looking like a great muddy
lake. I will get together all the sketches I have of Spanish
& Portuguese scenery, & you shall fill them up for
me. there are some which you might make fine pictures from.
& I will show you my neighbour Charles Fox’s
This war in which we are so unavoidably
involved by the credulity of honest English Ministers &
the rascally insolence of your countryman Mr Parker
England is actually fighting for liberty against French usurpation! But in the midst of all this I suffer, as I shall neither be able to go over – nor will my Uncle be able to stay & collect books for me. Oh curse the politics of this foolish world! if they would but settle these things by a rubber at whist – or a game at chess – or the toss of a halfpenny – the decision would be quite as fair, & a great deal cheaper & pleasanter to both parties.
Sunday next I go to London for a fortnight. write now & say when you will come – & do not let the cheap coach slip. it will bring you to the foot of our Hill & you shall be met here at the entrance of the Town. so now take two new Poems & farewell.
Margarets Complaint.
Margaret’s reflection
She is a most worthy child, & a truly excellent character. I think that is no common-place nursery phrase of endearment.