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Huntington Library, RS 40. Previously published: John Wood Warter (ed.), Selections from the Letters of Robert Southey, 4 vols (London, 1856), I, pp. 225-228 [where it is dated 31 July 1803].Dating note: Although the endorsement indicates the possibility the letter may belong to late July 1803, the contents, in particular references to Tom Southey’s whereabouts, suggest that 7 August is a much more likely date.
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 have long been in daily expectation of the
works of Ambrosio Morales,Resendius,invention of the Roman letters
in Etruria – not to their introduction into Spain: “We
Latins” would be the boastful expression of a
Vandalo-Gothico-Alano-Suevo-Roman Bishop writing such Latin
verse. – the Roman alphabet every where followed their
conquests, & the written hand of those conquerors would
be preserved by the clergy till Eugeniuscritics in Hebrew & Arabic,
& could not read Latin. as late as xx 1100 some of the royal
wills are written in Arabic. the Roman <or French it is called> letter was
introduced by force when the Gothic ritual, & the
alphabet of Ulphilas
Is there not a confusion between two Bishops
of that name? the Ulphilas who was Bishop of the Visigoths
in the reign of Valens,x
ομοιοτελευτα
You scandalize Vasco Lobeiraxxxx species of proof. all
Romances draw the same picture. Amadis presents an improved
morality – as simple seduction is better than adultery. In
the Round Table Romances, the two best xx Knight intrigues, one with
King Marks xxxx wife (his
own Uncle)xxxxxxx concubinage to the
higher xxxx <class> of
women, as it was xxxxxxx to
the xxx middle ranks by the
sort of left-hand-marriages – the wives-by-courtesy of the
clergy, before the great point of celibacy was determined. I
can find more causes – women would not keep strictly what
they were always in danger of losing. every country was then
the scene of war, & rape has been always the amusement
of soldiers – the bonus granted by all
generals down to the days of Edouard Mortierpalabras de presente
So much for the causes of lax morals – &
as I see what I have been writing are memorandums for
history I may as well go on & look for the palliations.
Religion imprimis
quoad
xxxx take it that the healthy have always far
outnumbered the tainted. the high & the low classes may
both be extremely depraved while the middle is out of
temptation. It is said that there was formerly no middle
class. Xxxxx xxxxxxx xxx it
would be xxxxxxx <more
accurate> to say there was no such class as what we mean
by the low class – no poor – none who were made vicious by
want – no middle class? – what were the yeomen, the
franklins, the traders. – for traders there have always been
in every part of Europe since it was civilized by the
Romans. the assertion is only true politically – as it
regards loans, elections, &c. – it means that there were
no traders who rode in a coach; no monied aristocracy. Coleridge says there has never been a single line
of commonsense written about the dark-ages. he was speaking
of the knowledge & philosophy of that period, & I
believe his assertion is true in a more extensive sense.
I have written all this in the idleness of
disquietude – too uneasy to settle to any thing. Margaret is suffering sadly with teething, &
we cannot employ the means which would benefit her, because
they produce such passion & fear & agitation as more
than counteract the good effect. her spirits & her
appetite are gone – & she loses flesh daily. poor King who is our
bleeder & purger in ordinary, keeps house with his
wife
Tom sails at last for the Cove of Cork, the best of the home stations. –