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British Library, Add MS 47891. Previously published: Previously published: John Wood Warter (ed.), Selections from the Letters of Robert Southey, 4 vols (London, 1856), I, pp. 234-237 [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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Southey's spelling has not been regularized.
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A letter to Danvers is a
letter to you & vice versa? this duality comprizes all
my correspondents & indeed all with whom I have any
business in Bristol, as I have no acquaintance with the
master of my poor friend Cupid.rs Kingxxxxxx xxxxxx
xxxxx – because I have not written directly to
solicit it. in plain truth King the task of writing letters
anywhere – & particularly to Bristol, is that of all
others to which I am least equal. We are both of us as you
would expect. Edith always thinking upon what we never speak of
– & I by hard work or active conversation driving away
recollections which get the better of me in my dreams. my
eyes continue very troublesome. I have found relief by
fomenting them with warm water – but this only alleviates.
now I take the sulphate of iron to put the whole machine in
tune. nor <except> for
this I may say that I am well
What a country is this Land of Lakes for a man who loves mountains as devoutly as tho he were a true-born Swiss! I would try to give you the situation of this house if I could find words enough for the combination of beautiful sights in the panorama which it commands. one of its good effects on me will be to fire me often to long walks. we purpose setting out for a three days ramble as soon as my eyes & Coleridges flying gout will let us be tolerably comfortable.
Sad news from Lisbon. in that unhappy Packet
I had as I expected a whole cargo of books the very books
most wanted & for which I had been twelvemonths waiting.
poor YescombeKing George, which sailed between
Falmouth and Lisbon. He died on 11 August 1803, from
wounds received when his ship was attacked by a French
privateer on 30 July 1803. The King
George was taken to the Spanish port of Vigo,
and Southey lost his books.
Since our arrival I have finished the book of
Madoc
I have also done some little historyI xxxx I were near enough
to avail myself of your ears.
Poor young Emmett.xxxx ennobled him. in the
last rebellion he escaped by excavating a pla hiding place under the
study in his fatherss means for escaping. & now – oh Christ the
stony hearts & the leaden heads that manage the poor
world! as if the fear of death ever fr deterred any man from
treason, who could make treason dangerous! – I would send
Wm Taylor this story of his hiding place
– for he I know will write his Eulogium in the Iris – but it
must not be published lest some other poor fellow may now be
in the same asylum.
A relation of Wordsworths
God bless you Sir Basileus!as when the lungs
were so far off the larynx. Remember me to Mrs King. & write me a speedy letter. I wish to
think of you as being once again at ease & happy. you
& I & Danvers have had our share of evil since last
March – one after the other. Vale.
the Gout Medecine operates violently as a purge – &
sometimes as a sudorific. the die is so strong as to
make the urine like blood.