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Bodleian Library, MS Eng. Lett. c. 23. Previously published: Charles Cuthbert Southey (ed.), Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey, 6 vols (London, 1849-1850), II, pp. 233-234 [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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You will have guessed why I have not written.
to say any thing upon a painful subject is painful. I do not
love to write concerning what I never mention. I am very
well – very chearful – & very actively employed – &
yet with all this hæret lateri.
_______
This fragment has remained far overlong in my desk – to use a Cumbrian phrase. & I will send it off by this post at all events.
What is become of Wynn? I am rather uneasy at not having heard from him for these two months.
You asked me some question about the
Bibliotheca.print any intention till the success of
a subscription has been tried privately: that is without
being published. because if it fails I can better go to a
bookseller. if you can procure me some names do, but never
make yourself uncomfortable by asking. of course no money
till delivery of the book. A subscription for 300 copies
would insure me far more profits than the sale of an edition
to a bookseller who always must make cent- per-cent.
It is now fifteen years since the subject first came into my occiput, & I believe Wynn was made acquainted with it almost at the time. it has been so much the subject of my thoughts & dreams, that in compleating it – in sending quite off what has been so peculiarly & solely my own – there is a sort of awefulness – a feeling as if one of the purposes of my existence will then be accomplished. Of its destiny I have a clear foresight – it will procure for me little profit – fresh notoriety – the censure of town readers, & the love of a few country readers. some present envy, & a fame as lasting as the English language & the passions & affections of man. You Grosvenor put you that down in the preface if ever you edit a posthumous edition of my works; as half the prophecy will then have been accomplished the rest will be entitled to belief.
I am growing old Bedford: not so much by the
family bible as by all external & inward symptoms. the
grey hairs have made their appearance – my eyes are wearing
out – my shoes the very cut of my
fathers at which I used to laugh – my limbs not so
supple as they were at Brixton in 93