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Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, University of Texas, Austin. Previously published: Charles Ramos, The Letters of Robert Southey to John May: 1797–1838 (Austin, Texas, 1976), pp. 81-83.
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.
All quotation marks and apostrophes have been changed: " for “," for ”, ' for ‘, and ' for ’.
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Southey's spelling has not been regularized.
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& has been used for the ampersand sign.
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Your letter as you may well suppose has given me very great
uneasiness. Among all his faults Harrys disingenuousness appears to me the worst. I could more readily
have admitted or devised palliations for the rest. It grieves me that he has
been thus turned to Edinburgh, tho after Mr Martineau
What you say of your own affairs grieves me deeply.xx an alliance so faithfully preserved for
so many generations. Our Government too must be very remiss if they suffer such
a confiscation to take place. Lisbon is not the defenceable city it was in
1384,
I continue in tolerable health. my eyes have been a sore
grievance to me & a very serious evil. from the expence of time they have
occasioned. at present they are better – yet they still prevent me from that
continual employment to which I have been accustomed. my mornings are still at
Reviewing, the least interesting of all employments but the most profitable.
when this is cleared off I must look out for some fresh job. my evenings are at
history or Madoc. as I feel the wind blow & both advance well. but I shall
soon be distressed for the Castenheda.
Coleridge is in a miserable state of health. he has a sort of anomalous gout which damp weather never fails to put in action, & which flies all over him, sometimes puffing up his hand or feet or knee – then back into the stomach or head. it does not emaciate him, yet the attacks are so sudden, & so often accompanied by violent diarrhæa that they are very alarming. he himself is convinced that a warm climate would be his only cure & all the medical friends whom he has consulted are of the same opinion. indeed he is as much affected by weather as a barometer.
Edith is in feeble health. our low
spirits we both keep to ourselves, perhaps thinking the more because we never
mention the subject. we beg our remembrances to Mrs
May.