Material from the Romantic Circles Website may not be downloaded, reproduced or disseminated in any manner without authorization unless it is for purposes of criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, and/or classroom use as provided by the Copyright Act of 1976, as amended.
Unless otherwise noted, all Pages and Resources mounted on Romantic Circles are copyrighted by the author/editor and may be shared only in accordance with the Fair Use provisions of U.S. copyright law. Except as expressly permitted by this statement, redistribution or republication in any medium requires express prior written consent from the author/editors and advance notification of Romantic Circles. Any requests for authorization should be forwarded to Romantic Circles:>
By their use of these texts and images, users agree to the following conditions:
Users are not permitted to download these texts and images in order to mount them on their own servers. It is not in our interest or that of our users to have uncontrolled subsets of our holdings available elsewhere on the Internet. We make corrections and additions to our edited resources on a continual basis, and we want the most current text to be the only one generally available to all Internet users. Institutions can, of course, make a link to the copies at Romantic Circles, subject to our conditions of use.
. Previously published: Kenneth Curry (ed.), New Letters of Robert Southey, 2 vols (London and New York, 1965), I, pp. 343-344 [in part; verses not reproduced; published as one letter with that to Thomas Southey, 14 December 1803].
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 ’.
Any dashes occurring in line breaks have been removed.
Because of web browser variability, all hyphens have been typed on the U.S. keyboard.
Dashes have been rendered as a variable number of hyphens to give a more exact rendering of their length.
Southey's spelling has not been regularized.
Writing in other hands appearing on these manuscripts has been indicated as such, the content recorded in brackets.
& has been used for the ampersand sign.
£ has been used for £, the pound sign
All other characters, those with accents, non-breaking spaces, etc., have been encoded in HTML entity decimals.
____________
If this be not a true story, Hermano
mio,t Athendius &
the Pope
I have been very much vexed by Edward. As if
he had not behaved sufficiently ill already there came
yesterday a letter, by the handwriting & shape from some
very low tradesman – inclosing a draft on me for acceptance
for five pounds thirteen shillings, saying that Mr E. S. had informed the holder I was
advised. this letter had been directed to Bristol. As you
may suppose I was as much perplexed as provoked – on
consulting & deliberating what to do I determined not to
accept the bill, that a lesson now may save him from one of
more serious consequences hereafter. & in fact if I once
suffered him to begin the boy has so little shame & so
little principle that I should never be safe. To the holder
I said that I was at a loss to conceive what circumstances
could have justified a respectable tradesman in cashing a
bill for a boy of fifteen. Edward will be
obliged to refund what money is left or return what articles
he may have bought – & the fright & mortification
will do him good – if any thing can do him good, but indeed
I have & long have had a very hopeless opinion of him.
Clothes he cannot have wanted, having had a plain suit just
before he went to sea, – nor if he did want them can he be
excused for procuring them without any consent or knowledge
& taking up money in my name with a lie in his mouth
that I was advised.
To him I said that for every worthy purpose
he might depend upon my assistance & exertion to the
utmost of power my power but
that I never would become an accomplice in any wrong action
that he might commit by conniving or abetting it when done.
I had before sent him a one pound bill to pay for his
washing (for it was not right to trust him with more) &
should as soon as ever a ship could be obtained, supply him
with means to get on board. this lesson will teach him that
I can act decidedly. –
I think it very probable that when he is
again got on board, he will again leave his situation &
go to his
Aunt – that they will quarrel again that at last
he will turn sharper or strolling-player. his destiny will
be better than his deserts if he ends in the last. You I
know will hope better things, but I cannot shut my eyes nor
disbelieve my own intuitive fore feelings. When my Uncle
returned last from England he said to me he never knew a boy
like him turn out well, or xx be good for anything. if you knew how very
reservd my
Uncle is respecting any of his family you would
feel how strongly he must have been impressed to say
this.
When he gets on board if he continues I will
take care to supply him tho I pinch myself let me know what
you should think sufficient to allow him. pinched I shall be
to do it – for Harry is a heavy weight upon me – & I am
already much in debt to John May on his account. he himself has no
feeling upon the subject, but spends away & incurs
debts, careless so they <be> paid with what difficulty
the money is to be faidound.
I hope he will mend at Edinburgh as he promises – but I have
little faith in his promises.
God bless you Tom. I am grieved to fret & fever you as this needs must do. write – & expect to hear again – I trust on pleasanter subjects in a few days.